Street-Level Bureaucracy and Gendered Policing: A Study of Haryana's Women Police Stations

Abstract

This study examines Women Police Stations in Haryana as sites of gender-responsive policing, analysing how formal legal mandates, socio-cultural norms and frontline bureaucratic discretion shape women's access to justice. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork across three districts (2022–2024), including 38 semi-structured interviews, observations and document analysis, it applies Feminist Institutionalism and Street-Level Bureaucracy to explain gaps between institutional design and everyday practice. Findings show WPS function as hybrid institutional spaces where legal frameworks are reshaped through discretion and informal organisational norms. Frontline practice is shaped by resource constraints, workload pressures and socio-cultural expectations around family, marriage and gender roles. Women officers undertake significant emotional labour, including counselling and mediation, often substituting for formal legal procedures. Complaints are frequently redirected from First Information Report registration towards counselling, even in cognisable offences. The study, therefore, demonstrates how gendered institutional outcomes are produced through the interaction of informal norms, institutional constraints and frontline discretion.