Would you turn in a family member who committed serious crime? What a poll shows

Brendan Rascius, Miami Herald on Sep 23, 2025

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Blood, it turns out, is not always thicker than water.

A new YouGov survey revealed most Americans would report a family member to the police if that person committed a serious crime.

At the same time, most say that if they themselves carried out a major crime, they could not successfully evade the police.

Would you turn in a family member or friend?

In the poll — which sampled 11,225 U.S. adults on Sept. 17-18 — more than half of respondents said they would definitely (26%) or probably (31%) turn in a family member or close friend who committed a serious crime to the police.

A substantially smaller share said they definitely (7%) or probably (13%) would not report them. Twenty-one percent said they were not sure.

When the results were broken down by partisan affiliation, some noticeable differences emerged.

Sixty-nine percent of Republicans said they would turn in their friend or relative, while 51% of Democrats and 50% of independents said the same.

Would you get caught?

The survey — which has a margin of error of 1.2 percentage points — also asked respondents: “Do you think you could commit a serious crime without being caught by the police?”

A decisive majority, 55%, said they definitely could not, while 23% said they probably could not.

Just 12% of respondents said they definitely (4%) or probably (8%) could pull this off. An additional 9% were undecided.

Here, again, some partisan differences were revealed.

Nearly two-thirds of Republicans, 64%, said they certainly could not carry out a major crime without being discovered by the authorities. Meanwhile, 55% of Democrats and 49% of independents said the same.

Additionally, men were more confident in their ability to evade police detection than women. Sixteen percent of men said they definitely or probably could go undetected after committing a serious crime, while 9% of women agreed.

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