Street Police Patrols and Crime Against Women in Public Space: Experimental Evidence from Urban India

How can gender-based violence in the public sphere (GBV) be prevented? Can increased quantity and quality of police presence help curb street harassment? What works in improving victim’s engagement with police services? This project aims to answer these questions through a novel policing program in Hyderabad, India. The Safety, Health, and Environment (SHE Teams) Program is a hotspots street police patrolling intervention targeting GBV in public spaces. The researchers and Hyderabad City Police have jointly developed research that aims to test the role of increased police presence through patrolling and policing visibility (i.e., uniformed vs. undercover officers).