"The share of adults who say spending on policing in their area should be increased now stands at 47%, up from 31% in June 2020. That includes 21% who say funding for their local police should be increased lot, up from 11% who said this last summer," a press release explaining the poll said.
The shift in attitudes is especially pronounced among older Americans, according to the release.
Majorities among those ages 50 and older favor increased spending on police, including 63% of those 65 and older. Young adults remain the biggest proponents of decreased police funding: roughly a third (32%) of those ages 18 to 29 say there should be less spending on police in their area. This compares with 18% of those ages 30 to 49 and fewer than one-in-ten of those 50 and older, the release added.
In the summer of 2020, "defund the police" became a rallying cry among US liberals following the death of George Floyd while being arrested in the US city of Minneapolis. As a result, major cities slashed police budgets.
Since then, however, support for cutting police budgets has plunged among African-Americans and Democrats even more than among Whites, Hispanics, and Republicans, the release said.
The share of Black adults who say police spending in their area should be decreased has fallen 19 percentage points (from 42% to 23%), while the share of Democrats wanting cuts in police budgets has dropped from 41 percent to 25 percent, according to the release.
The FBI reported recently that murder rates in the US increased by nearly 30% in 2020.