Policing and Violence Against Women: Gendered Patterns of Case Disbursal in India

• In Event: Policing and Pluralism in South Asia

Abstract

How and why women are marginalized within public agencies remains understudied. Using original micro-level data on crime in India, I highlight the patterns of exclusion faced by women in law enforcement. By classifying India's Penal Code, I use an instrument to demonstrate that women are tasked with specific cases, especially 'non-heinous' gendered crimes that the bureaucracy prefers to address informally. Because policewomen are tasked with---rather than self-select into---arbitrating sexual- or dowry-harassment, they are impeded from serving in cases seen as high-prestige, including investigating murder and rape. Nevertheless, female supervisors are able to mitigate such occupational segregation; regression discontinuity estimates reveal that they are more likely to allocate policewomen diverse tasks, and they play a causal role in assigning female investigators more cases. I argue that without an equitable division of labor or female leadership, a 'representative bureaucracy' may not translate into an egalitarian institution because newly represented groups may simply be pushed toward tasks seen as low-prestige.

Author

• Nirvikar Jassal, Stanford University