Sixty-eight percent of adults living in Chicago's low-income neighborhoods want more police presence, according to the 2019 THE STATE OF OPPORTUNITY IN AMERICA: Understanding Barriers & Identifying Solutions report.
Key findings include:
- 54 percent of adults living in US low-income areas want more police presence.
- Only 24 percent of the US total population want more police presence.
- 47 percent say they either have witnessed a situation in which someone was injured or killed, or have been in a situation in which they feared they themselves would be injured or killed. That proportion is higher than the study found in other racial groups in Chicago's fragile communities (39 percent) or among fragile community residents nationwide (36 percent).
- 49 percent say crime in their area has increased in recent years, while just 11 percent say it has decreased.
Chicago saw 777 homicides in 2016, the most in 19 years. And although that number fell to 660 in 2017 and an estimated 561 in 2018, Chicago remains more dangerous than most other large cities in the U.S, the report says.
Police presence in Chicago's low-income neighborhood:
- 59 percent of Chicago's low income neighborhood community residents say they know "some" or "a lot" of people who have been treated unfairly by the police, vs. 45 percent of fragile community residents nationwide and 36 percent of Americans overall.
- 34 percent say they have "a lot" of respect for their local police, significantly less than the 48 percent of fragile community residents nationwide and 54 percent of Americans overall who do.
- Sixty percent of Chicago's fragile community residents say most people in their area view their local police "negatively" or "very negatively," vs. 44 percent of fragile community residents nationwide and 19 percent of Americans overall.
