Fewer than a third of Americans support 'defunding' the police

Black Americans oppose defunding the police by a 20-point margin, according to a new survey by HuffPost/YouGov that found the proposal to be widely unpopular with the public. Overall, fewer than a third of Americans support defunding the police, as opposed to other reforms like banning police chokeholds, which is backed by 73 percent of the population, and ending "no-knock" warrants, like the sort that resulted in the death of Breonna Taylor, and which is backed by about half of Americans.

Importantly, there is a lack of clarity around what it means to "defund the police." While most respondents agreed the phrase means "significantly decreasing the size of police forces and the scope of their work," Republicans seemed more inclined than Democrats to interpret the phrase as meaning "completely abolishing police forces." Curiously, Americans are basically evenly split on "budgeting less money for your local police department and more for social services" such as "funding social workers and mental health professionals," with 41 percent against and 44 in support. Some would argue that is what it means to "defund the police."

However it may be interpreted, "defunding the police," in those words, is only strongly supported by 13 percent of Americans, according to the findings; 41 percent of Americans "strongly oppose" the measure. About half of Americans had heard of the proposal when asked about it, and "of the 10 proposals mentioned in the survey, only the call to ban police from using chokeholds has received more attention," HuffPost reports.

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A "near-universal" majority of Americans support at least some changes to policing, HuffPost adds. Just 7 percent of respondents said they believed that "the police system is sound and essentially needs no changes." The poll consisted of 1,000 interviews conducted between June 8 and June 10, with a margin of error of 4.2 percent. See the full results here, and read more about the history of abolishing the police here at The Week.