Public Attitudes Toward the Police: Findings From a Dual-Frame Telephone Survey

Abstract

Using telephone survey data collected in Houston, Texas, this study explores the feasibility of a dual-frame (landline and cell-phone-only household samples) design survey in police studies and compares the corresponding characteristics of survey respondents and multiple measures of citizens' attitudes toward the police. It was found that a cell-phone interview with the same scope and length of a landline interview is indeed operationally feasible, albeit at higher cost and lower response rate. Compared with their landline counterparts, respondents in our cell-phone-only sample are younger, males, members of ethnic minority, renters, mobile, and less educated. No appreciable attitudinal differences among the respondents are observed between the two samples. In addition, substantive outcomes from multivariate regression models do not seem to be impacted by the types of phones used. Implications for future studies are included.