Media coverage of police: Prolific Online Survey

2022-03-08

2022-03-20

We will have 3 main outcomes:
1. Police officer responsibility
2. Demand for penalties in the department and demand for legal penalties
3. Percent of a donation going to police reform.

These 3 outcomes will be constructed in the following way:
1. Is the officer morally responsible for the man’s death? (Yes / No) -> Officer responsibility
2. On a scale from 1 to 7, how much do you agree with these statements? (7 being the strongest and 1 being the weakest):
a. The police officer should face some penalties in their department for their actions -> Demand for departmental penalties
b. The police officer should face some legal penalties -> Demand for legal penalties
3. One in 100 participants in this study will have the opportunity to donate $100 to an organization. This is in addition to their payment for participating in the study. Please choose how you want to split your donation among the two organizations below. If you are randomly selected, we will make an anonymous donation to each organization as you have decided below. (Answers need to add up to 100%)
• (1) An organization that aims to improve officer safety as well as health and wellness in police organizations.
• (2) An organization that advocates to reform the police by increasing accountability, for example through officer training.
% for (2) -> Financial support for reforming the police

We are also collecting data on the following variables, for secondary analysis, which we will be analyzing again according to the pre-specified treatment arms:
• Questions about reform priorities
• Questions about whether the police officer was justified in shooting the person
• Questions about whether the police officer should be held accountable for the shooting

We will also collect sociodemographic data on respondents (race, age, gender, education and location), and will explore if responses change by sociodemographic characteristics.

Lastly, we will test whether the degree of obfuscation (i.e. moving from 2 to 3 or 3 to 4, as defined above) increases the magnitude of our treatment effects.

Participants will be randomized into one of 8 treatment arms.

We have 8 treatment arms – weapon vs. no weapon * intransitive / active / passive / no-agent

Intransitive, no weapon:

A 52-year-old man died in an officer-involved shooting on Friday night.

According to the Police Department, an officer responded to a home near 21st Street and Avenue C for a report of domestic violence just before 9:30 p.m. As the officer arrived, he came into contact with a 52-year old man.
The man got wounded in an officer-involved shooting. The man was taken to the hospital where he later died. No officer was hurt in the incident.

Intransitive, weapon:

A 52-year-old man died in an officer-involved shooting on Friday night.

According to the Police Department, an officer responded to a home near 21st Street and Avenue C for a report of domestic violence just before 9:30 p.m. As the officer arrived, he came into contact with a 52-year old man who was reportedly armed. The man got wounded in an officer-involved shooting. The man was taken to the hospital where he later died. No officer was hurt in the incident.

No agent, no weapon:

A 52-year-old man was killed in an officer-involved shooting on Friday night.

According to the Police Department, an officer responded to a home near 21st Street and Avenue C for a report of domestic violence just before 9:30 p.m. As the officer arrived, he came into contact with a 52-year old man. The man was shot in an officer-involved shooting. The man was taken to the hospital, where he later died. No officer was hurt in the incident.

No agent, weapon:

A 52-year-old man was killed in an officer-involved shooting on Friday night.

According to the Police Department, an officer responded to a home near 21st Street and Avenue C for a report of domestic violence just before 9:30 p.m. As the officer arrived, he came into contact with a 52-year old man who was reportedly armed. The man was shot in an officer-involved shooting. The man was taken to the hospital, where he later died. No officer was hurt in the incident.

Passive, weapon
A 52-year-old man was killed by a police officer on Friday night.

According to the Police Department, an officer responded to a home near 21st Street and Avenue C for a report of domestic violence just before 9:30 p.m. As the officer arrived, he came into contact with a 52-year old man who was reportedly armed. The man was shot by police officers. The man was taken to the hospital, where he later died. No officer was hurt in the incident.

Passive, no weapon
A 52-year-old man was killed by a police officer on Friday night.

According to the Police Department, an officer responded to a home near 21st Street and Avenue C for a report of domestic violence just before 9:30 p.m. As the officer arrived, he came into contact with a 52-year old man. The man was shot by police officers. The man was taken to the hospital, where he later died. No officer was hurt in the incident.


Active, no weapon
A police officer killed a 52-year-old man on Friday night.

According to the Police Department, an officer responded to a home near 21st Street and Avenue C for a report of domestic violence just before 9:30 p.m. As the officer arrived, he came into contact with a 52-year old man. The police officer shot the man. The man was taken to the hospital, where he later died. No officer was hurt in the incident.

Active, weapon
A police officer killed a 52-year-old man on Friday night.

According to the Police Department, an officer responded to a home near 21st Street and Avenue C for a report of domestic violence just before 9:30 p.m. As the officer arrived, he came into contact with a 52-year old man who was reportedly armed. The police officer shot the man. The man was taken to the hospital, where he later died. No officer was hurt in the incident.

The randomization will be done on Qualtrics, a website for conducting online surveys.

The unit of randomization will be the individual subject.

No

N/A

We plan to collect roughly 2,400 observations

We plan to collect roughly 300 observations per treatment arm.