A majority of Oahu residents believe that the Honolulu Police Department should get the same amount of funding it has been receiving — no more and no less, according to the results of the Hawaii Poll taken last week.
And in a period where communities across the U.S. are asking whether police departments should be defunded to shift some of the money to social service agencies, 28% of those polled said HPD should get more funding while only 11% said it should get less funding.
In the same poll, a majority said they do not believe there is systemic racism in the HPD, and that the department protects citizens without prejudice.
The telephone poll was conducted July 20-22 by Mason-
Dixon Polling &Strategy of Washington, D.C. It included 625 registered Oahu voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The questions were asked in the wake of the May 25 killing of George Floyd after he was detained by Minneapolis police.
Police Chief Susan Ballard said HPD’s officers are given too many responsibilities and that she supports providing more funding for social services agencies better equipped to deal with various issues, but not at the expense of her department’s budget. Ballard said HPD’s positive standing is hard-earned and that the department is reevaluating its policies in the wake of the police reform movement taking place on the mainland.
Daphne Barbee-Wooten, president of the African American Lawyers Association, and Justin Levinson, a professor at the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law, found fault with the poll’s three HPD-related questions and said their wording left too much for poll-takers to interpret.
A higher percentage, 21%, of those under age 50 tend to think that it’s a good idea to provide less funding to HPD. Only 3% of those 50 and older support less funding for the department.
About 43% of those who identified themselves as white said they support more police funding; only 4% said HPD should get less funding.
About 46% of those who described themselves as Republicans tended to support more police funding than Democrats and independents. Fewer than 1% of Republicans polled said they support less HPD funding.
Kaneohe business owner Kelly White, 45, said she supports some reform in the law enforcement field but is reluctant to accept there should be less funding of HPD. She said she understands and appreciates the idea that more funding should go to social service agencies that can help police deal with people with substance abuse or mental health issues. “But I don’t think we can defund the
police, no,” she said.
Ballard noted that her
department established the Homeless Outreach and Navigation for Unsheltered Persons and the Provisional Outdoor Screening and Triage facility, two programs designed to meet the needs of the homeless. Both are staffed by police officers, she said.
“We would rather have them back in patrol and on the road,” the chief said. “Homelessness, like drug
addiction and mental illness, are complex problems that are better addressed by
social workers and counselors. Unfortunately, these agencies don’t have the staffing or funding to respond at all hours.”
HPD got involved because immediate help was needed, Ballard said. But defunding the department isn’t the solution, she said. Like other city agencies, HPD will be forced to make tough budget decisions this year due to the economic impacts caused by the coronavirus pandemic, she said.
Levinson, the UH law professor, said the funding poll question doesn’t address the defunding issue adequately because it only asks whether there should more, the same or less funding for police but doesn’t say what would be funded instead.
“I think people recognize the importance of police in the community and want to support them,” Levinson said. “What it doesn’t show is how they value other
expenditures.”
Levinson said he would need to see a detailed accounting of how HPD money is spent before he could decide whether it should be defunded.
The poll also asked those surveyed whether they believe that systemic racism exists in HPD.
About 61% of men said there is not while only 50% of women felt that way. Broken down by age, 48% of those under 50 said there is no systemic racism while 61% of those 50 and older agreed. An overwhelming 82% of those identifying themselves as Republicans said there is no systemic racism, compared with 44% of Democrats and 52% of
independents.
Kapolei resident Haunani Stewart, 37, said there may be bad officers in HPD but that it isn’t a systemic problem. “Everywhere, you’re going to have issues like that,” said Stewart, who works in the oil industry.
“You can’t judge what is happening on the mainland with how our police department enforces and handles situations here, especially because where we’re such
a diverse island,” Stewart said. “We’re a big mixing pot. To me the culture is
different.”
Ballard said she’s thankful for community support during a difficult time, and that it’s “earned and not something to be taken for granted.”
Just as mainland cities are focusing on officer training and building stronger community relationships, she said, “as part of this effort, we’re reviewing our use-of-force policy and have started implicit bias training for officers and civilian employees.”
Ballard said last month that HPD has suspended indefinitely a submission hold known as a “vascular neck restraint” Opens in a new tab until the overall use-of-force policy is being reviewed.
Wooten-Barbee said she’s dumbfounded that the poll breaks out the white, Japanese and Hawaiian races while Filipinos and African-
Americans are bunched in the “Mixed/Other” category.
She noted that thousands attended recent Black Lives Matter protests in Honolulu, including a good number of African-Americans. “One would think that that’s the whole point of Black Lives Matter, yet they exclude blacks from the poll,” Wooten-Barbee said.
Studies show that a higher percentage of the African-
American and Filipino populations on Oahu are incarcerated, she said, and she’s represented clients who’ve been beaten by HPD officers.
Levinson, who has done extensive research on implicit bias against African-
Americans and Micronesians, pointed to a recent Hawaii Public Radio report that concluded that Blacks, Micronesians and Samoans were disproportionately
represented among those
arrested for violating COVID-19 stay-at-home
orders Opens in a new tab.
Even if Ballard believes systemic racism is not as a problem in Honolulu, “my belief is that a leader within a police organization should be motivated to ensure that these things are not happening at all,” he said.
