Following the failure to indict two white police officers in the deaths of unarmed black men in Missouri and New York, Americans' honesty and ethics ratings of police are down six percentage points, the lowest police officer ratings since 1995, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday.
Forty-eight percent of respondents said they rate the honesty and ethical standards of police officers as "very high" or "high," down from 54 percent in 2013.
When Gallup asked only non-whites the same question, they found a massive 22 percent drop from 2013, with only 23 percent rating the honesty and ethical standards of police officers as "very high" or "high." In 2013, that number was 45 percent.
Non-Hispanic whites' views actually increased by one percentage point to 59 percent.
Gallup noted that even before the police incidents this year in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York, whites have consistently held more positive views of the police than non-whites, however this big of a difference is unusual and was almost certainly driven by recent events.
"But the data from the Dec. 8-11 poll show that whites and nonwhites are reacting very differently to the recent events - with nonwhites' already less positive views of police eroding further, while there is little apparent impact on the way whites view the police," Gallup said. "Consequently, the gap in white versus nonwhite ratings of the honesty and ethics of police has expanded from 13 points last year (58% to 45%) to 36 points this year (59% to 23%)."
A record-low of 37 percent was measured by Gallup in 1977, the first year the organization asked the question, and the record-high of 68 percent came shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Gallup suggested that the differing views between blacks and whites could be due to historical racial discrimination in the U.S., along with personal life experiences with police officers and ongoing tensions between police and black citizens.
The poll was conducted via telephone between Dec. 8-11, 2014, among a random sample of 805 adults, aged 18 or older. Gallup reported a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
A separate Gallup poll released this week showed that, when asked in December 2013, a median of 78 percent of American residents said they have confidence in their local police department.
