We study the impact of an innovative policy intervention in India that led to a rapid expansion in `all women police stations’ across cities in India on reported crime against women and deterrence. Using an identification strategy that exploits the staggered implementation of women police stations across cities and novel nationally representative data on various measures of crime and deterrence, we find that the opening of police stations increased reported crime against women such as female kidnappings and domestic violence. In contrast, reports of gender-specific mortality, unnatural deaths, and suicides remain unchanged. Our findings suggest that the reported crime against women is driven by an increase in women’s willingness to report crime due to greater exposure to female police officers. We also find that the implementation of women police stations led to improvements in measures of police deterrence such as arrest rates.
Presented by:
Sofia Amaral, ISER
Date & time:
October 11, 2017 12:00 pm - October 11, 2017 1:00 pm
Venue:
2N2.5B.24 - ISER boardroom.
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