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A majority of the public agrees that people should be able to sue police officers for misconduct in an effort to hold them accountable, according to a Pew Research study released Thursday.
Two-thirds of Americans -- 66 percent -- favor giving civilians the power to take legal action against officers to hold them accountable for misconduct and excessive force, even if it makes performing law enforcement functions more difficult, the poll found. Only 32 percent said officers should be shielded from lawsuits in order to more effectively perform their jobs.
About 86 percent of Black adult respondents favor permitting people to sue officers, compared to 75 of Hispanics and 60 percent of white people. Among political affiliations, Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents overwhelmingly favor legal action against bad cops -- 86 percent -- while 45 percent of Republicans felt the same, according to the poll.
"Across four measures of police performance, white adults are consistently more positive about the performance of police around the country than Black adults, and Republicans are much more positive than Democrats," the study said.
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The survey was conducted from June 16 through June 22 among more than 4,700 adults to explore people's attitudes about police officers. The results come amid a nationwide debate over police practices and policies and qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects certain government officials from being held personally liable for alleged constitutional violations -- such as excessive force by police.
Some local governments have responded to the movement by slashing police budgets, committing to increasing police oversight and reviewing police tactics.
However, the understanding of qualified immunity is often misunderstood, said Bill Jonson, the executive director for the National Association of Police Organizations.
"They think that it's like this free pass, that an officer can do whatever he wants to anybody and nothing happens," he told Fox News. "It only protects an officer from being sued if they did something in good faith and it turns out later that they made a mistake about what the law was."
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The current climate in which police actions are receiving more scrutiny has made law enforcement a much more difficult job, Johnson said.
"It's become much more difficult and much more dangerous... for the actual patrol officer on the street than it was one month ago or six weeks ago," he said. "Part of it, also, in terms of police morale and the eagerness to go out and enforce the law, that's at risk not so much because of the protests but because of the political response to the protests."
He cited New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for supporting proposals to decrease police budgets and accusing officers of misconduct. He said similar environments will lead officers to believe they will not be supported by elected officials even in instances where their actions are justified.
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According to the Pew survey, most Americans say police officers do an excellent job, while those who feel officers do an excellent or a good job of using the appropriate amount of force declined by double digits, from 45 percent in 2016 to the current 35 percent.
Many respondents, however, agreed that reducing spending on policing is not the answer to holding officers accountable. Only 25 percent said spending on law enforcement in their area should be decreased.
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