{"id":23915,"date":"2015-01-28T15:07:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T20:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=23915"},"modified":"2015-01-28T15:07:06","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T20:07:06","slug":"milwaukee-residents-give-solid-marks-to-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2015\/01\/milwaukee-residents-give-solid-marks-to-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Milwaukee Residents Give Solid Marks to Police"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission (of which I am a member) released the results of its first-ever survey of citizen attitudes toward the police<\/a>. \u00a0Although the survey identified a few areas of concern, the overall tenor of citizen attitudes seems positive.<\/p>\n

Conducted for the FPC by UWM\u2019s Center for Urban Initiatives & Research last summer, the survey involved telephone interviews of 1,452 Milwaukee residents. \u00a0As detailed in the CUIR\u2019s report, the survey respondents were reflective of the city\u2019s diversity in racial composition and in other respects.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s lead finding is that about three-quarters of Milwaukee residents report that they are at least somewhat satisfied with the Milwaukee Police Department, while only about nine percent said they were \u201cnot at all satisfied.\u201d \u00a0These findings are notable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that fully one-quarter of the respondents reported being stopped by the police in the past year. \u00a0One might suppose that this group would be predisposed to negative evaluations of the police. \u00a0However, the vast majority (71%) of those stopped felt that they were treated fairly. \u00a0The MPD has significantly increased its number of stops in recent years, but it does not appear that involuntary contact with the police normally leads to hard feelings by the person stopped.<\/p>\n

Given recent racial tensions in Milwaukee and nationally regarding policing practices, it is especially important to note the racial patterns in survey responses. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While about 83% of whites said they were at least somewhat satisfied with the police, only 62.5% of blacks shared this view. \u00a0Regression analysis by the CUIR researchers confirmed that race seems to play a statistically significant role in determining attitudes toward the police, even holding income, education, and other variables constant. \u00a0While this is troubling, it is also worth bearing in mind that a large majority of black respondents\u2013close to two-thirds\u2013still expressed some level of satisfaction with the police.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the CUIR researchers found that racial differences largely disappeared among residents who had recently called the police for assistance. \u00a0For these people\u2013black and white\u2013attitudes toward the police were largely determined by the quality of the assistance they received, not the color of their skin. \u00a0The numbers thus suggest that whites have very positive attitudes toward the police in the abstract, while blacks have somewhat less positive attitudes, but also that these stereotypes are not necessarily strongly held\u2013attitudes, positive or negative, may be revised based on actual experiences with flesh-and-blood cops. \u00a0Police should regard this as hopeful\u2013racial distrust can be overcome\u2013but also as a challenge: the Department\u2019s in-the-trenches members must consistently provide high-quality service if the Department wishes to maintain and add to its substantial reservoir of good will.<\/p>\n

Although there is much good news for the Department in the survey responses, there is also clearly room for improvement. \u00a0For instance, it would be nice to see more respondents in the \u201cvery satisfied\u201d category, as well as a general elevation of black attitudes to at least the same level as white.<\/p>\n

It is my hope that the Common Council and the Police Department will support regular surveys like this on an annual or biannual basis, which will enable tracking of how new policies and practices are working and also permit more in-depth questioning on topics of particular concern.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission (of which I am a member) released the results of its first-ever survey of citizen attitudes toward the police. \u00a0Although the survey identified a few areas of concern, the overall tenor of citizen attitudes seems positive. Conducted for the FPC by UWM\u2019s Center for Urban Initiatives & […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,47,122,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-milwaukee","category-public","category-race-and-the-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}