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Research: Blacks Whites differ widely on view of criminal justice system

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Black Americans are far more likely than Whites to say the nation’s criminal justice system is racially biased and that its treatment of minorities is a serious national problem, reports new findings from Pew Research. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, around nine-in-10 Black adults (87 percent) said Blacks are generally treated less fairly by the criminal justice system than Whites, a view shared by a much smaller majority of White adults (61 percent). And in a survey shortly before last year’s midterm elections, 79 percent of Blacks – compared with 32 percent of Whites – said the way racial and ethnic minorities are treated by the criminal justice system is a very big problem in the United States today. Racial differences in views of the criminal justice system are not limited to the perceived fairness of the system as a whole. Black and White adults also differ across a range of other criminal justice-related questions asked by the Center in recent years, on subjects ranging from crime and policing to the use of computer algorithms in parole decisions. Black adults in the U.S. consistently express more concern than White adults about crime. In last year’s pre-election survey, three-quarters of Blacks – compared with fewer than half of Whites (46 percent) – said violent crime is a very big problem in the country today. And while 82 percent of Blacks said gun violence is a very big problem in the U.S., just 47 percent of Whites said the same. Blacks are also more likely than Whites to see crime as a serious problem locally. Some of the most pronounced differences between Blacks and Whites emerge on questions related to police officers and the work they do. A survey in mid-2017 asked Americans to rate police officers and other groups of people on a “feeling thermometer” from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the coldest, most negative rating and 100 represents the warmest and most positive. Black adults gave police officers a mean rating of 47; whites gave officers a mean rating of 72. Blacks are also more likely than Whites to have specific criticisms about the way officers do their jobs, particularly when it comes to police interactions with their community. In the Center’s survey, 84 percent of Black adults said that, in dealing with police, Blacks are generally treated less fairly than Whites. A much smaller share of Whites – though still a 63 percent majority – said the same. Blacks were also about five times as likely as Whites to say they’d been unfairly stopped by police because of their race or ethnicity.

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