Can Guilt Change Police Attitude towards Gender-Based Violence? (Bihar)

Testing psychological interventions to reduce police bias in Bihar

Project Introduction

This project investigates whether inducing guilt among police officers can reduce bias and improve responses to gender-based violence (GBV) cases in Bihar, India. It builds on an ongoing large-scale randomized controlled trial on GBV policing in the state and is designed to complement broader efforts to improve gender sensitivity in law enforcement. By combining insights from development economics and social psychology, the study seeks to evaluate whether confronting bias can trigger reflection and behaviour change in a high-stakes, masculine institutional context like policing.

Partners

Researchers

(1) more researchers

Project Methodology

The intervention involves a lab-in-field experiment with hundreds of police officers across two districts. Officers are presented with case studies, including one involving a woman reporting GBV, and asked to describe how they would respond. The treatment group receives direct confrontation from a senior officer about potential biases in handling GBV complaints, while the control group receives no confrontation. Measures include officers’ emotional responses such as guilt, belief in the truthfulness of complaints, levels of victim blaming, and self-reported introspection. Follow-ups include behavioural observations of officers’ real-world interactions with women reporting GBV, supported by surveys of actual complainants and trained decoys visiting police stations, cross-checked by the DIA team.

Impact

This novel interdisciplinary approach has the potential to identify scalable, low-cost interventions for reducing bias among frontline public sector workers. The findings will contribute to the design of policies for improving institutional responses to GBV in India and could inform similar initiatives globally in policing, healthcare, and other welfare-critical professions where frontline officer bias shapes how services reach the people who need them most.

Documentation

This project is currently in progress, and will be updated with findings as results arise.

Similar Projects