Democratic Crime Strategy Needs To Be Tweaked
Image: The Hill
75% of voters believe more police are needed on the street as crime is on the rise across the country, according to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey. Just 25 percent of respondents in the poll said they do not need more policing. Brittany Bernstein of National Review gives us the numbers indicating that perhaps the Democratic crime strategy needs to be tweaked.
Additionally, 72% of respondents said they oppose “defunding the police” and 52 percent said they support the use of “stop and frisk” in urban areas to “deter gun crime.” 56% said they oppose eliminating cash bail.
Democratic Crime Strategy Needs Tweaking
The survey comes amid growing concern over rising crime: homicide rates in large cities rose more than 30% on average last year and another 24% in the beginning of this year, according to the New York Times.
It’s not all bad news for Democratic led crime initiatives. 57% of voters said marijuana should be decriminalized.
All is not lost. David Sirota at Jacobin reminds us.
Many fondly remember the successes of the mid-twentieth-century Civil Rights Movement — but the adversity and headwinds the movement faced are often elided in our history books. That can end up leaving the impression that most of the American public must have supported the peaceful protests led by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and other civil rights heroes.
But that wasn’t the case. Here are some data points from back then:
1961: “Americans were asked whether tactics such as ‘sit-ins’ and demonstrations by the civil rights movement had helped or hurt the chances of racial integration in the South. More than half, 57 percent, said such demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience had hurt chances of integration.” — Gallup
1963: “A Gallup poll found that 78 percent of white people would leave their neighborhood if many black families moved in. When it comes to MLK’s march on Washington, 60 percent had an unfavorable view of the march.” — Cornell University’s Roper Center
1964: “Less than a year after [Dr King’s] march, Americans were even more convinced that mass demonstrations harmed the cause, with 74 percent saying they felt these actions were detrimental to achieving racial equality and just 16 percent saying they were helping it.” — Gallup
1964: “A majority of white New Yorkers questioned here in the last month in a survey by the New York Times said they believed the Negro civil rights movement bad gone too far. While denying any deep-seated prejudice against Negroes, a large number of those questioned used the same terms to express their feelings. They spoke of Negroes’ receiving ‘everything on a silver platter’ and of ‘reverse discrimination’ against whites. More than one‐fourth of those who were interviewed said they had become more opposed to Negro aims during the last few months.” — New York Times
1965: “In the midst of the Cold War, a plurality of Americans believed that civil rights organizations had been infiltrated by communists, with almost a fifth of the country unsure as to whether or not they had been compromised.” – Cornell University’s Roper Center
So we know that monumental movements in civil rights, which is what police and law enforcement reform is, will not be supported by the public. How should Dems move forward? Have a charismatic spokesperson advocating for a nonviolent, “inclusive” approach. I would think Vice President Harris would be just that person.
The Poll
The Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey of 1,788 registered voters was conducted from July 28-29. It is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll.
