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Appropriate punishment, on a six-point scale from reprimand to life in prison, for a government employee or service member who sells secrets to a hostile government; 1998 and 2000 wordings differ somewhat in the scenario description.
AI-matched An AI model grouped these questions and mapped their answers onto shared categories, and a second AI review checked and corrected the grouping and mapping. No person has checked it: compare the question wordings and the answer mapping below before reading the lines against each other.
Latest: 16% answered “Prison: up to 9 years” in GSS: Punishment for selling secrets to a hostile government, 2000.
Shares of people whose answer maps onto these categories (non-answers and answers outside the scale are left out), because surveys differ in whether they offer “don’t know.” Each point is one survey wave at the middle of its field period. Lines from different surveys are never spliced together.
| Line | Question | Match | How answers map |
|---|---|---|---|
| GSS: Punishment for selling secrets to a hostile government | Punishment for selling secrets to a hostile government I'm going to ask you about several offenses. For each case, indicate what you would consider to be the appropriate punishment when the offender is a military service member or government employee.
C. Stealing and selling copies of secret codes and other classified intelligence materials to an agent of a hostile foreign government. Caveat: Generic offender (service member or government employee) rather than a specific Navy petty officer; same scale | equivalent | Reprimand → Reprimand or dismissal only; Dismissal from the military/fired by the government → Reprimand or dismissal only; One year in prison → Prison: up to 9 years; 5-9 years in prison → Prison: up to 9 years; 10-20 years in prison → Prison: 10-20 years or life; Life in prison → Prison: 10-20 years or life |
| GSS: Punishment for selling secrets to hostile government | Punishment for selling secrets to hostile government Now I'm going to ask you about several offenses. For each case, indicate (Number 1-6) what you would consider the appropriate punishment for each case.
C. A Navy petty officer with the highest security clearance made copies of secret codes and other classified intelligence materials and sold them to an agent of a hostile foreign government. Caveat: Scenario names a Navy petty officer with top clearance; same six-point scale | equivalent | Reprimand → Reprimand or dismissal only; Dismiss/military → Reprimand or dismissal only; One yr in prison → Prison: up to 9 years; 5-9 yrs in prisn → Prison: up to 9 years; 10-20 yrs prison → Prison: 10-20 years or life; Life in prison → Prison: 10-20 years or life |