No-knock raids

 In February, Amir Locke was killed in a "no-knock" police raid in Minneapolis.  No-knock raids seem to have started in the 1970s, and to have become considerably more common over the decades, although there's no systematic data collection.  According to a recent CNN story "there's growing consensus among policing leaders that the risks of the tactic . . . far outweigh any potential rewards."  The only information on general public opinion I could find was from a survey in June 2020 (shortly after the killing of George Floyd), which asked whether you supported or opposed "Banning no-knock warrants that allow police to enter a person's residence unannounced."  52% supported a ban and 43% opposed.  This figure shows the relationship between education and support for ban, controlling for party.  ( I show the observed levels of support and the regression lines for Democrats and Republicans.)

 

There's a good deal of support for a ban, and it's higher among more educated people, who are more politically influential.   Moreover, although there are substantial party differences, there's significant Republican support for a ban.  So it would seem like this is an issue on which you might get bipartisan support for reform.   However, 46 states allow no-knock raids, and there hasn't been a strong movement to ban (or substantially restrict) them, despite growing concern with issues of policing in recent years.  More generally, the popular and media attention hasn't produced many changes in policing or criminal justice.  Why not?  One factor is that people who are interested in politics tend to focus on the national level, but most of the relevant laws or policies are set at the state or local level.  Another possible reason is that people with influence in politics and the media are  likely be from middle and upper-class backgrounds.  Of course, that was always the tendency, but it's become stronger.  They also may be more likely to have followed a straight path rather than having to bounce around for a while before establishing themselves--I don't have systematic evidence on that, but it's my impression.  Many people say that these qualities make contemporary elites less sympathetic to ordinary people, but I don't think that is the case--today's elites probably are more sympathetic than those in the past.   But their range of experience is narrower, and that makes a difference for outcomes.  The general sense that we have to do something about racial inequality wound up being directed mostly at things that elites were familiar with, like universities and media organizations, rather than policing and criminal justice.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]