Paleologos: Black Detroit residents show varying opinions on crime, policing

The second Suffolk University/USA TODAY CityView poll of Detroit residents gave us a huge research opportunity that we did not have in our last poll of Milwaukee: we were able to record a statistically significant subset of Black residents, which allowed us to study the nuanced consistencies and differences in the responses of Black men and Black women.

This is largely because more than 3 out of 4 residents in Detroit are Black, according to the latest census figures.

In the overall survey of all residents, 40% rated Detroit’s police as “excellent” or “good,” while 58% indicated “fair” or “poor.” Among Black residents, ratings were nearly identical.

However, Black women thought more highly of the police — 44% responded excellent or good and 54% fair or poor. Meanwhile, only 37% of Black men scored the police as excellent or good and 63% said fair or poor.

The differences in opinion of the police along gender lines within the Black community potentially reflect the differences in the daily lives of Black men and women.

Many would argue that this harsher feeling toward police stems from a daily occurrence of Black men being on guard from the very moment they leave their house. “The conversation,” as it is called, that happens frequently between young Black men and their parent or guardian is very much centered on the idea that Black men are held to a different standard than the rest of the population.

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In this column, I almost never stray from the statistics — the whole point of polling is that you need a large sample size to claim results that are accurate and precise.

Nonetheless, the first night our poll was “in the field,” I was monitoring the phone bank and heard the response of a Black man who, unprompted, exclaimed, “I rush to my job worrying about getting stopped by a cop, at work I have no chance to move up, then I duck police cruisers and street gangs on my way home. I worry if my kids are alive and safe. I make excuses to them about why we can’t do things, I can’t breathe. And then it starts all over tomorrow.”

According to the poll, 51% of all Black residents in Detroit said they are treated differently because of their race while 41% said they are treated the same. When Black men were probed how differently they felt they were treated because of their race, 85% said “worse,” 15% were undecided and 0 said “better” – that is 0 better, as in not one respondent.

Detroit police interrogate Black men over Black women by a margin of over 2-1, according to the poll. Among Black women, less than 1 in 5 (17%) said they have been stopped by police when investigating a crime, but among Black men the number was nearly 4 in 10 (38%).

When asked their satisfaction after being stopped, 57% of Black women were “very satisfied,” but just 19% of Black men could say the same. Just 20% of Black women were not satisfied, but among Black men nearly half (46%) were not satisfied.

Black men and women both have the issue of public safety in their top two choices. For Black women, public safety is followed by COVID-19. For Black men, the major issue is education. In fact, among Black men, education was the number one issue facing the city of Detroit at 26%, followed by public safety at 22%.

Respondents were asked why, in their own words, shootings have increased so dramatically in Detroit since 2019. Black men cited “the availability of guns” (14%) as the top reason for the spike in homicides with “lack of jobs/unemployment” (13%) a close second. Black women attributed the rise in crime to “COVID-19/Pandemic/Lockdown” (17%) and “lack of jobs/unemployment” (14%).

The issues that Black respondents attribute to the spike in homicides connect — almost in equal proportion — the pandemic, the lack of available jobs, and lots of available guns into a dangerous recipe for nightly shootings and unnecessary deaths. This comes during a time when the government can’t immediately remove the guns, vaccinate everyone, and see to it that its residents are employed. Black residents are informing us why the whole thing tastes so bad.

Previously: Why Suffolk University and USA TODAY are teaming up to take a deep dive into US cities

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Paleologos: Black Detroit residents' views on police vary by gender