As the consent decree overseeing the Newark Police Department comes to a close, a new study of how residents of Newark view the NPD shows that residents have a less positive view of the police than they did before the pandemic, and those views are highly divided by race and ethnicity. According to the results of a study carried out by the Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll, residents say that Newark has generally become a better place to live over the past few tears, but they feel less safe in the city than in the past, and a majority say that they would not cooperate with a police investigation.

Most Newark residents (68 percent) say that they feel “very” or “somewhat” safe walking in their neighborhoods during the day, a figure that drops to 42 percent at night. That daytime figure is highest in the East Ward (75 percent safe), with residents of the North Ward being the most likely to say that they feel “not safe at all” walking in their neighborhoods during the day (15%).

These figures are lower than in the 2018 pre-Covid numbers. Then, 47 percent of residents said that they felt “very safe” or “somewhat safe” walking at night (down to 41 percent now). A majority, 53 percent, said that they were “not very safe” at night or “not safe at all,” up from 45 percent in 2018.

White and Asian residents feel much safer than in previous, pre-Covid surveys, but their perceptions – especially in the South Ward – are very much at odds with those of Black and Hispanic residents, who comprise the vast majority of residents. White and Asian residents are also more likely to say that the police should reduce patrols in their neighborhoods.

“The progress that has been made in Newark is uneven,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at FDU, and the executive director of the FDU Poll. “For some people, in some wards, things have gotten better, but they’re the exception rather than the rule.”

Citywide, 34 percent of residents say that Newark has gotten better as a place to live over the past two years, with 26 percent saying that it has gotten worse. Black (34%) and Hispanic residents (28%) are less likely to say that it has gotten better than members of other racial groups (52%). This overall figure is more negative than in the survey taken 5 years ago, when 43 percent of residents said that the city had gotten better as a place to live, and 19 percent said that it had gotten worse.

Overall, ten percent of residents say that the police are doing an “excellent” job serving people in their neighborhood, with 25 percent giving them a “good” rating: in 2018, those figures were 10 percent and 33 percent. Thirty-four percent of residents say that the NPD is doing a fair job (32 percent in 2018), and 25 percent give them a “poor” rating (up from 20 percent in 2018).

As with other indicators, white and Asian residents – who constitute a relatively small minority of residents – are disproportionately likely to be happy with the NPD. Half (51 percent) say that the police are doing an “excellent” or “good” job, compared with 33 percent of Black and 34 percent of Hispanic residents.

A sizeable portion of residents – 14 percent – say that they’ve been stopped by the police in the last two years, but there is no obvious evidence of racial bias in these stops. Residents from all racial and ethnic groups are about equally likely to say that they have been stopped, and while there are major differences by ward, there is no difference by race and ethnicity within the wards. That is, while residents of the Central Ward are more likely to be stopped by the police than residents of the North Ward, it is not the case that Black residents in the Central Ward are more likely to report being stopped than anyone else there.

Only 15 percent of Black residents say that the NPD treats people equally regardless of race or ethnicity “all of the time,” compared with 24 percent of Hispanic residents (and 25 percent of white and Asian residents).

“We do see big differences in how Newark residents from different races and ethnicities view the police,” said Cassino. “But while the NPD seems to be stopping a lot of people, they don’t seem to be disproportionately stopping residents from any particular racial group.”

While residents who have been stopped by the police have very different views of the NPD than those who haven’t been stopped, it’s not clear if that’s because the experience changed their views, or if they had different views to start with. However, there are some areas in which the views of people who have been stopped by the police may be more informative than those of other residents. For instance, residents who have been stopped by the police are more likely than others to say that younger NPD officers are better than older ones.

“The NPD has made an effort to change the departmental culture with an influx of new hires,” said Cassino. “The people being stopped are telling us that the new cops are better than the old ones, and they would know.”

However, a majority of residents say that there is corruption in the NPD. Overall, 55 percent of Newark residents “somewhat” or “strongly” agree with the statement that “there is corruption in the NPD,” with 21 percent disagreeing. Perceptions of corruption are highest in the South Ward, where 30 percent of residents “strongly agree” that there is corruption, compared to 21 percent in the East Ward and 22 percent in the North.

Cooperation between residents and police has been an issue in Newark, and today, residents are about evenly split on whether they would report a crime they knew about to the police. Forty-seven percent of residents say that it is “very” likely that they would report a crime that they witnessed or knew about to the police The reported likelihood of reporting a crime does not vary significantly by race or ethnic group but does vary by area: only 39 percent of respondents in the Central Ward say that they would “very likely” make a report to the police, while the figure is 58 percent in the East Ward.

Similarly, a majority (54 percent) of residents agree with the statement that victims of crime generally have to get justice for themselves in Newark, with only a third (34 percent) disagreeing. Hispanic residents are less likely to agree that residents have to get justice for themselves: 47 percent, versus 59 percent among Black residents.

“The NPD have a chicken and egg problem: to get more trust, they need to solve more crimes, but to solve more crimes, they need the public to trust them,” said Cassino.

Methodology

The Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll carried out a telephone-based poll of 1104 residents of Newark, New Jersey, drawn from a certified list of residents acquired by Braun Research, Inc. carried out between March 17 and March 31, 2023. The survey made use of a mixed modality in order to maximize the representativeness of the sample: 31 percent of respondents were polled via live caller telephone interviews, with the remainder  polled via self-administered text-to-web responses. This sampling strategy has been used successfully in New Jersey polling for several years, and, in this case, produced a raw demographic breakdown that is more similar to the actual demographic composition of Newark than live-caller polls alone. Respondents to the text-to-web modality were given the option to complete the survey in English or Spanish. The relatively small number of respondents who chose to complete the survey in Portuguese in the previous sample of Newark (carried out in 2021) led us to remove this option from the survey for cost efficiency reasons. Eight percent of the sample chose to complete the survey in Spanish.

The survey included a significant oversample (300) of African-American/Black voters in Newark, which allows for more accurate comparisons between this and other groups, as well as the calculation of subgroup characteristics that would not be possible in a simple probability sample. Such oversamples necessarily require additional weighting in order to calculate population level values, but the weights used for this are not included in the calculation of design effects, as they do not indicate a divergence between the sample and the population.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.21.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 1,104 residents of Newark is +/-3.0 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-3.7 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported. This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects.

Comparisons to Previous Studies

As part of our planning efforts, we began with the results of two pre-Covid studies of Newark residents carried out in 2017/18 and in 2020. We drew questions from both for the purpose of comparison and added new questions for the purpose of improvement and elucidation. The sample size of the 2020 survey was too small to allow us to draw meaningful comparisons with our survey.  The 2017/18 survey, carried out by Suffolk University, while making use of a smaller sample (700) than the survey presented here, matches well in terms of demographic breakdowns. Comparisons with the 2017/18 survey results are included in the analysis and tables when appropriate.

Some caution should be taken with these comparisons: while the overall demographic attributes of the samples are similar, differences in modality and interviewer effects can alter responses. Moreover, the samples may differ in ways that are not evident from the demographic breakdowns. Still, we feel comfortable noting differences that are well outside of 95 percent confidence intervals as being significant and believe that such comparisons may be useful in contextualizing the results.

Release Tables

Would you say Newark has gotten better as a place to live, gotten worse, or there hasn’t been much change?

When you are walking in your neighborhood during the day, do you feel:

When you are walking in your neighborhood at night, do you feel:

Thinking about the area where you live, how would you rate the job the Newark Police are doing serving people in your neighborhood?

Would you like to see an increase or a decrease in the number of Newark Police officers patrolling in your neighborhood, or would you like to see the number stay the same?

There is corruption in the Newark PD

Younger Newark Police Officers are better than older Newark Police Officers

In Newark, victims of crime generally have to get justice for themselves

Police treat all equally regardless of race or ethnicity (combined items)

In the last 2 years, have you been stopped or questioned by the Newark Police Department?

If you witnessed a crime or knew about a crime that took place, how likely would you be to report it to the Newark Police?

If you were asked by the Newark Police to assist in an investigation, how likely would you be to participate (for example, by providing information or being a witness)?

Complete Questionnaire

Intro: The Newark Police Department is under a court order to make reforms and build trust with the community, but it isn’t clear how successful it has been. Your feedback about the Newark PD will help us to determine how much progress the Newark PD has made, if any, since the court order went into effect. 

We’d like to start off by asking you some questions about your neighborhood.

G1. Thinking back over the last two years, would you say Newark has gotten better as a place to live, gotten worse, or there hasn’t been much change?

1. Better
2. Worse
3. No Change
4. Don’t Know [Vol]
5. Refused [Vol]

G2. When you are walking in your neighborhood during the day, do you feel:

1. Very Safe
2. Somewhat Safe
3. Not Very Safe
4. Not Safe at All
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

G3. When you are walking in your neighborhood at night, do you feel:

1. Very Safe
2. Somewhat Safe
3. Not Very Safe
4. Not Safe at All
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

G4. Thinking about the area where you live, how would you rate the job the Newark Police are doing serving people in your neighborhood?

1. Excellent
2. Good
3. Fair
4. Poor
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

G5. Would you like to see an increase or a decrease in the number of Newark Police officers patrolling in your neighborhood, or would you like to see the number stay the same?

1. Increase
2. Decrease
3. Stay the Same
4. Don’t Know [Vol]
5. Refused [Vol]

Now, we’d like you to tell us about your perceptions of the Newark Police Department in general. This isn’t about any particular interactions you might have had with the police, but what your think about the Newark Police in general.

P1. Please tell me if you think Newark police officers do this all of the time, most of the time, some of the time, rarely, or never [Each respondent is randomly assigned to one of the versions of each item, shuffle order of items]

1. Properly handle evidence/ Tamper with evidence
2. Use Force Only When Necessary/ Use more force than is necessary
3. Make Accurate Statements/Make false statements
4. Use respectful, polite language/ Use disrespectful, offensive language
5. Detain people only as long as necessary/ Detain people for longer than is necessary.
6. Stop and/or search people only with good reason / Stop and/or search without good reason
7. Treat all equally regardless of race or ethnicity/ Discriminate against certain individuals based on their race or ethnicity
8. Respect personal property/ Unlawfully take property

For each:

1. Most of the time
2. Some of the time
3. Rarely
4. Never
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

P2. For each of the following statements about the Newark Police Department today, say if you Strongly Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Somewhat Agree, or Strongly Agree [Randomly flip order of response options by participant for the whole set; Shuffle order of items]

1. There is corruption in the Newark PD
2. Newark Police act professionally
3. Generally, Newark Police Officers are honest
4. Generally, Newark Police Officers treat victims of crime respectfully
5. Generally, Newark Police Officers treat suspects respectfully
6. Younger Newark Police Officers are better than older Newark Police Officers
7. In Newark, victims of crime generally have to get justice for themselves
8. The Newark Police don’t respect people like me

1. Strongly Disagree
2. Somewhat Disagree
3. Somewhat Agree
4. Strongly Agree
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

Now, we’d like to ask you some questions about the complaint process for the Newark Police.

C1. If you wanted to file a formal complaint about the Newark Police Department, do you know how you would do it?

1. Yes
2. No
3. Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused [Vol]

C2. In the last 12 months, have you had a reason to file a complaint with the Newark police, or not?

5. Yes
6. No
7. Don’t Know [Vol]
8. Refused [Vol]

C3. [Ask only if C1 is 1] Did you end up filing a formal complaint with the Newark Police, or not?

1. Yes
2. No
3. Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused [Vol]

C4. [Ask only if C2 is 1] Were you very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, not very satisfied, or not at all satisfied with the result?

1. Very Satisfied
2. Somewhat Satisfied
3. Not Very Satisfied
4. Not at all Satisfied
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

Now, we’d like to ask you about any interactions you might have had with Newark Police.

D1. In the last 2 years, have you been stopped or questioned by the Newark Police Department?

1. Yes
2. No
3. Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused [Vol]

D2. [Ask only if D1 is 1] Please tell us about that interaction with the Newark Police Department. For each statement, say if you Strongly Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Somewhat Agree, or Strongly Agree [Randomly flip order of response options by participant for the whole set]

1. The officer(s) were polite when interacting with me.
2. The officer(s) were respectful to me.
3. I felt safe in the presence of the officer(s).
4. I had confidence that the police officer(s) were following the law.

1. Strongly Disagree
2. Somewhat Disagree
3. Somewhat Agree
4. Strongly Agree
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

D3. If you witnessed a crime or knew about a crime that took place, how likely would you be to report it to the Newark Police?

1. Very Likely
2. Somewhat Likely
3. Somewhat Unlikely
4. Very Unlikely
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

D4. If you were asked by the Newark Police to assist in an investigation, how likely would you be to participate (for example, by providing information or being a witness,)?

1. Very Likely
2. Somewhat Likely
3. Somewhat Unlikely
4. Very Unlikely
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

Just a few more questions, for statistical purposes

D1. In politics today, do you consider yourself a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or something else?

1. 1. Democrat
   2. Republican
   3. Independent [ASK D1A]
   4. Something Else/Other [ASK D1A]
   5. DK/Ref

D1A. [Ask only if D1 is 3 or 4] Which way do you lean?

1. Democrat
2. Republican
3. Independent
4. Something Else/Other
5. DK/Ref

D2A. To ensure we are reaching people of all ages, would you please tell me your age?

____ (ENTER AGE: 98=98+, 99 = REFUSED)

[IF Don’t Know/REFUSED IN QD1, ASK:]

D2B. Would you be willing to tell us whether it’s between…?

1. Under 30
2. 31 to 44
3. 45 to 64
4. 65 or over
5. [Refused]

D3. What was the last grade in school you completed? [CODE TO LIST]

1. Did not complete High School
2. High School Diploma or equivalent
3. Vocational or Trade School
4. Some college, but no degree
5. Associates, or other 2 year degree
6. Bachelor’s Degree
7. Graduate work, such as Law, MBA, Medical School, or similar
8. Refused (VOL)

D4. How would you describe your sex? Do you describe yourself as …

1. A Man
2. A Woman
3. Some other way
4. [DK/REF]

D5. How would you describe your racial and ethnic background? You can pick as many as

you’d like.

1. White
2. Black
3. Asian
4. Hispanic/Latino/a/Spanish
5. Other or Multi-Racial
6. [Dk/Ref]

D6. The traits that we see as being masculine or feminine are largely determined by society, and have changed dramatically over time. As a result, everyone has some combination of masculine and feminine traits, which may or may not correspond with whether they’re male or female. How do you see yourself? Would you say that you see yourself as…

1. Completely Masculine
2. Mostly Masculine
3. Slightly Masculine
4. Slightly Feminine
5. Mostly Feminine
6. Completely Feminine
7. [Dk/Ref]

Thanks so much for your participation – you’ll see the results in the news in the next few weeks, and they will help us evaluate how well the reforms in the Newark Police are going.

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

1104 Newark Residents

Figures do not included respondents who declined to answer the demographic item in question

Man                              47%                 N = 526

Woman                       50%                 N = 548

Some Other Way         1%                  N = 13

18-24                           14%                 N = 157

25-34                           21%                 N = 234

35-44                           18%                 N = 201

45-64                           29%                 N = 311

65+                              13%                 N = 146

Democrat (with leaners)                      59%                 N = 645

Independent                                         13%                 N = 142

Republican (with leaners)                    10%                 N = 111

White                                                     11%               N = 124

Black                                                       49%               N = 528

Hispanic/Latino/a                                  36%               N = 387

Asian                                                   2%                 N = 23

Other/Multi-racial                                 2%                 N = 22

HS or Less                                              34%               N = 376

Some College/Vocational                     30%               N = 329

College degree or more                       34%               N = 377