The Politics of Police Reform: Conflicted Conservatism and Public Preferences for Change

• In Event: Public Opinion about the Police and Policing Reform

Abstract

In the wake of the 2020 policing crisis, millions of Americans expressed the need for sweeping legislation to reform policing in the United States. Although public opinion toward different proposals might have implications for policy outcomes, the public is not homogenous in its influence, as some groups affect legislative outcomes more than others. “Conflicted conservatives,” Americans who self-identify as conservative but who are operationally liberal, may be particularly consequential in policymaking due to their high degree of political engagement and propensity to vote across party lines. We use national survey data to examine police reform preferences among conflicted conservatives and other political subgroups. Findings indicate that conflicted conservatives’ attitudes toward police reform differ from those of “consistent conservatives,” liberals, and moderates. This finding underscores the need for research at the intersection of public opinion and criminal justice policy to move beyond the treatment of conservatives as a homogenous group and consider the views of conflicted conservatives independently.

Authors

• Jonathan Reid, Sam Houston State University

• Samantha Brown, University of North Florida

• Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill, Arizona State University