FiveThirtyEight describes the strange contradiction that exists in the Black community concerning attitudes toward the police. Reporting from Minneapolis, they cite polling that shows a significant majority of Black people oppose reducing the size of the police force: 75%, versus a tiny 14% who would defund.
At the same time, by a 58% to 28% margin, the Black community views the Minneapolis Police Department unfavorably. The “conflicting message” FiveThirtyEight sees coming from that community is this: “Police are not doing a good job, and people are worried about what happens if there are fewer of them.”
We’ve seen similar poll results here in Oakland. For instance, the Chamber of Commerce conducts an annual “Pulse of Oakland” poll. Last year (2020), they found that 56% of the public (all races, including Blacks) supported defunding the police.
And yet “58% of voters think the city should maintain or even increase the size of the police force.” (In a separate poll from 2020, conducted by the City of Oakland, 78% of Oaklanders—a supermajority--wanted “about the same number or more police officers patrolling neighborhoods and responding to 911 calls.”) The Chamber will release the findings of its 2021 Pulse poll tomorrow.
What are we to make of this anomaly? Usually, if something in the community is viewed negatively by most people, they wouldn’t want more of that thing.
To me, the take home message is twofold. On the one hand, most Oaklanders of all races and ethnicities desire to have more cops (and better trained cops) on the street. That message is clear and distinct. Except for the most rabid and irrational defunders on the City Council and elsewhere, I’d say that the vast majority of Oakland residents, including those running our city, want to see the Oakland Police Department fully staffed.
On the other hand, the problem some people have with OPD is one of perception. They have a fuzzy, amorphous view of what OPD is, and they have very little knowledge or understanding of the average cop. The reason for this is simple: almost everything that ordinary Oaklanders know (or think they know) about cops comes from sources that are, in some form or another, anti-police. This certainly includes the media: print and broadcast especially, where reporters tend to be younger, more “progressive” and, frankly, lazier. If you study the media as closely as I do, you’d be shocked at how routine it is for stories to suggest most cops are racists, or that instances of police brutality are on the rise (quite the opposite), or that police are resistant to the slightest efforts to “reform” themselves (also untrue). All of these suggestions are false, but the public rarely hears a rebuttal. The Oakland Police Department (and I include their union, the Oakland Police Officers’ Association) is doing a terrible job communicating with (or I should say, educating) the public. Indeed, both by temperament and tradition, and also because of the dicey politics of it, these police organizations have been unable or unwilling to offer a competing narrative to the negative stories about them. Without such a narrative, no wonder so many people view cops unfavorably.
I think OPD is beginning to realize this insufficiency on their part. They’re making tentative steps to improve their public image. Of course, the risks of an all-out PR effort are obvious and great: people will complain that OPD is throwing money (i.e. scarce resources) at a media campaign meant to whitewash the truth and present cops as guardian angels, when they are anything but. I understand that risk; it is indeed a fearsome one. But the risk of doing too little—of allowing public attitudes against cops to harden—is far greater. Besides, OPD can take comfort in the fact (for it is a fact) that the great majority of Oaklanders want more cops! When people need you—even though they might not like you—you’re in a good position to turn around their opinions.
Steve Heimoff