Notley/Monitor Poll: Austinites want more police officers, more accountability

More than two years after Austin City Council endeavored to “reimagine” public safety, a slight majority of residents believe there are too few police officers while a strong majority believe there is too little accountability in police-involved shootings and in cases of alleged misconduct. 

These results stem from a January-February survey of 429 Austin voters commissioned by Notley and conducted by national pollster Change Research for the Austin Monitor.

Half of respondents feel safe in Austin compared to a third who do not and 17 percent who are unsure. Older voters, Hispanic voters and Republicans are more likely to feel unsafe than safe.

Overall, crime in Austin trended down in 2022, according to the latest police chief’s monthly report. 

Crimes against persons, including murder, rape and aggravated assault, decreased 4 percent in 2022 compared to 2021. Crimes against property, including robbery, arson, and auto theft, also decreased 4 percent over the same period. 

Public safety crimes such as drug violations and prostitution, increased 16 percent in 2022 compared to 2021.

A slight majority (53 percent) of respondents believe there aren’t enough police officers compared to 31 percent who are content with the current force and 16 percent who believe there are too many officers. 

Predictably, there is a partisan divide among respondents to this question: 92 percent of Republicans think there are too few police officers compared to 66 percent of independents and 37 percent of Democrats.  

The Austin Police Department has long been plagued by staffing shortages, a national trend that the police union has attributed in part to rising housing costs and low morale. 

As of Dec. 31, APD reported a 13.7 percent vacancy rate among sworn officers and a 20.9 percent vacancy rate among civilian staffers.

Although APD has struggled in recent months to hit its target response time of 10:44 minutes to the highest-priority calls, the department has shown improvement, reporting an average response time of 10:37 minutes in December, down from 11:11 minutes in October.

Contrary to the survey results, Austin voters soundly rejected a proposition in November 2021 that would have required the city to employ two police officers for every 1,000 residents, at an estimated cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Nearly three in four respondents (72 percent) say their top priority for the new police labor contract is accountability and transparency in police-involved shootings and in cases of alleged misconduct. This finding holds true among all groups, including those who want to see an increased force, except Republicans, whose top priorities for the new contract are officer pay raises and signing bonuses. 

The city of Austin and the Austin Police Association recently finalized a tentative four-year agreement, which would strengthen the investigatory authority of the city’s Office of Police Oversight. 

But City Council is mulling whether to direct staff to pursue a one-year extension of the current contract, given that Austin voters will confront two competing ballot measures related to police oversight in May.

District 4 Council Member Chito Vela proposed the resolution, which members will take up on Wednesday.

“We should not take steps to undermine the will of the voters before they have even had a chance to vote,” he said during a tense Council meeting last week, where he directed his remarks to the city manager, Spencer Cronk: “City manager, your actions over the last 24 hours, trying to ram a four-year contract through Council when it is unlikely that there are the voters to pass it, only serve to inflame the situation and risk further deterioration of the relationship between the police and the community.” 

The first ballot measure, spearheaded by the local political action committee Equity Austin, would strengthen civilian oversight of APD, going beyond what the city’s bargaining team has been able to secure in the tentative four-year agreement. But city staffers have raised concerns about the legal feasibility of some of its provisions.

The second measure, proposed by the APA-funded PAC Voters for Oversight and Police Accountability, confusingly uses the same language as Equity Action’s but would instead weaken oversight. 

Equity Action, elected officials and residents reported encountering VOPA canvassers claiming to be with Equity Action. 

Maxwell Mills, a District 9 resident, spoke in support of the one-year contract extension at Thursday’s Council meeting.

“The police are doing a bad job … and they say it’s due to a lack of resources, but they spent enormous numbers of resources on their fraudulent petition trying to undermine our democracy,” he said. “Giving them a four-year contract immediately after this fraudulent petition fiasco would send the wrong message.” 

A majority of respondents (55 percent) also want to see more enforcement of the citywide ban on public camping. They attribute homelessness to a lack of mental health and substance abuse treatment (31 percent) and a lack of affordable housing (30 percent). 

In a poll commissioned by Notley for the Austin Monitor, Change Research surveyed 429 voters in Austin, Texas, from January 28 – February 1, 2023, using a sample reflective of the electorate. Post-stratification weighting was performed on age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, ZIP code, and 2020 presidential vote, with weighting parameters based on voter file data and election results were based on numbers released by the Texas Secretary of State. The modeled margin of error for the survey is 5.3 percent. Complete survey results and methodology are available here.

The Austin Monitor’s work is made possible by donations from the community. Though our reporting covers donors from time to time, we are careful to keep business and editorial efforts separate while maintaining transparency. A complete list of donors is available here, and our code of ethics is explained here. This article has been updated to add information about the methodology and poll data used.