Arab Americans’ confidence in the police has been stable and favorable over the past decade

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks nearly 14 years ago, Arab Americans came under heightened suspicion and greater counter-terrorism surveillance. Has this changing relationship with law enforcement affected Arab Americans’ levels of confidence in the police? In new study which looks at attitudes of Arab Americans in Detroit, Ivan Sun & Yuning Wu find that their attitudes towards police have been mostly unchanged, with more than 40 percent expressing a ‘great deal’ or ‘a lot’ of confidence in the police. They argue that local police departments’ efforts to establish solid rapport with Arab communities may have contributed to maintaining these high levels, and illustrate the importance of building these types of links in order to establish and maintain public confidence in policing.