Preventing treatment spillover contamination in criminological field experiments: the case of body-worn police cameras

A central issue in experiments is protecting the integrity of causal identification from treatment spillover effects. The objective of this article is to demonstrate a bright line beyond which spillover of treatment renders experimental results misleading. We focus on a highly publicized recent test...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ariel, Barak (Author)
Contributors: Sherman, Lawrence W. ; Sutherland, Alex
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2019
In: Journal of experimental criminology
Year: 2019, Volume: 15, Issue: 4, Pages: 569-591
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Keywords:
Body-worn cameras
Experiments
Interference
Partial interference
SUTVA
Spillover effects
Unit of randomization
Description
Summary:A central issue in experiments is protecting the integrity of causal identification from treatment spillover effects. The objective of this article is to demonstrate a bright line beyond which spillover of treatment renders experimental results misleading. We focus on a highly publicized recent test of police body cameras that violated the key assumption of a valid experiment: independence of treatment conditions for each unit of analysis.
ISSN:1572-8315
DOI:10.1007/s11292-018-9344-4