Do Policewomen Improve Law Enforcement Performance? Evidence from Haryana, India

Police cases involving crimes against women (e.g. rape, dowry) are often assigned to female
investigators while higher profile cases (e.g. murder, kidnapping, corruption) are often assigned
to male investigators in police stations across India (despite there being no mandate to do so).
Investigator gender can impact both case outcomes as well as career outcomes for the
investigating officer. We will examine whether randomly assigning cases to investigators (male
versus female) leads to disparate outcomes for crime registrations, police productivity, career
trajectories and behavior. This experiment will be carried out in Haryana with the collaboration
of the Commissioner of Police of Panchkula. Cases will be randomly assigned (to male and
female) investigators within a police station. We will use a combination of administrative and
survey data to measure outcomes.