Police and Citizen Biases when Assessing Victims and Offenders

• In Event: Deservingness

Abstract

Do police and citizen preferences align on which victim and offender cases should be prioritized for investigation? Further, what accounts for the biases in who is preferred for police investigation? To answer these questions, we conducted two surveys: one with Nepali police officers in 2017 and one with Nepal’s general population in 2019. Respondents in both surveys participated in two conjoint experiments examining profiles of hypothetical victims and criminal offenders. In the general population survey, respondents also participated in a vignette experiment in which they were randomly assigned to read a hypothetical crime scenario that varied the gender of both the victim and the offender. Based on our data analysis of the law enforcement survey, we followed up with a general population survey in order to better understand the attitudinal similarities and differences between police officers and citizens, and also to explore potential mechanisms that explain biases in case selection preferences.

Authors

• Margaret Boittin, Stanford University

• Rachel Fisher, UC Berkeley

• Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, UC Berkeley