Jorge Rivas

Latinos, Blacks and the Criminal Justice System: Low Confidence, High Exposure

The Pew Research Center has released a survey that sampled confidence levels of Blacks, Latinos and whites have on the Criminal Justice System.

Six-in-ten (61%) Hispanics say they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that the police in their local communities will do a good job enforcing the law, compared with 78% of whites and 55% of blacks. Just under half (46%) of Hispanics say they have confidence that police officers will not use excessive force on suspects, compared with 73% of whites and 38% of blacks. Similarly, just under half of Hispanics say they are confident that police officers will treat Hispanics fairly (45%) and that courts will treat Hispanics fairly (49%). In comparison, according to a 2007 Pew Social & Demographic Trends survey, 74% of whites and 37% of blacks say they have confidence that the police will treat blacks and whites equally.

Read the full report here

Posted at 9:01 AM, Apr 08, 2009 in Criminal Justice | Permalink | View Comments