Accessing justice for survivors of violence against women:a police reform experiment in India shows mixed results

One in three women has survived physical or sexual violence in her lifetime. In a wave of reforms designed in part to increase women’s access to justice for such crimes, governments around the world instituted gender quotas in police hiring (see the photo), policewomen-run counseling centers, women-only stations, and legal mandates that women officers exclusively handle cases of gender-based violence. On page 191 of this issue, Sukhtankar et al. (1) report results of the first randomized trial on these reforms. The researchers partnered with the state police in Madhya Pradesh, India, in the Hindi heartland with a reputation for deep-rooted patriarchy, to randomize the introduction of “women’s help desks”—spaces within police stations where women officers can interface with women complainants. The results are mixed: More incident reports were filed and some police officer attitudes toward violence against women changed, but women were no more likely to report crimes and the arrest rate was unaffected.