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Quarterly Journal of Economics Vol. 140 No. 4 2025

Sexual Harassment in Public Spaces and Police Patrols: Experimental Evidence from Urban India

Sofia Amaral1,2; Girija Borker3,4; Nathan Fiala5; Anjani Kumar6; Nishith Prakash7,8,2,4,9; Maria Micaela Sviatschi10,2

1 South Asia Gender Innovation Lab, World Bank , · 2 CESifo · 3 Development Impact, World Bank , · 4 Institute of Labor Economics , · 5 University of Connecticut · 6 Indian Police Service , · 7 Northeastern University · 8 Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development , · 9 CReAM, Households in Conflict Network, and Global Labor Organization , · 10 Princeton University, National Bureau of Economic Research ,

Abstract

We conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effect of an innovative police patrol program on sexual harassment in public spaces in Hyderabad, India. In collaboration with the Hyderabad City Police, we randomize exposure to police patrols and the visibility of officers by deploying both uniformed and undercover officers across 350 hot spots. To assess the effect, we implement a novel, high-frequency observation exercise to measure sexual harassment at these hot spots, where enumerators recorded all observed instances of sexual harassment and women’s responses in real time. We find that although police patrols had no effect on overall street harassment, uniformed police patrols reduced severe forms of harassment (forceful touching, intimidation) by 27% and reduced the likelihood of women leaving the hot spot due to sexual harassment. We uncovered the underlying mechanisms and found that both police visibility and officers’ attitudes toward sexual harassment are key to understanding its incidence.

DOI
10.1093/qje/qjaf026
Volume
140
Issue
4
Pages
3191-3231
Language
en
Sources
openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref

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