Faith among Black Americans

Most Black Americans say they rely on prayer to help make major decisions and view opposing racism as essential to their religious faith. And 60% of Black adults who go to religious services say they attend predominantly Black places of worship. But these patterns appear to be changing: Young Black adults are less religious and less engaged in Black churches than older generations.

• Black Americans more religious than the U.S. public overall
• 10 new findings about faith among Black Americans
• Three-quarters of Black Americans say Black churches have helped promote racial equality

Experts say the ‘new normal’ in 2025 will be far more tech-driven, presenting more big challenges

We canvassed 915 experts in technology, communications and social change and asked them to consider what life will be like in 2025 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and other crises in 2020. A plurality of these experts think sweeping societal change will make life worse for most people as greater inequality, rising authoritarianism and rampant misinformation take hold. Still, a portion believe life will be better in a “tele-everything” world.

Under Trump, the federal prison population continued its recent decline

The federal prison population, which declined for the first time in decades under President Barack Obama, fell further during the administration of President Donald Trump. The number of federal prisoners sentenced to more than a year behind bars decreased by 5% between 2017, Trump’s first year in office, and the end of 2019. Preliminary figures for 2020 suggest that the decrease continued – and even accelerated – in Trump’s final full year in office.

Online harassment occurs most often on social media, but strikes in other places, too

Three-quarters of U.S. adults who have recently faced some kind of online harassment say it happened on social media. But notable shares say their most recent such experience happened elsewhere, including on forum or discussion sites, texting or messaging apps, online gaming platforms, their personal email account or online dating sites or apps. Certain kinds of harassing behaviors, meanwhile, are particularly likely to occur in certain locations online.

• The state of online harassment
• Some Americans who have been targeted by troubling behaviors online wouldn’t call it ‘harassment’
• About one-in-five Americans who have been harassed online say it was because of their religion

From our research