NEW ORLEANS — Most New Orleans citizens are not satisfied with the New Orleans Police Department according to the New Orleans Crime Coalition’s annual citizen’s satisfaction survey.
The NOCC, a coalition of nonprofit organizations and advocacy groups, conducts the survey to gauge the public’s perception of the city’s crime and how the New Orleans Police Department is responding to it.
Eight hundred adults in New Orleans were randomly surveyed by phone from May 30 to June 6.
The results show that the NOPD’s satisfaction rating among city residents has dropped to its lowest level (31%) since the NOCC began surveying this metric 14 years ago. The June 2022 survey had the NOPD’s satisfaction rating at 33%.
From 2012 to 2014, and from 2016 to 2021, majorities of New Orleans residents expressed satisfaction with the NOPD, however, over the past two years, public satisfaction with the department has plunged.
The latest survey also finds that only 9% of those polled believe the NOPD is doing a better job than it did last year, while 38% say it’s doing worse and 50% say it’s doing about the same.
Perceptions of crime in the city and the NOPD varied between Blacks, Whites, age, and men and women, but were still overwhelmingly negative across the board.
Black residents are more satisfied with the NOPD than whites (34% vs. 25%). Also, residents 45 and older are more satisfied than those 18-44 (36% vs. 25%), and women are more satisfied than men (36% vs. 26%).
Other notable highlights from the survey:
CRIME PERCEPTIONS:
•In the new survey, 71% of residents say the crime problem in New Orleans has gotten worse than it was last year. Only 4% say it’s gotten better and 24% say it’s the same.
•While only 29% of residents say New Orleans is safe and 70% say it’s not safe, that’s a slight improvement from last year, when 25% said the city was safe. Is this an indication that perceptions of public safety have hit bottom?
NOPD TASK RATINGS:
•Only 9% to 20% of city residents positively rate tasks performed by the NOPD as excellent or good. The worst rated is investigating and solving car jackings, thefts and break-ins (only 9% rate the NOPD positively on that) and the best rated is working with neighborhood and community groups (still, only 20% rate the NOPD positively).
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