Can gender-based “enclaves” facilitate women’s access to justice? I examine all-female police stations in India and test whether group-specific institutions assist victims of gender-based violence and female officers in law enforcement. I create an original dataset based on Indian police reports and leverage the manner in which all-women police stations were opened in Haryana state to estimate their causal effect. The creation of enclaves in law enforcement does not increase registered crime. In fact, the intervention lowers the caseload at standard stations by justifying the deflection of gendered crimes, reduces responsibilities for policewomen, and increases travel cost for victims seeking redress. The institutions formalize the “counseling” of victims by encouraging reconciliation with abusers at the expense of arrest of suspects, and survey evidence suggests that all-women stations might not be associated with positive perceptions of policewomen. Broadly, I argue that representation as separation may have unintended consequences.
A number of nations have instituted group-specific institutions or “enclaves” for women. The assumption underpinning such bodies—physically distinct, autonomous units in which constituent members belong entirely to a particular group—is that the segregation of female administrators will better serve the interests of women by isolating them from patriarchal norms and practices. I scrutinize this assumption by examining India's experience with all-women police stations, and carry out eight months of ethnographic research in and around police stations across the states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. I find that while all-women police stations allow complainants to speak freely, they may also diminish capacity for female administrators working in law enforcement, create hurdles for victims of violence, and, in some ways, marginalize gender issues from the mainstream.
The year 2017 saw the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party extend its electoral dominance by winning major state elections. The BJP was less successful, however, in containing contentious politics and vigilantism by right-wing groups. It was also a tumultuous year for the Indian economy as it strove to recover from the shock of major reforms. The Supreme Court issued landmark verdicts likely to have weighty implications for Indian society in the years to come. The Indian government could also claim credit for foreign policy successes vis-à-vis China, Pakistan, Israel, and the ICJ.
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