Yesterday, the United States Attorney General announced that the Justice Department would be investigating the Ferguson Police Department -- to determine if they have been treating Black citizens differently than White citizens, or whether they have been breaking the law themselves (by harassing, beating, or otherwise mistreating citizens). In light of that announcement, I thought this would be a good time to bring you the results of a recent Rasmussen Poll (done on August 26th and 27th of 1,000 random national likely voters, with a margin of error of 2 points).
The results of that poll are illustrated by the charts in this post -- and as you can see, most Americans don't have a real high opinion of the Justice Department right now. Only 38% have a favorable opinion, while 53% have an unfavorable opinion. In addition, 54% of the public says Justice Department investigations are about politics, while only 35% say they are about justice.
To me, those are some pretty depressing statistics -- because it means a lot of Americans will not see the investigation into the actions of the Ferguson Police Department as an effort to make that department better and bring it in line with the law and Constitution. They will instead see it as just playing politics, and that's sad, because we need the federal government to oversee local departments that stray from the law (or good practices).
We give all law enforcement professional (police officers, corrections officers, parole & probation officers, etc.) an enormous amount of power over the people they come into contact with -- and we have the right to demand they be held to a higher standard of conduct, because that power we give them can easily be misused or abused. And like it or not, we need the Justice Department to oversee the conduct of law enforcement agencies across the nation. Frankly, I am proud the Justice Department will be making this investigation. Just like one (or a few) bad officers can give a bad name to a department, a bad department can smear the reputation of good departments all over the nation -- and there has been enough complaints and criticism of the Ferguson police to warrant an investigation.
I'm not trying to say the U.S. Justice Department is perfect -- only that they are necessary. And while they do their job in investigating bad departments, the media should do its job in making sure the Justice Department does its job fairly (and with justice being the goal).
