Impact of reassurance callbacks to victims of police misconduct on their satisfaction, confidence, trust, and perceived legitimacy of the Independent Police Oversight Authority in Kenya

In many emerging democracies, oversight institutions such as Kenya's Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) struggle to maintain victim’s trust, legitimacy, and support of IPOA, particularly among victims of police misconduct. These victims often desire fair treatment that respects their dignity, ensures neutrality, and amplifies their voice in the process. A promising strategy to address these challenges is reassurance callbacks. By contacting victims of police misconduct and providing transparent, respectful communication, reassurance callbacks aim to restore trust and enhance the victims' confidence in IPOA's handling of their cases. This pilot will employ a mixed-methods design to preliminarily test the effectiveness of callbacks, focusing on their impact on victim’s trust, legitimacy, and support of IPOA. After conducting a baseline survey, the ensuing intervention will be administered by IPOA officers who will follow different structured protocols when making voice and video callback contacts. After the callbacks, a two-week survey will be used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data on victims’ perceptions. This pilot will contribute conceptually by expanding the application of procedural justice theory to the police oversight context—an area that remains under-researched globally. By testing different versions of the reassurance callbacks, the pilot will provide essential data on the feasibility and initial effects of reassurance callbacks, which will be crucial for designing a subsequent full-scale RCT. This larger RCT will rigorously evaluate the long-term impacts of callbacks and inform policy recommendations to optimize procedural justice protocols. The pilot findings will be disseminated to IPOA to inform callback protocol adjustments.