4 October 2023
The Minneapolis Police Department recently wrapped up its series of nine mandated community engagement sessions, and the results are clear: Residents remain deeply distrustful of the city’s law enforcement.
Minneapolis is not alone. National confidence levels in the police recently reached new lows. But polling also shows a particularly pronounced gap between Black and white Minnesotans regarding their trust in the police.
The public safety implications of this trend for Minnesotans are significant. Research suggests that reduced faith in police prompts communities to withdraw their cooperation with law enforcement, resulting in higher levels of violent crime.
That is highly troubling. But there’s another casualty of this eroded trust that merits serious attention: democracy.
Over the last 10 years, I’ve conducted research showing that people of color’s attitudes about the police have become increasingly linked to their broader opinions of government. Essentially, people of color who distrust the police are more likely to distrust the government and less likely to vote, perpetuating longstanding racial inequalities in Minnesota politics.
To explain this dynamic, it is necessary to understand how people form opinions about government. The Department of Motor Vehicles is a useful example. Frustration with slow lines and inattentive workers not only creates negative perceptions about the DMV but might also convince people that all public agencies are inefficient and unresponsive. To understand government, people draw on visible representations of it in their lives.
Most of us interact with the DMV only once every few years for driver’s license renewals. When it comes to law enforcement, however, tactics such as stop-and-frisk and pretextual car stops lead to more frequent and unpleasant contact with police, especially among people of color who are disproportionately targeted by these practices.
In the words of former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, these tactics cause the police to become the face of government in communities of color, and Black communities most acutely. And because that face is often not a welcome one, these repeated interactions with the police spill over into distrust of the government as a whole.
Where does this distrust lead for people of color? To electoral disengagement. I find that the most distrusting people color are the least likely to vote, driven away from the polls by a shared fear of the police and government. By contrast, highly distrustful white people are the most likely to vote, mainly because white distrust is typically rooted in attitudes about misspent taxes rather than the police.
The consequences are alarming: Deepening distrust of police leads to decreased confidence in government in communities of color, lower electoral participation by those communities, and increased racial inequality in our elections.
Fortunately, there are pathways for reversing this trend, and it begins with transforming police visibility in Minnesota. Traffic stops and enforcement take up approximately 18 percent of officers’ time, according to recent work from the Council on Criminal Justice. Moreover, they account for roughly 10 percent of police-involved fatalities and more than 90 percent of police-initiated contact with the public. Philando Castile, Daunte Wright, and too many other names are reminders of how often these traffic stops lead to deadly consequences for people of color in Minnesota, and Black people in particular.
In response, some communities in Minnesota are acting. Ramsey County’s decision to decrease nonpublic-safety traffic stops led to a significant reduction in all vehicle stops, with a particularly pronounced drop in the detention of Black motorists. Importantly, crime in Ramsey County did not increase as a result.
Through this action, Ramsey County provides a model for the rest of the state and a first step toward a broader vision of traffic safety tactics that go beyond policing. For example, Brooklyn Center has made inroads toward utilizing unarmed traffic enforcement teams, a practice that has succeeded in other countries. Efforts to pilot this alternative throughout the state should be encouraged to allow for a more complete evaluation of its effectiveness.
Freeing officers from traffic enforcement gives them time to focus on more serious crimes and improve declining homicide clearance rates. Policing that prioritizes solving violent crime, combined with community investment and social service agencies offering targeted assistance to people most at risk of committing or being victimized by violence, cuts crime and increases confidence in the police. Far from being a polarizing set of reforms, these actions align with calls from communities of color to focus more resources on violent crime and requests from police to reduce their societal responsibilities.
As the Minneapolis Police Department considers another round of listening sessions, they must remember that actions speak louder than words. Taking meaningful steps to transform how they appear in the lives of people of color could have profound benefits. Not only could this increase confidence in law enforcement; it could also improve public safety, foster greater trust in government, and help build a racially equitable democracy.
By recognizing the interconnection between each of these goals, we have a better chance of achieving them all.
Aaron Rosenthal received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Minnesota and lives in St. Paul He is currently a senior research specialist at the Council on Criminal Justice. His recently published book, The State You See: How Government Visibility Creates Political Distrust and Racial Inequality, explores how social welfare and criminal justice policy changes have shaped American democracy.