This report aims to showcase the breadth of perspectives of Black people on the issues of policing and public safety in the United States across geographic regions, ages, gender, and political affiliation. The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and GenForward1 collaborated to develop a comprehensive survey measuring Black people’s experiences with policing and incarceration, and their feelings about alternatives to these systems. NORC at the University of Chicago administered this survey to a nationally representative sample of Black people across the United States.

The results highlight an alarming reality: Police are often feared by Black communities in crisis and emergency situations, and a large majority of respondents report that they or someone they know have had negative interactions with the police. The data underscore that these fears are not unfounded, as more than three-quarters of the respondents perceive police killings of Black people as a broader systemic issue. Nevertheless, a majority of Black Americans also say they would turn to the police for help, perhaps because of a lack of concrete alternatives. Throughout our findings, Black people in the U.S. consistently expressed a lack of trust and confidence in police. Black Americans also support comprehensive reforms and new initiatives meant to enhance public safety.

Our study found that support for transforming policing and incarceration is strongest when alternatives are specified. We found low support overall when asking about defunding or abolishing the police, with young adults expressing more support and older adults expressing less support. However, when we explicitly asked about alternative, non-policing solutions to public safety, we found consistently large majorities of Black people in support—even when we paired such alternatives with divestment from policing.