Survey: Law Enforcement Strategies for Building Trust in Public Safety and Elections
Published July 29, 2024
As law enforcement agencies prepare for election season, it’s critical for the public to hear directly from agency leaders. At the same time, agencies also have opportunities during election season to improve their communities’ perceptions of law enforcement by proactively communicating about their role in protecting and preserving public safety throughout election season, as well as how they are planning to engage with the community.
The States United Democracy Center partnered with Zencity to conduct state-wide representative surveys in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, to better understand how law enforcement can effectively communicate about public safety and elections. The surveys, conducted in February 2024, aimed to understand respondents’ level of trust and perceptions of the efficacy of their local law enforcement, their perceptions of safety around voting, and their opinions about trust and safety-enhancing interventions.
Four main themes of the findings are:
- Americans largely trust their local law enforcement, although trust is notably lower among Black and Hispanic/Latino communities.
- A majority of Americans respondents believe they will be physically safe while voting in the 2024 elections. Black and Hispanic/Latino communities reported lower than average levels of feelings of physical safety.
- A majority of respondents report that knowing more about the following things would make them more confident in law enforcement, as well as their own physical safety while voting:
- Local law enforcement officers collaborating with local election officials to understand and address security gaps.
- Having local law enforcement officers receive de-escalation training.
- Inter-agency collaboration between law enforcement agencies about public safety during election season.
The findings suggest that even among those who trust law enforcement the least, stronger communication about how agencies are preparing to protect public safety during election season can improve community perceptions and feelings of safety around elections.
To read the full report from Zencity and States United, including our research findings and methodology, click here.
To download a PDF of the report, click here.