NEW ORLEANS (AP) – New Orleans police efforts to improve public perception appear to be paying off.

Fifty-eight percent of 600 people surveyed Aug. 26-28 say they are generally satisfied with the New Orleans Police Department.

This is higher than in 2009, when the New Orleans Crime Coalition first hired a polling firm to see what New Orleans residents thought about their police department, chairman Michael Cowan said.

“When the first survey was conducted, only around 35 percent were satisfied,” he said. “Now they’re around 60 percent. That’s a significant shift.”

NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas said officers are encouraged to explain why they are enforcing the laws as they are, a tactic he calls “selling the stock.”

“This is an evolving theory in the NOPD,” he said. “If people are comfortable that an action is being explained to them and what the actions are about, then they tend to be more positive about it.”

However, only 42 percent said they were satisfied with efforts to get drugs off the street. Still, that’s more than double the 2009 percentage.

“It’s a mixed bag of nuts,” Serpas said about drug enforcement. “We’re trying to catch them doing it (drug trafficking) covertly. We’ll have sweeps and look for people. The work is done so that people don’t know about it.”

The surveys are made every six months.