Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Read our research on:
Behind the Badge
Police, public divided by race over whether attaining equality requires more changes
Embed
Infographic Gallery
- Behind the Badge
- Do Americans understand the challenges police face on the job?
- Some officers say tough, aggressive tactics are needed with some people and in some neighborhoods
- Most officers say protests mainly motivated by bias toward police
- Most white, Latino officers say fatal encounters between blacks and police are isolated incidents; majority of black officers disagree
- Impact of fatal incidents involving blacks felt more by large departments than by small agencies
- Roughly two-thirds of officers say they favor the use of body cameras
- About half say disciplinary process in their department is fair
- Majority of full-time officers are in agencies with at least 100 officers
- White officers more likely than black officers to have had a physical altercation with a suspect
- The dual nature of police work: For officers, emotions and experiences are often in conflict
- Police, public divided by race over whether attaining equality requires more changes
- Majority of police say fatal police-black encounters are isolated incidents; majority of the public says they point to a bigger problem
- Officers say fatal encounters between police and blacks have made policing harder