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How to create police officer survey about death threats

Adam Sabla

·

Aug 4, 2025

Create your survey

This article will guide you on how to create a Police Officer survey about death threats. If you’re looking to collect real, honest insights, Specific can help you build your survey in seconds—no manual effort or research expertise needed.

Steps to create a survey for Police Officers about death threats

If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific.

  1. Tell what survey you want.

  2. Done.

You honestly don’t need to read further if you just want results now. The AI handles survey creation with expert knowledge—tweaking tone, questions, and scope—so you get a complete survey that’s ready to go. It’ll even ask respondents follow up questions, so you gather insights far beyond what static forms could deliver. You can also create any custom survey from scratch using semantic surveys.

Why surveys about death threats matter

Let’s be real: we see headline after headline about the dangers faced by police officers. But behind those headlines are people—colleagues, friends—dealing with threats that impact both their safety and mental health. In 2021, 73 officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty, which was a 59% increase from 2020 and the highest number since 1995 [1]. That’s not just a number; it’s a wake-up call.

And it doesn’t stop there. There were 43,649 officers assaulted in 2021, leading to 15,369 injuries [1]. If you’re not running these surveys, you’re missing out on critical feedback that could inform smarter policies, better support resources, and real mental health interventions. The importance of police officer recognition surveys and honest feedback simply can’t be overstated—these conversations are how we see patterns and act before crisis hits.

Waiting or guessing about the scale and impact of death threats means losing precious time (and missing opportunities to support and protect law enforcement staff). If you want data-driven decisions, prioritized well-being, and greater trust within law enforcement, you absolutely need to surface these stories and insights. That's where thoughtful surveys powered by platforms like Specific really shine.

What makes a good survey about death threats?

A good survey about death threats for police officers should always be clear, actionable, and encourage honest answers—rather than defensiveness or guesswork. This means:

  • Asking clear, unbiased questions that don’t push respondents toward a particular answer

  • Using a conversational tone so officers feel comfortable and understood, not interrogated

  • Ensuring every question has a direct purpose—respect your respondents’ time

Consider what separates bad questions from good ones. Here’s a quick visual for reference:

Bad practices

Good practices

Loaded or leading questions

Neutral, direct phrasing

Long, complex wording

Short and clear language

One-size-fits-all choices

Choices tailored to officer experience

The real measure of survey quality is the quantity and quality of responses. If officers feel comfortable, they’ll respond more—and their feedback will be thoughtful and useful, giving your analysis true depth.

Best question types for a Police Officer survey about death threats

Let’s talk about how to compose your survey questions. A mixed approach brings the best results, allowing both depth and structure.

Open-ended questions let police officers share their story and context. These uncover the “why” and surface insights that multiple-choice answers would miss. They're best when you need detail, emotion, or process learning:

  • Can you describe any recent experience where you received a death threat while on duty?

  • What support (if any) did you receive after reporting a death threat?

Single-select multiple-choice questions work when you need to quantify experiences or gather structured feedback. They give you clear, analyzable results with the option for simple followups. For instance:

  • How frequently have you received death threats while working in the past 12 months?

    • Never

    • 1–2 times

    • 3–5 times

    • More than 5 times

NPS (Net Promoter Score) question can gauge overall satisfaction with officer safety initiatives. They're invaluable for longitudinal tracking, highlighting trends and promoters/detractors. If you want to generate a NPS survey tailored to this need, try this tool.

  • On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend your department's support resources for managing death threats to another officer?

Followup questions to uncover "the why" are crucial when individual answers seem vague, ambiguous, or surprising. These prompt deeper explanation and fill the blanks left by standard surveys, increasing both quality and context:

  • What was most challenging about that experience?

If you want a deep-dive on crafting questions or more sample prompts, explore our article on best questions for police officer surveys about death threats.

What is a conversational survey?

Traditional surveys feel like a chore—static, boring, and detached. Conversational surveys turn that experience on its head: the AI asks questions chat-style, responds based on replies, and adapts in real-time. This leads to higher participation and richer answers, especially for tougher topics like threats and violence. Creating an AI survey example in this way is fast and friction-free.

Manual creation means building forms, editing every question, and fiddling with logic and followups. With AI and platforms like Specific, your survey is generated and polished for you—with expert phrasing, question branching, and a user-friendly flow. Here’s a summary:

Manual surveys

AI-generated surveys

Time-intensive to build

Ready in seconds—just describe your goal

Easy to miss followups

AI adds smart, real-time followups

Rigid and generic feel

Conversational, human-like interaction

Manual data analysis

AI-driven response analysis

Why use AI for police officer surveys? AI offers speed, expertise, and adaptability—meaning you not only finish faster, but get deeper, more reliable data about officer safety concerns. Since threat reporting can be sensitive, conversational AI survey examples foster an environment of empathy, privacy, and clarity—all with minimal administrative overhead. Specific really leads the pack in creating a conversational survey experience both for survey creators and respondents, making everyone’s feedback smoother and more actionable.

If you want to learn more about building surveys conversationally, check out our detailed article on using the AI survey editor.

The power of follow-up questions

Automated followup questions change the game. Static surveys leave you guessing, but Specific’s AI-driven followups dig deeper. The platform dynamically asks for clarification or the “why” behind every response, in the same way a professional interviewer would, and in real time. This cuts the time-consuming follow-up emails, plus responses become clearer and more useful, not just for the officer but for the people analyzing trends later. You can learn exactly how this works on our automated followup questions feature page.

  • Police officer: “Yes, I have received multiple threats this year.”

  • AI follow-up: “Could you share more about the nature of these threats and whether you reported them?”

How many followups to ask? Usually 2–3 followups are plenty—just enough to clarify, but not so many the officer gets survey fatigue. With Specific, you can set a limit, like “stop after the core info is collected,” which keeps the experience respectful and targeted.

This makes it a conversational survey by design. Respondents feel like they’re talking to a thoughtful researcher, not just filling out an impersonal form. That engagement boosts both detail and completion rates.

Response analysis, themes, AI-driven insights—Specific’s built-in tools make summarizing, filtering, and understanding large amounts of free-text feedback easy, regardless of how much unstructured text you collect. You can follow our guide on how to analyze responses using AI to see how efficient and powerful this can be.

This concept of automated, intelligent followups is still new to most survey designers—so I suggest you try generating a Police Officer survey about death threats, experience the conversation, and see the impact first-hand.

See this death threats survey example now

Don’t wait to get critical feedback from officers in the field. Bring deeper insights to light today with a smart, conversational AI survey that adapts to every respondent—making it simple, powerful, and expert-backed from the start.

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Sources

  1. Behind the Badge Foundation. Facts and figures about law enforcement deaths and assaults in the U.S.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.