Overview The Trayvon Martin killing continued to top the public’s news interest last week as prosecutors in Florida filed a second-degree murder charge against George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot the African American 17-year-old. About a third of the public (32%) says they followed news about the charges against Zimmerman more closely than […]
Americans have long been skeptical of the federal government and suspicious of elected representatives as a whole. Roughly eight-in-ten (81%) say elected officials in Washington lose touch with the people pretty quickly, and 62% say “most elected officials don’t care what people like me think.” Just 41% of Americans now say the government is really […]
The U.S. prison system is composed of federal prisons and state prisons. State prisons hold the bulk of the total prison population. Nearly 1.4 million inmates, or 87% of the total U.S. prison population, are under the jurisdiction of state correctional authorities. About 200,000 prison inmates, or 13% of the total, are under the jurisdiction […]
Overview The growing controversy over the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida was the public’s top story last week, though African Americans express far greater interest in news about the killing than do whites. Overall, a quarter of Americans (25%) say they followed news about the African American teenager killed by a community […]
The following list includes brief descriptions of some religious groups and other terms used in the survey report that may be unfamiliar to readers. Descriptions have been adapted from the website of the American Correctional Chaplains Association, Associated Press Stylebook, ReligionFacts.com, the Religion Newswriters Association’s Religion Stylebook and ReligiousTolerance.org. American Correctional Chaplains Association A professional […]
A new survey finds signs of public uneasiness with the mixing of religion and politics. The number of people who say there has been too much religious talk by political leaders stands at an all-time high in Pew Research Center surveys, and most Americans continue to say that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of politics.