Nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose the “defund the police” movement and some of its major goals, including reallocating funds earmarked for law enforcement to pay for other services that advocates believe would lead to reductions in crime, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.
According to the findings, 64 percent of Americans oppose calls to defund police agencies, compared with 34 percent who support the movement.
Meanwhile, 60 percent specifically oppose reducing the budget for law enforcement to reallocate it to other public health and social programs, while 39 percent support that move.
African Americans view the matter differently, with 57 percent supporting the movement and 64 percent agreeing to put the money toward other community programs, the poll found.
Support among African Americans for the “defund the police” movement is more than double that of whites (26 percent), and they are nearly twice as likely as whites (33 percent) to back key elements of the movement.
An equal 42 percent of Hispanics support both, the poll found.
Nearly three in four white Americans and 57 percent of Hispanics are against defunding the police, while two-thirds of whites and 58 percent of Hispanics oppose shuffling funding elsewhere.
Democrats approve defunding the police (55 percent) and reallocating it to mental health, housing and education programs (59 percent).
However, Democrats are more divided in backing the movement than Republicans and independents are in their opposition, with 43 percent and 41 percent opposing both defunding the police and using the funds for other purposes, respectively.
Meanwhile, Republicans almost uniformly disapprove of the movement (89 percent) and redistributing the money (86 percent).
The poll was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos’ Knowledge Panel on June 10 and 11 among a random national sample of 686 adults. Results have a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.