Police Abuse or Just Deserts?

Abstract Divergent public responses to police brutality incidents demonstrate that for some, violence is an injustice demands remediation, while others state justice served. We develop a novel survey experiment in which we randomize the race and gender of victim violence, then provide respondents with opportunity establish via compensation. uncover small but consistent effects financial restitution most supported White female detainee least Black detainee, this largely driven by respondents. Beyond treatment effects, show are much more likely perceive detainees as deserving restitution; across all treatments, 58 percent than Whites support settlement. further respondents’ perceptions deservingness highly related their who at fault beating—the or police—and whether was involved crime. remain award settlement even if they think Our results evidence deserves restorative entangled targeted ways.