Behind America’s Push for Changes to Policing: An Analysis of the Effect of the Perceived Relationship Between Police and Crime as well as Political Rhetoric on Public Opinion on Police Reform, Defunding, and Abolition

Abstract

The American public’s compounded frustration with the lack of change in policing reached its breaking point following the murder George Floyd in May of 2020 with nationwide protests and the rapid growth of movements calling for police reform, defunding, and/or abolition. Recent work done by Vaughn et al. 2022 analyzing public opinion on theses movements has suggested that fear of crime is driving public opposition to police reform, defunding, and abolition. Politicians’ positions on policing dominate the media discourse on the topic as well. In this thesis, I investigate whether the perceived relationship between police and crime as well as politicians’ framed positions influence public opinion on police reform, defunding, and abolition through two novel survey experiments. The results support the hypotheses that both factors are influential to public opinion but in some unexpected ways. A better understanding of public opinion on movements to reform, defund, and abolish the police is relevantly important in determining what can shift public support and enact change.