Debiasing Law Enforcement Officers: Evidence from an Expressive Arts Intervention in India

Last registered on April 16, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Debiasing Law Enforcement Officers: Evidence from an Expressive Arts Intervention in India
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013270
Initial registration date
April 08, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 16, 2024, 1:14 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
India
Region
Bihar

Primary Investigator

Name
Sofia Amaral
Affiliation
World Bank, South Asia Gender Innovation Lab
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Girija Borker
PI Affiliation
World Bank
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Nishith Prakash
PI Affiliation
Northeastern University
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Maria Micaela Sviatschi
PI Affiliation
Princeton University
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2022-09-01
End date
2024-01-31
Keywords
Crime, Violence, & Conflict, Gender, Governance
Additional Keywords
Gender-based violence, policing, theater, experiential learning, social norms
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Addressing institutional service-delivery related to gender-based violence is a major pol-
icy challenge. Despite its policy relevance, there exists considerable gaps in the literature
as to how to address the issue. In this project we aim to address these gaps by focusing
on the role policing quality may play in addressing GBV. We conducted a randomized
control trial (RCT) in Bihar, India, to study the causal effect of a novel intervention that
uses expressive arts pedagogy for police officers on technical and soft skills, norms and
behaviors regarding GBV. For our study, we randomly assigned 419 police stations (PS)
across 12 districts in the state to either receiving the training or a control group. Senior
officers operating in treated stations are invited to attend the training. We test the effect of
the intervention on new measures that aim to better understand how better interactions
between citizens and officers may improve GBV survivors’ outcomes. We develop new
tools to measure victim blaming, empathy and knowledge of GBV-specific laws among
others. We also measure the effects of the intervention on different types of women inter-
acting with officers, and through a decoy experiment.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Amaral, Sofia et al. 2024. "Debiasing Law Enforcement Officers: Evidence from an Expressive Arts Intervention in India." AEA RCT Registry. April 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13270-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

Partner

Name
DAI
Type
private_company
URL
https://www.daiadvisory.org

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention curriculum draws on the theater of the oppressed technique (Freire,
2020) and other applied theater techniques (Boal, 2014) that are used to install social
change. This technique was applied when developing the curriculum to sensitize po-
lice issues related to GBV, gender equality and women’s role in society. The study of this
style of methods is novel and addresses an issue faced during pilot stages with respect
to officers lack of motivation and engagement with other types of curricula. The training
methodology and curriculum are rooted in the principles of immersive and experiential
learning techniques that have been found to be effective in different contexts in various
studies (Hoff et al., 2021; Heller et al., 2017)
Intervention Start Date
2022-11-01
Intervention End Date
2023-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
victim-blaming index; empathy index; technical and legal skills index, and attitudes towards GBV index.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We use a clustered randomized control trial experiment to identify the effects of the gender-sensitization training on police officers. The unit of randomization for this study is a police station, and officers within treated stations are invited to take part in the training. We randomly allocated station into a treatment or control condition. Within stations, all male officers at the rank of Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI), Sub-Inspector (SI), Inspector and Station House Officer (SHO) are invited to attend via a letter and through phone calls. The randomization was conducted for each district following the timeline of the completion of baseline. Randomization was stratified by district and total number of SHOs, Inspectors, SIs, ASIs, and PSIs posted at a station at the time of the baseline.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
police station
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
419 police stations
Sample size: planned number of observations
For analysis at the station-level we plan to have 419 observation. For analysis at the officer we plan to have between 2,578 police officers who completed baseline and endline surveys and were not transferred. We will have a maximum of 4,170 officers in the sample.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
About 50% of the total sample of stations.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Princeton University - Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2022-07-13
IRB Approval Number
14776
IRB Name
Princeton University - Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
Details not available
IRB Approval Number
14776-02
IRB Name
DAI Research & Advisory Services Pvt Ltd. Human Subjects Committee
IRB Approval Date
2023-07-23
IRB Approval Number
IRB00012768
IRB Name
DAI Research & Advisory Services Pvt Ltd. Human Subjects Committee
IRB Approval Date
2023-11-01
IRB Approval Number
IRB00012768
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials