We conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact 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 hotspots. To assess the effect, we implement a novel, high-frequency observation exercise to measure sexual harassment at these hotspots, where enumerators recorded all observed instances of sexual harassment and women’s responses in real time. We find that although police patrols had no impact on overall street harassment, uniformed police patrols reduced severe forms of harassment (forceful touching, intimidation) by 27 percent and reduced the likelihood of women leaving the hotspot 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.

中文翻译：

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公共场所的性骚扰和警察巡逻：来自印度城市的实验证据

我们进行了一项随机对照试验，以评估一项创新的警察巡逻计划对印度海得拉巴公共场所性骚扰的影响。我们与海得拉巴市警方合作，通过在 350 个热点地区部署穿制服和卧底的警察，随机化了警察巡逻的曝光率和警官的能见度。为了评估效果，我们实施了一项新颖的高频观察练习来衡量这些热点地区的性骚扰，其中普查员实时记录了所有观察到的性骚扰实例和女性的反应。我们发现，尽管警察巡逻对整体街头骚扰没有影响，但穿制服的警察巡逻将严重形式的骚扰（强行触摸、恐吓）减少了 27%，并降低了女性因性骚扰而离开热点的可能性。我们揭示了潜在机制，发现警察的能见度和警官对性骚扰的态度都是了解其发生率的关键。