More Minneapolis voters said in a poll released Saturday that the city’s police force should not be reduced.
De Star Tribune / MPR News / KARE 11 Minnesota Poll found that 44 percent of respondents said the size of the Minneapolis Police Department should not be reduced, compared to 40 percent of voters who said it should. Sixteen percent of voters were undecided.
Among Black participants, 50 percent said it should not be reduced, 35 percent said it should and 15 percent were unsure.
Nearly half of all voters said they thought the police department would have less of a negative impact on public safety, while about a quarter said it would have a positive impact. Half of the participants agreed that crime in the city has increased in recent years.
But the poll showed majority support for shifting financial resources for the police to programming social services, such as mental health, drug treatment or violence prevention programs, with 73 percent of all voters supporting that. A total of 24 percent of Minneapolis residents said they were against it.
The survey found that in the Black community, 76 percent of respondents agreed with the transfer of police funds to social services and 19 percent disagreed.
Younger voters aged 18-34 were more open to both initiatives, with 88 per cent saying police funding should be allocated to social services and 61 per cent saying the police department should be smaller.
In comparison, 59 per cent of the older voters aged 65 and over said that the funds should be redistributed, and 30 per cent of them said that the police force should be made smaller.
The survey was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, Inc. surveyed 800 registered voters in Minneapolis between August 10 and 12. The margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.
The survey surveyed a total of 500 Black registered voters between 6 and 12 August. The margin of error among Black voters was 4.5 percentage points.
The data collection comes months after George Floyd was assassinated in police riots in Minneapolis, sparking protests across the city and country.
Floyd’s death prompted talks and calls for police reform in the city, including pressure from the city council to replace the police department with another entity. The Minneapolis Charter Committee prevented the council’s measure from appearing at the November vote to look further, according to the Star Tribune.
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