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Before we move on with this episode of the scene in the unseen do check out another awesome podcast from IVM podcast
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Cyrus says hosted by my old buddy Cyrus Brocha
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What makes people behave
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It's comforting to think that each of us has a set of moral codes by which we live our own sense of what is right
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And what is wrong, but the truth is that more than being driven by some internal moral compass
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We are creatures who respond to incentives
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That is why Indians who don't think twice before dropping an empty packet of cigarettes on a road in Bombay
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Will never dare to do that in Singapore
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That is why Indians who stand in orderly queues in foreign countries will enter a stampede when there is a queue anywhere in India
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It's not that they have an opinion about whether littering is right or wrong or queuing is right or wrong
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They're just responding to separate sets of incentives in separate places
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And here's the thing this applies to the me too movement as well
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It's clear that for centuries men have been getting away with atrocious behavior just because they can
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Well now social norms are shifting and they can no longer get away with so much if they behave better now though
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It does not mean that they are necessarily better human beings, but just that the incentives for their behavior have changed
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Welcome to the scene and the unseen our weekly podcast on economics politics and behavioral science
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Please welcome your host Amit Bhatma
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Welcome to the scene and the unseen my topic for today is criminal
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Economics and is sparked by something my good friend and frequent guest on the show Shruti Raj Gopalan wrote in an article in Mint
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After the me too movement broke here
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I had an editorial out in prakati the same day and I made the same point as her that the
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Incentives for male behavior have now changed and that means that going forward men will behave a lot better now
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My argument came more from common sense
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But hers came from a deep grounding in a field called criminal economics
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And she cited the insights of the Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker in her piece
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So I figured I really need to chat more with her about this and I invited her back onto the show
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But before I begin my conversation with Shruti, let's take a quick commercial break
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Hey Shruti, welcome to the scene in the unseen. Hi Amit. It's great to be here again
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So Shruti I was fascinated by your piece in mint where you so clearly explained why and how the incentives for men will change
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Can you just kind of take us over that a little bit?
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So Amit as you know, and maybe a lot of your listeners know by now
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I'm an economist by training and one of the first few things we teach in economics
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You know in the principal's class or as an introduction is
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Incentives matter right and that incentives matter in every aspect of life. And what do we mean by incentives?
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simply that most people
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View the options presented before them and they try to maximize their own well-being
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Right. So if there are two or three different options, they will pick the option that is best for them and by best for them
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Which present the maximum benefit the maximum net benefit or the minimum cost?
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Now, how do we think about this in terms of non-market behavior? That is what Gary Brecker
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Really brought to economics. He was awarded his Nobel Prize in 1992 for using economic analysis and non-market behavior
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so we understand that when you go to buy apples that you might choose the
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Best apple that maximizes your well-being among the alternative set of fruits
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But what about when it comes to crime, right?
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Are criminals really engaging in this kind of rational cost-benefit analysis where they choose among the alternatives?
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Or are criminals just crazy?
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You know animal spirit lustful creatures who just do whatever it is. They want without any rational thought going into it whatsoever
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So this is what Gary Becker tried to figure out. The way Gary Becker came to this insight was actually quite interesting
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He was on a doctoral dissertation committee for an economic student at Columbia
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And he was driving around the block of the university trying to find parking which can be quite difficult in New York
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And he was running terribly late. So he did some quick calculations in his head
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He compared the cost of actually putting his car in a private parking garage
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Which can be quite expensive in New York versus the penalty of parking illegally
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Except he didn't just calculate the penalty of parking illegally
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But the expectation of what he would actually have to pay which is the penalty of parking illegally times the probability of getting caught
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He thought that getting caught in the next hour or so for illegal parking was a very low probability event
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And even though parking fines can run high in New York he thought it would still end up being cheaper than putting the car in a private garage
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So he just parked illegally and ran into the doctoral dissertation defense
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And the happy ending to the story is he actually didn't get a parking fine
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And the even happier ending is he actually started writing about this and he basically started a field called the economic analysis of crime
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One of the many areas for which he won his Nobel Prize
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Now Gary Becker's example is fairly simple
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We've all made some kind of an error in figuring out how we reach somewhere on time
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We've all faced the problem of not being able to find parking
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I'm sure we've all dodged a few parking fines
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But what Gary Becker was telling us was this is true even for the more serious crimes
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You basically look at what your expected cost of an illegal action will be
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And the expected cost is the actual penalty which is usually jail time for serious crimes times the probability of actually being convicted
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So let's say the actual penalty for a particular crime is 10 years in jail
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But the probability of getting convicted is only 10%
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So your expected cost or your expected punishment is actually only one year in jail
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If you can improve the conviction rates or the probability of getting convicted to say 40%
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Immediately the expected cost of the punishment increases to four years in prison
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So when you mentioned in your introduction that people are very trigger happy to toss garbage or litter on the streets of Mumbai
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But they never do it in Singapore
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That's because there's really virtually no cost for that action in Mumbai
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Whereas in Singapore you could potentially face a penalty
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So you might be willing to litter at zero or very close to zero cost
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But you're not willing to litter for say a $40 fine
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The expected probability of a $40 fine
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And that's really what changes things
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So one way to correct criminal behavior according to Gary Becker is in one sense to impose appropriate punishments
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But also you could fix that problem by the other part of the equation which is improving the chances of getting caught
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Let me kind of summarize it
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I mean what you're saying makes a lot of sense in poker terms for example
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We often talk about the expected value of an action
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So just to go over the parking example
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Let's say Gary Becker is circling the block and he wants to park
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And a private parking will cost him $100
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And the fine for illegal parking is $1,000
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But he'll be caught only one in 20 times
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Now because he'll be caught only one in 20 times
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That means it's $1,000 divided by 20 which is $50
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Which is a lower cost to pay than the private parking which is $100
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So in poker playing terms you'd argue that the EV or the expected value of parking illegally is actually plus $50
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And therefore he should park illegally
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Now the point you're making is that in this example there are two ways to make sure that he doesn't park illegally
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One way is you increase the fine
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So if the fine is $10,000 instead of $1,000
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Then his expected cost if he gets caught one in 20 times is $500 instead of 50
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Which is much more than the $100 that a private parking would cost
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The other way is if you keep the fine the same but he's caught say 30% of the time
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Then again instead of one in 20 times
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And the cost goes up to $300 and that again is more expensive than the private parking
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So the two ways you typically handle this is make the punishment more severe or make the probability for getting caught higher
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And the thing that I should point out which I know a lot of listeners it must come to their mind
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Is that hey they'll be thinking like no criminal actually calculates these costs per se
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But even if you don't explicitly think about costs and benefits and expected value
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You still have an instinctive sense of it
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Which is why when you're at an airport in India you know you'll queue up in a very disorderly way
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But you'll do a completely different thing at Heathrow
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I couldn't have said it better myself Amit you're absolutely right
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So your poker example is an amazing example
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Of course poker players are notorious for being very precise calculators of different probabilities in a particular game
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In the real world people are one not so good at figuring that out and two there's a lot of uncertainty
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So they might not have that kind of precision
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But there is some sense of what is the expected consequence of an action
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There is some expectation that is formed
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Whether it is correct whether it's incorrect whether it's very precise or imprecise doesn't matter
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But all individuals take decisions based on some kind of expectation of what the consequences will be
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And the less sophisticated insight from Gary Becker is just that
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What are the expectations set up by society for any particular action criminal or non-criminal
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And in the context of the MeToo movement
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It's not just about the criminal punishment but it's also about what else is going on in society that may impose certain costs on an individual
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So you know coming back to the MeToo movement
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I kind of made a list of all the costs that might deter men from committing not just sexual crimes
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But of actually getting into the kind of sexist behavior which we are now beginning to agree thankfully is wrong
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And I found four categories so just tell me across these four categories how the incentives are shifting
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Number one in legal terms punishments have typically been small for sexual harassment
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Number two state capacity to actually catch people and you know take them through the process of justice that state capacity is low
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Number three the cost for women complaining is very high because very so few women complain that
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Typically women are afraid that if they complain they'll be ostracized and their careers might end as we've seen in some fields
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And the fourth is that even social sanction is low for a lot of sexist behavior
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Earlier it was so normalized that people would say oh that guy isn't harassing he's just flirting you know
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And it seems to me that across all these four parameters incentives have changed
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Yes well not across all of them equally but let's start with the legal situation right
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Very often we read that rape is under punished in India or the punishments aren't that severe and that's simply not true
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So it's not that the legal punishment in the Indian Penal Code is low right it's pretty standard
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The punishment for rape in India starts at seven years there are some exceptions which are built in
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And for the more severe cases such as the rape of a minor anyone below 12 years gang rapes etc
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The minimum punishment starts at 10 and then can extend to a lifetime
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So I don't think the problem is that the punishment is too few years in prison
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India holds up reasonably well in terms of punishments with the other commonwealth countries
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The problem really is the conviction rate in this particular instance
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I don't see how this fact can go unnoticed when it is so well known and well established in India
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That even the crimes that are reported and there is under reporting that even the crimes that are reported have very very low conviction rates
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So I think the conviction rates for the average conviction rate across all crimes in the Indian Penal Code is something like 30%
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Which is not very high and that for rape is about 20% right
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One in five cases that actually gets reported gets convicted that's an incredibly low rate
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And we know that most of the cases don't even get reported
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So Pramit Bhattacharya in Mint using the National Health Survey data found that 99.1% of sexual assault
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Not just rape but all sexual assault goes unreported in India right
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This is an incredible number so women are reporting only about 1% of all sexual assault faced to any kind of official state machinery
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If you exclude marital rape or any sexual violence and sexual assault by the husband
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The number that is reported goes up to about 15%
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So women are willing to report 15% of the cases of sexual assault committed by anyone other than their husband
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Even that seems incredibly low right
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Let's think about the incentives of the perpetrator and the incentives of the victim
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If you have only one in a hundred chance of getting reported for committing a crime against your wife right
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And then there is a further 20% chance that you will actually get convicted
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That's an incredibly low rate and obviously for a monster like the person we just described
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There is some benefit arising out of sexual assault right
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In that moment there must be some sexual gratification or some benefit from oppressing the spouse or enforcing the maleness or the patriarchy
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And so the benefits are immediate, the benefits are much larger, the costs are uncertain, far in the future and may not materialize
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And if they materialize they are very very small
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In fact he is likely to underestimate the costs the longer the marriage goes on simply because of the availability heuristic
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Where if she hasn't complained so far it will seem that she is not going to complain anymore
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Yes and also from the perspective of the victim if she doesn't complain for the first 6 years
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People will be like why are you speaking up now
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Which is what is happening with a lot of the women in the Me Too movement right
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So Indian society at least on Twitter what I am reading likes to pretend like it is such a safe environment for women
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That we are now scolding women for not opening them out at the first instance of sexual harassment
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Whereas we know that the reporting structure is just so difficult to navigate
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So now let me talk about the incentives of the victim
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And this is where the patriarchy is so important to understand and study
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Most police stations are populated mostly by men
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When you have to report a sexual assault you are basically going to a man who may not be as sympathetic or may not understand your point of view
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Second, we don't have any special cells for victims of sexual assault or children or anything like that
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So whether your window got broken or your car got stolen or you got raped
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You are basically going to the same place and the same procedure of reporting
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Which seems quite bizarre because sexual assault is a deeply personal and traumatic event
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Third, even though we have both laws and social norms about protecting the identity of the victim
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That is usually only about your name in the newspaper
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Everyone else in your neighborhood, in your school, at your parents workplace, your extended family
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Everyone knows that you were the victim of sexual assault
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And in India, all the honor and the virtue of a family is in the woman and her virginity and her sexual purity
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Which means that even if you have done nothing wrong and you are the victim of sexual assault
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You have immediately brought shame upon the family
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So there is this additional cost imposed on the victim and the victim's family
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In addition to the trauma of sexual assault that if you speak about it, there is a lot of shame
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You immediately see people distancing themselves socially from the victims and their families
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There is the addition problem that no one will marry the girl later
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In fact, there are cases in India where cup panchayats recommend that the remedy for a rape is that the rapist marries the victim
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Because no one else will marry her
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That is how deep-seated these problems run
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So now add all these things
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Then add the fact that the conviction rate is extremely low
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And the process of going through this to get the conviction is extremely traumatic on everyone
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You basically have no incentive to report and actually go through the criminal justice system to actually get justice
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Which means that with each successive generation of this problem, you are going to get lower and lower conviction rates
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Conviction rates have dropped since the 70s
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One explanation is state capacity and pendency in courts and things like that
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The other is just simply the social system
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The social system is not very well equipped to deal with women and victims of sexual assault
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And it has all the problems of the same patriarchy as the real world
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So the criminal justice system doesn't operate in a particular vacuum
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You have judges saying all sorts of things
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You have so often, I have heard this from friends of mine, first-person accounts
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Someone groped them at a university or a bus
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They show up at the police station and the police say, madam, why are you putting yourself and your family through this?
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Nothing bad happened to you
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Just let it go because the moment I file a report, your life is going to be hell
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So you very often have well-meaning police officers who discourage women from reporting and actually going through the process of a trial
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You report these things post-Vishakhya
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Everyone thought the workplace would be a magically new thing
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When women report these things at a workplace, routinely
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This has happened so often, it's even happened to me
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People will say things like, why do you want to report something so small?
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After all, nothing happened
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As if the only bad thing that can happen to a woman is rape
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And anything less than rape simply is not worthwhile being reported
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Why? Because it's simply too much hassle
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It could ruin the victim's name
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It could ruin the reputation of the workplace or that particular firm
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And it could ruin the career of such an important man
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So no matter where we are, across the board, criminal justice system, internal committee hearings
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Even complaining to your own family
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The reporting is just so rampantly low across the board, it's sort of shocking
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And now what we found is most of the rapes, of all the rapes
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Now I'm only talking rapes, not sexual assault
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Four in ten rapes are committed on minors
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Which itself is so shameful and shocking
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That's not even part of the MeToo movement
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That's this whole other problem we need to deal with right now
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But 94% of the rapes are committed by someone known to the victim
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It is usually a member of the immediate or the extended family or the neighborhood
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And 94% of the perpetrators are known to the victim
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Only 6% are completely unknown
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And I'm not talking boyfriends, right?
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I'm talking school teacher, grandparent, uncle, next door neighbor
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This is like the immediate close community, it's really shocking
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And that's where the power imbalance is the greatest
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Because if you're a minor, you're the least powerful
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And if the person molesting you or raping you is your school teacher or your uncle or whatever
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They're in the position of power, it's opportunity meets power imbalance
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And it's a very dismal picture as far as serious sexual assaults and rapes are concerned
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Like you said that men can get away with impunity
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Because the costs of reporting on women are very high
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Both socially and in terms of what the legal system will put them through
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Which women have described as a second rape in some cases
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Two, the conviction rates are so low
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Even after the extremely low reporting rate that they might as well not exist
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And this situation perpetuates itself
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In the kind of smaller context of what your piece was about and of Me Too
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Which is not about this deeper, larger problem
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Which makes both of us despair and we'll come back to it later
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But just in the context of Me Too, it seems that there has been a shift
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Or maybe I'm mistaken and it's just in elite circles like ours
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Where women are finding validation in the fact that other women are speaking up
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And therefore they are more likely to speak up themselves
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And that has caused a change in the amount of social sanction that a harasser has to then face
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And this changes the incentives more towards men actually being punished for their behavior
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Yeah, so let me break that up into little bits
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So the first part about solidarity with other women and the victims
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I can't tell you, at least in my experience as a woman
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I have no experience in any other gender
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Just how incredibly important that is
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So I went to an all-girls school
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My closest friends from my childhood were mostly women
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And there's like this deep sisterhood between all of us
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Of my six or seven first cousins
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There's only one male first cousin
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All the others are sisters
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I'm sort of surrounded by this sort of like female solidarity
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But it's not just about the immediate family
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You've obviously never traveled in an all-women's compartment
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So let me just explain the dynamics of that
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So if you travel in the Bombay local train or the Delhi metro
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There is one or two compartments which is just reserved for women
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And you should see the kind of sisterhood when you enter a compartment like that
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Especially the Delhi metro, all the compartments are connected, they're seamless
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There'll always be like some of these roadside Romeotypes
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Who will be standing at the edge, leering into the women's compartment
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And they will try and inch and make their way into the women's compartment
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And some auntie or young lady will literally take out her chapal
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And she will fling her shoe at him
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Or point her shoe at him and ask him to get out of the lady's compartment
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It's really difficult to do that alone
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If you're alone in a parking lot or something
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With a potential sexual predator
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There is so much solidarity when you're 200 women standing in a compartment
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And the moment you do that, you're the brave person to take that action
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20 women will say, oh thank you auntie, thank you didi, thank you for doing that
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That guy made me so uncomfortable
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So I think, I mean society in general underestimates the value of this kind of solidarity
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And men just simply don't understand it
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Because I've been having this conversation with the men in my life
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And we're slowly realizing that men and women inhabit quite different social worlds
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Even when we're in the exact same physical space
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For women, one of the biggest sort of deterrents of speaking up is
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What if I speak up and either they don't believe me or they blame me
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Which is much worse than just not speaking up at all
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Because then you only have to live with trauma one
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Which is the trauma of the original sexual assault
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Trauma two, trauma three, all of those things don't come up
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I've been looking at the Twitter comments on the pages of all these incredibly brave women
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Who've spoken up in the Me Too movement
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And it's so shocking, so many times people are like, but why were you working late?
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Why did you go alone to the hotel room?
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Is that an appropriate question to ask?
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It shouldn't matter, why can't I work late?
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If I get invited to a hotel lobby or a hotel room
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Why is it such a terrible expectation that I walk out just untouched or unmolested?
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So we've sort of turned it on the head so much
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So there is slut shaming, there is victim shaming
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And now there is a new kind of shaming, I call it the prudence shaming
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This is all imprudent behaviour
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Watching a movie late at night is not prudent
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Going anywhere where you don't have several, seven other close people with you is imprudent
#
If you always knew that the editor in your office was a rangile mazajke
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Then why did you go so close to him?
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That was imprudent, it's your fault, you should have known
#
This is just such an extraordinarily large problem that we face on a daily basis
#
And it's everywhere, it's our parents, it's our teachers
#
You go out somewhere and you say that I was molested in a bus or I was groped or layered at
#
And people are like, where's your dupatta?
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That's the first thing they ask you
#
As if it's not a dupatta but like a gun which would have protected you against some kind of molestation
#
So they always, and when I say they, I don't just mean men, I mean men and women
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And of every generation
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It's always turned on its head and the women are asked why did you put yourself in this situation
#
And let me explain what the situation is
#
The situation is every situation
#
Why did you go to work?
#
Why did you travel in public transport?
#
Why did you stay 20 minutes extra after?
#
Why were you in a situation where you were alone in an elevator or a room or a conference room
#
With another person who happens to be a man?
#
Every situation is the fault of the victim
#
So what ends up happening for women is this additional pressure of prudence
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And the standard for this prudent behaviour keeps changing every day
#
Earlier it was just don't go to a very scary dark place
#
Something that's unfamiliar
#
Like a jungle or something
#
And now I'll tell you what happened to me last time
#
I was coming back on the Noida toll road
#
And my driver lowered the window to pay the toll
#
And there was some problem over the amount of change calculated
#
So after about two minutes of them arguing with each other
#
And the driver just freaked out
#
Like he just freaked out turned around and said
#
Bailey, close the window
#
And you're asking what happened and he's like you don't know who's there with him next to him in the toll booths
#
We've just stopped in the middle of the road late in the evening
#
And anyone could enter the car or molest you through the window
#
So now lowering your window at a signal is imprudent behaviour
#
Everything is imprudent behaviour
#
So in this kind of world
#
There's the additional burden of the moment a victim speaks up
#
You're so worried that 20 people are going to blame you
#
For doing something that is perfectly ordinary had nothing happened
#
And is perfectly ordinary for a man
#
But is really ridiculously poor judgement on your part for engaging in that
#
Because you got molested and therefore it must be your fault
#
So sorry for the long-winded answer
#
But this social solidarity part is so important in the MeToo movement
#
So I have like two speculations here
#
And one is that perhaps you know what you point out about the solidarity being so important to women
#
You know my previous guest in the MeToo episode that I did a couple of weeks ago Nikita Saxena
#
Was making the same point about how all the women are checking in with each other and so on
#
And it seems to me that the reason that that solidarity may be such a big deal with women
#
While men don't really care about it is that women just need it more
#
Because men don't carry the burden of their maleness around everywhere
#
While you know women in the patriarchal system as you correctly say
#
It's a factor in every single thing that you do and therefore they need that support
#
And therefore they feel that empathy for other women and they tend to band together
#
But there's an additional part Amit, I'm so sorry to interrupt you
#
I mean there's a part of needing it more but there's also a part of the women just get it
#
Every woman I know has been groped, has been lured at, has had some bad experience
#
At the workplace or public transport or anywhere not amounting to rape
#
But has had a bad experience, every single woman
#
I don't know any woman and I come from a very privileged and protected circle
#
But I literally don't know anyone who has not had a bad experience
#
So I think the most important part of this is just knowledge and recognition
#
Women will instantly get it, the men instantly don't get it
#
There's that additional barrier
#
Yeah I mean it's absolutely true that most men are oblivious
#
And it's also true that just the same way that all women have been groped
#
I think it's fairly true that all men have been guilty of casual sexism
#
At least casual sexism at some point or the other
#
Without even recognizing it as sexism
#
I'm sure I am guilty of casual sexism
#
In the sense that at least being complicit in it right
#
Because if you face a really terrible boss
#
Someone who makes lewd remarks or someone who is just not nice to women
#
And creates a terrible working environment
#
I have been in such environments and my attitude has been
#
Wear your big girl pants and toughen up
#
So we are complicit in this behavior because we think that if we are stronger
#
And just get through it, it will be okay
#
The onus is again on me
#
It's my job to toughen up, it is my job to rough it out
#
And the more often I have done it and not called out someone for their behavior
#
The more complicit I am in allowing this to happen
#
Because I never made an effort to change the other person's behavior
#
I always made the effort to change my own
#
I got on a bus and immediately put my backpack in the front
#
I go somewhere where I'm uncertain of what's going on
#
I immediately wear a dupatta
#
So we are all part of what is going on
#
Both in terms of the signals we sent
#
And in terms of just being complicit and not calling out every person for their sexism
#
The other thing frankly Amit is it's just exhausting
#
You go to a party anytime I bring up any feminist related issue
#
You are immediately the party pooper who likes to talk about serious things
#
Or you are immediately the party pooper who calls out the men
#
And takes everything they say too seriously
#
So we are all complicit
#
I don't think this is a burden just on men
#
I think all men and women we have all to some extent been complicit in this rampant sexism
#
Because we just haven't made the effort to call it out
#
So Shruti I have a question for you following up from this
#
But before we go to that question let's take a quick commercial break
#
And guys remember we need you to spread the word about podcasting
#
It's one of the most important things you can do to help us out
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Let your friends know if there's a podcast episode that you like that you think that they would like
#
Please please please do spread the word
#
And with that let's continue on with your show
#
Welcome back to The Scene in the Unseen
#
My guest today is Shruti Rajgopalan
#
And we are talking about criminal economics and how incentives change
#
Particularly in context of a column that she wrote
#
About criminal economics in the context of Me Too
#
So my question for you Shruti is
#
That one you pointed out how both men and women are oblivious of their sexism
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And tend to minimize the suffering of women
#
And two you pointed out more disturbingly how the culture of victim blaming is rampant to the extent
#
That someone can even ask you ki aapne apne kaar ka khirki niche kyu kiya
#
So my question to you is and maybe this is selection bias playing
#
Because I've been so engrossed in what's happening on social media in Me Too
#
But which is in really elite English speaking circles like the one I inhabit
#
So maybe I'm being too optimistic here
#
But do you think that some of this is changing now because of the Me Too movement
#
You know like from what little I have noticed in my limited circles
#
That now it is far more likely that when anybody resorts to victim blaming
#
That he is likely to be shouted down by ten people, both men and women
#
And that there's a little less of the minimizing
#
I mean you won't find so many people saying anymore
#
Why did it take you so many years to speak out
#
So yes, so you're right that the Me Too movement has definitely changed the incentives
#
In particular the costs of reporting, right
#
And they go back to the topics we've just been talking about
#
Which is solidarity and victim shaming
#
So the Me Too movement, I mean most people are saying this is just an urban thing
#
But you know on the other side there are all these Google maps floating around
#
Where the Me Too movement is being quite uniformly across India being Googled in the last few years
#
There's a gorgeous map where India just lights up like it's on fire while Googling the Me Too movement
#
So people are definitely paying attention
#
People are looking at what it is
#
And the wonderful thing about social media is that it reduces to three different kinds of costs
#
So one is the cost of reporting on social media is much lower
#
Right than going to a police station writing an FIR and dealing with the whole thing
#
And then a newspaper may or may not cover it
#
Social media you have a much more direct and wide range reach
#
The second cost that has lowered is coordination
#
One of the things that has come up about this MJ Akbar story is he's a serial sexual predator
#
Apparently everyone knew about it but no one talked about it
#
And nor were the victims ever in a position to coordinate and compare notes
#
And now when social media has helped them coordinate with each other
#
I don't know if you've read these accounts
#
They all sound so eerily similar
#
It's like the same thing happened over and over and over again
#
And the victims have changed
#
And the victims just never knew each other and weren't in a position to get together
#
Because coordination costs in the real world are very high
#
So the Me Too movement has also reduced coordination costs
#
Third, the Me Too movement has reduced the cost of impartial third parties to participate in a low cost way
#
So a retweet is extremely low cost
#
But if thousands of us retweet what's been happening with one of these serial sexual predators
#
Immediately you bring more attention
#
And retweet is much lower cost than raising the conversation at the dinner table or the workplace
#
Or at a political rally or something like that
#
But it also manages to spread a lot of information
#
So the cost for third parties to participate and provide solidarity, provide publicity have reduced
#
Now because the first three costs have reduced for the victims and the third party or impartial spectators
#
Now the costs have increased for the perpetrators
#
Because immediately earlier when a woman would tell a story, either people around her would shush her
#
And tell her not to tell anybody
#
Or even if she made an effort to reach out and tell a few people, it's a few people
#
Now you are being shamed on social media, being retweeted thousands of times
#
It gets picked up by mainstream press
#
People at your workplace and your families and your children are going to hear about it
#
So suddenly the costs of being a sexual perpetrator are mounting
#
And there's the additional aspect of social trust
#
I mean there's still a lot of victim blaming and things like that and not believing victims' first person accounts
#
But we found that usually some of the very bogus claims have been immediately rejected
#
We know of one or two instances like this where an account was created yesterday
#
And they made a random allegation against someone and no one really believed it and blew it up
#
Whereas the people who we always knew were sexual predators as a society
#
There are multiple accounts, people now genuinely believe them
#
Mainstream media is actually using social media accounts and publishing it in newspapers
#
As if 100 people retweeting is the fact check for this particular case
#
So those are some really wonderful things and this kind of social exposure will definitely impose greater costs
#
The other part of the internet is it doesn't forget
#
So the costs are very long term
#
Anytime anyone Googles MJ Akbar's name or Sajid Khan's name from now until eternity
#
This stuff is going to pop up
#
So you can't, it's not as fickle as memory of regular people in society
#
And all of this in fact is illustrated by what just happened to MJ Akbar
#
I should point out that we are recording this on October 18th
#
And it'll probably, the episode will broadcast 10 days from now
#
But as of 18th, yesterday MJ Akbar resigned
#
And I think initially he refused to resign and he filed a criminal defamation case against Priyaramani
#
Because he must have made the assumption that oh it's just one person and I will intimidate her
#
And there'll be a chilling effect
#
I mean there were a bunch of people at the time but he thought that's where it ends
#
But instead he fell for what is called the Barbara Streisand effect
#
That if you try to stop something from happening on social media you only end up amplifying it
#
And what basically happened was that the moment he filed the case on Priya
#
A whole bunch of other women came forward and said look either the same thing happened to them
#
Or they were witnesses to it and they were going to stand by her side
#
And this included some really senior formidable women as Priya herself is
#
It included people like Minal Bagheel and Tushita Patel
#
And you don't mess with those people
#
And Akbar eventually got the memo and he had to step down
#
And at the time of recording we don't know what will happen to the case
#
But what again happened there was that after the first person had the courage to put her story forward
#
There were all these other women who realised that yes this is a pattern
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And yes I am validated and it's not just me and I can also speak up now
#
And that led to a cascade of people speaking up which made it something unstoppable
#
And just seeing this pattern of behaviour being described by multiple credible women
#
Was almost more powerful than any kind of evidence you would need
#
You know it becomes obvious to anyone who is reading it that yes this stuff has happened
#
And not only are women far more likely to speak up when they see others speaking up
#
But earlier your social sanction was relatively low
#
But what we have seen now in this MeToo movement which gives me so much hope is that
#
You have had a minister stepping down
#
You have had a variety of people getting sacked from where they worked
#
In most cases before the enquiry against them was even complete
#
Before the due process even played out these guys just got sacked
#
And to me it seems as if that changes the incentives completely
#
Well it does and it doesn't and I will tell you in what context
#
So it changes the incentives for certain kinds of perpetrators and certain kinds of victims
#
So it has definitely changed the game for serial perpetrators
#
So anyone who like MJ Appa or Sajid Khan
#
People who just have a reputation for notoriously preying on women one after the other
#
Because all the credibility that is coming to these stories is the credibility of a large number of women coming together
#
So one problem is social media is still not a great place to sift out the singular allegation
#
Right? That single crime because the opportunity presented itself or someone was inebriated or something like that
#
And social media is not a very good place to sort that out
#
Because what ends up happening on social media is oh this is a he said she said case
#
Okay then and we only believe cases where it's he said and then she said she said she said she said she said she said she said
#
So this is one particular kind of problem so I agree with you that for the worst offenders things have definitely changed
#
The second is there are not not every victim is in a position that Priya is in
#
Right Priya is an incredibly brave woman with and I read her husband's account
#
It's an incredibly supportive husband and family quite clearly
#
She has a powering reputation within among journalists and you know generally within the media circles
#
And she has a particular kind of credibility that has been earned over a few decades and that takes time to earn
#
Right when you talk about girls just starting out you know the most vulnerable victims we must remember this happened to Priya 25 years ago
#
And at that time no one would have believed the Priya who was 25 years younger
#
And even today there are so many people who are just at the start of their career and people simply don't believe them
#
Because they don't bring that kind of network credibility that has been earned over a long period of time
#
And if social credibility is the only way we're going to sift through sexual assault cases it's unfortunately not a very good place
#
No but Shruti for example before we started recording sorry to interrupt you
#
Before we started recording I jokingly mentioned to you this place called Happy Creative Agencies or something like that
#
I think it's an arm of Dentsu where four senior guys have got sacked
#
And if I'm not mistaken most of the complaints were from young people about harassment who are like the Priya Ramani of 25 years ago would have been
#
They were also not taking on an M.J. Akbar
#
That's the part I want to explain right so Priya Ramani is a towering presence who can take on a minister in the union government
#
Now let's scale that down smaller
#
What about a woman what about someone who's a district collector upper caste male in a village and is preying on lower caste women
#
How is this going to play out?
#
These women have mobile phones now the literacy is improving and because literacy is improving there is greater reporting of sexual assault cases in India
#
Because they have social media and access to mobile phones and they watch news they know what's going on in the MeToo movement
#
But how are they going to use the MeToo movement to expose this guy?
#
It's not so clear to me
#
By the way again I don't want to delegitimize the MeToo movement
#
I just want to point out that this is not an equal platform for all types of people and it is not an equal platform for all types of offenses
#
It is a platform where the people who have greatest media exposure are going to have the biggest fall right
#
So those sexual predators who are at the highest levels of society and have been hiding in plain sight will have the greatest fall
#
But there are a lot of sexual predators who are in a position of power that the English speaking press is not going to report on them
#
Or even the vernacular press is not going to report on them because the power structure in that particular society is quite complicated
#
And the victims in that society people will simply not believe
#
This is another problem with the way the police stations are structured
#
Police stations have very few lower caste people and virtually no lower caste women working there
#
And most victims of sexual assault in rural areas are Dalit women
#
So now go back to our conversation about solidarity, support, believability, their credibility in a particular reporting environment
#
Those women have none of these wonderful benefits coming to them
#
Even though they want to be part of the social media MeToo movement
#
It is not so clear to me that the benefits extend to them
#
At least not in the same equal way
#
So before we move on to that subject and move away from the MeToo movement
#
When it comes to the MeToo movement we are probably talking past each other and saying the same thing
#
Because I am not saying that it is a panacea and it is going to solve everything
#
I just think that it shifts the probability slightly
#
It is not that every woman is going to report crimes against her
#
But it makes it slightly more likely
#
And obviously this is much more true in elite circles and circles where women don't have access to social media and technology and so on
#
And secondly to go back to even the earlier point where you made the point that
#
It is something where we will see the effect for serial predators who have a pattern of behaviour
#
And we won't see it so much for what some people call the bad date gone wrong kind of situation
#
I disagree there again because what happens in some of those smaller cases where men don't recognize boundaries
#
Is that there is a tendency among many men when they are dating to ignore a woman's discomfort
#
Where she doesn't have to say no but she is uncomfortable
#
But they will ignore it as for example in the Aziz Ansari case
#
Because they just want to get away with as much as they can
#
And I think the incentives now shift towards them being more cognisant of a woman's discomfort even when she doesn't overtly say no
#
And I think that is kind of a good thing
#
I agree but I will put in a couple of caveats
#
When I talk to women specially those who have been talking about bad experiences
#
When you ask them why you didn't report it before
#
Because most of the women I know are in circumstances of very high levels of privilege
#
The first thing they say is I didn't want to hurt my parents
#
It would have broken my dad's heart
#
So many victims of sexual assault still want to remain anonymous even within the Me Too movement
#
Not because they are lying
#
In part because they will be socially shamed
#
But the one group that they don't want finding out about this incident is their parents
#
Because it would kill their parents to find out that their child had been through this trauma
#
So that's the caveat I want to add
#
I agree that it has shifted incentives
#
I agree that now men in positions of power have to sit up and take notice
#
I agree that specially among the men you and I know
#
We have a lot of friends in common
#
There is an ongoing conversation about hey have I been behaving appropriately?
#
Did I make anyone uncomfortable?
#
Are the jokes I am making truly funny or are they sexist and making the women around me uncomfortable?
#
So I agree with you, there is definitely a recognition of that
#
But the society we live in has not changed
#
And a lot of the social pressures of the relationships between parents and their children
#
Or the relationship between...
#
There is one more little thing I want to add
#
Most women don't report sexual assault especially in privileged circumstances
#
Also because the moment we do it that's all we'll ever be known for
#
And that's a genuine fear
#
I want to be known as an economist working in this field and having published that paper
#
I don't want the first Google article about me always to be about
#
How I complained about some sexual predator in a particular circumstance
#
And it always becomes about that
#
Just like the male sexual predators if we Google them
#
We're always going to know that oh this guy did something shady in the past
#
The same is true for the victim also
#
Every time you Google any one of these courageous women's names
#
I don't think it's their wonderful journalism that's going to pop up in the top hits
#
It's going to be this particular instance of them against MJ Akbar or them against Sajid Khan or something else
#
They will be known for a very singular event that they may not want to be reminded of
#
And they frankly don't want to be known for that
#
So I want to add these caveats
#
Not because I think men aren't changing
#
But just because social media reduces particular kinds of costs
#
Doesn't mean that we are now radically in a different world
#
I know that's not what you're saying
#
But I just want to add that caveat
#
Because I think we're all caught up in a wonderful cultural moment
#
And I think it's useful to understand the limitations of that cultural moment
#
No, that's a great point
#
But just to clarify what I was saying
#
I absolutely don't want to minimize all the social pressures and costs that a woman bears
#
The only point I'm making is that earlier if a woman
#
Especially in elite circles was say 1% likely to report something
#
That 1% might have gone up to 1.5%
#
Which is still incredibly low because of the huge amount of pressures
#
And it's not 100% but it's still 50% more than what it was before
#
Absolutely and the reporting gets magnified now
#
The 1.5% will get retweeted a thousand times
#
And people will take notice and they'll say things like
#
I can't believe that guy did that
#
I can't believe we have a sexual predator hiding in plain sight
#
I can't believe I went to that party with him
#
I know so many people right now who are having that moment
#
I can't believe I invited this person to my home
#
Or spent time with his family or this one I've played with his children
#
This is a moment that is really catching up with all of us
#
It definitely makes us sit up and take notice
#
And I think the longer term the consequences are the better it is
#
One fear I have is which is now reducing with each passing day
#
The fear I had two weeks ago was this will all blow over
#
Why? Because the new cycle is so fickle
#
Something comes up today we make a big deal about it
#
And two weeks later we have gone back to making Rahul Gandhi jokes
#
Or something like that like everyone just forgets
#
But the longer term the consequences are the better
#
So I saw this wonderful I think it was a press release or something
#
By 10 or 12 female directors who said they will not work with any of the proven sexual offenders
#
That's a really clean stand
#
It doesn't matter whether you're a hairdresser or whether you're a director or an actor
#
Or a casting agent we are simply not going to work with you
#
And that is the kind of long term and the really high cost economic consequence we need
#
We need these people to be sacked
#
We need their awards and invitations to be rescinded
#
We need some very long term effects
#
I would love if publishers start dropping the book deals
#
Of all the people who have been accused who happen to be writers
#
Right? Bollywood is already dropping
#
I think two directors have been dropped from projects
#
And their names have been removed and things like that
#
That's the signal we need to send
#
Not only that we believe the women
#
But that we will not just do like a fake inquiry internally
#
There are some real long term economic costs associated with this action
#
There definitely are for example the Mami Film Festival
#
Which would have started by the time you listen to this episode
#
But is now a week away and which I'm very excited about
#
Has dropped films by Rajat Kapoor and All India Bakchod after what happened
#
And you know just going back to that press release by those 12 women directors or whatever
#
I thought it was great but I thought where are the 12 male directors saying the same thing
#
That would also, this is not a fight that women alone have to fight
#
No actually it's the opposite
#
It's the fight where women need men the most
#
No matter what we say about how empowered we are and how wonderful the Mito movement is
#
In most industries the men occupy the highest
#
Sort of areas or levels of power
#
And economic power and social status
#
And until the men just come out and unilaterally call this out and distance themselves
#
It's not going to work because what will happen is
#
The female directors won't work with these people but there are only 12
#
Versus the 300 male directors
#
So these men may, the sexual predators may still find employment in these
#
Bro dude clubs and green rooms where it's okay to have behaved badly
#
So I completely agree with you it's not just a women's movement
#
And frankly the women need the men more than ever before
#
Because so many of the decisions are taken by men
#
And we need men to take a very clean stance on this
#
Even when it's their closest friends and family members and coworkers
#
And impose some kind of distance
#
They should be social pariahs
#
Absolutely I couldn't agree more and you know we saw some of it
#
I mean definitely the Mito movement has ended careers but again has ended careers of
#
Some elite men in some context where women found the courage and the means to complain
#
But like you said it's not widespread enough
#
So shifting from Mito for the moment to just a wider criminal justice system
#
And to the field of criminal economics for example
#
You've just pointed out for example
#
Let's not talk about English speaking elites anymore
#
But if you just look at the rape reporting rates in the country or the conviction rates and so on
#
What are the sort of insights that you'd get from the work of someone like Becker
#
In terms of how can the criminal justice system be structured differently
#
To make more of a positive impact
#
So you know this is now speaking only about the criminal justice system
#
There are three parts to it
#
One is the process of reporting
#
The second is the process of the actual trial
#
And the third is the result of the trial which is the lack of conviction right
#
And I think on all three areas India is extremely poor and has been getting worse
#
And Becker tells us how to fix this problem
#
So if you remember after the horrible Nirbhya event
#
You know there was this huge amount of public outrage
#
And how did we channelize that public outrage
#
All the people called for death penalty for gang rapists
#
So that is only fixing one part of the Gary Becker equation
#
Which is increase the punishment so high that it acts as a deterrent
#
But that's really hard to do in a state where there is very weak capacity
#
And there are very low conviction rates
#
And also sorry for interrupting you
#
But would you agree that giving the death penalty for a rape is actually an incentive to murder
#
Because then the criminal after committing a rape might think that
#
You know might as well kill her because the penalty is the same
#
And there is less chance of getting caught if I kill her
#
Yes so that's one problem on the margin
#
Perpetrator is better off being a rapist plus murderer
#
Than simply a rapist because the punishment is the same
#
The second problem is the evidentiary burden is higher when we are giving someone the death penalty
#
So because you absolutely don't want any false positives in a death penalty situation
#
And that imposes an additional burden on the victim
#
So that is not what we want
#
What we want is to fix the other part of the Gary Becker equation
#
Which is the probability of facing the cost or the probability of actually facing the legal punishment
#
So how do we improve that probability?
#
We need to fix all three parts of the structure
#
Which is the reporting structure, the trial structure, the conviction rate
#
And how do we fix that?
#
The first part of it is just state capacity
#
India has about 130 policemen for every 100,000 people
#
I've only lived in two countries, India and the United States
#
The United States has about 300
#
So we have less than half of the number of policemen per 100,000 people than most other countries
#
So this is a really big problem because our police have a terrible reputation
#
But we must understand that they're also terribly constrained
#
They don't have budgets, they don't have resources and frankly they simply don't have the manpower
#
So our police force needs to increase like two-fold or three-fold
#
If we want the reporting procedure to be simpler
#
So that's the number one thing
#
The other part of making the reporting procedure more at ease is
#
Again, the moment you have manpower you can also have greater division of labor and specialization
#
Within each police station and then maybe if you're not that severely resource constrained
#
You could have someone who just deals with cases of sexual assault and violence
#
Or cases where the victims are minors or something like that
#
So that is the number one thing
#
And this just requires a very large amount of concerted political action
#
Right now the political class is just not interested in expanding the resources given to the police
#
And really empowering the police
#
Why? Because the more police is in their control
#
And the lesser victims of crime have opportunities in the regular criminal justice system
#
The greater is the status and the power of the politicians
#
Because now for everything you need to go to the politician instead of going to the police
#
So there's actually a very perverse incentive structure
#
The other part of it is most politicians are criminals
#
In fact, if you read Millenvesh's wonderful book
#
He talks about the incentives for criminals becoming politicians
#
Which means they really don't want a functional police
#
And they want the police to be under their control
#
So the second part of making reporting easier is
#
We need to remove police from state level control
#
And make it municipal or local level
#
I think that would make a really big difference
#
So you can have a state level police force
#
But we also need like a local level police force
#
Which can much better deal with local circumstances
#
And also have local representation
#
Women within the community may feel better if one of them is at the police station
#
And we see this a lot with the Panjayati Raj
#
So those districts where women became the sarpanj
#
Immediately the kinds of public goods
#
Tilted a little bit more in favor of the kinds of things that women need
#
Such as water or like you know closeness to the closest water resource
#
So I think this is something that we need to think about structurally
#
The second part is the process of the trial
#
And then the conviction rate
#
So the process of the trial you know India has these ridiculous pendency rates
#
They are worse than ever before
#
And one of the things that stops the victims from complaining is
#
You need to relive this for the next 8 years or 10 years
#
And that's just at the district court level
#
And then if the perpetrator appeals even if you get a conviction
#
You need to relive it again in the high court and again in the supreme court
#
So light is nowhere visible or it's at the end of a very very long tunnel
#
And the second part of the problem is that your life is kind of put on hold
#
Just having to relive this problem over and over and over again
#
So the number one thing that victims of sexual assault need is
#
You need a really quick and speedy trial
#
Right and it's not that victims of other crimes don't need that
#
But I think it's really particularly imperative to provide that to victims of sexual assault
#
Now anytime these things come up the government typically says
#
We'll create these fast track courts
#
Fast track is so much that they don't follow proper procedure
#
So even when they do get a conviction everything is reversed at the high court and the supreme court level
#
So we don't need fast track courts
#
We need our current courts to function better
#
India has about a tenth of the judges that developed countries have
#
So for a hundred thousand people I think India has about twelve judges or something like that
#
And where I live right now the United States has about a hundred and fifteen or a hundred and twenty
#
So it's literally tenfold
#
The aim may not be to reach American standards
#
But the aim could be to go reach halfway there
#
And so we need at least a fivefold increase in judges
#
If not a tenfold increase in judges
#
Population has exploded
#
Reporting of crimes has increased over the years
#
But the number of judges and the court structure remains exactly the same
#
You had a couple of wonderful episodes on this
#
Where you guys talked about the actual structure of the courts and how the dates are assigned
#
And how slow that process is
#
And how that really needs to change in India
#
So those are the kinds of structural things that are going to reduce the cost for the victim
#
And increase the cost for the perpetrator because it increases the chances of conviction
#
The third part of it is the actual conviction rate
#
And this depends on evidence
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In India we don't have good method
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So first of all when and now I'm going to talk only about rape not sexual assault
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The moment there is a rape we don't have a very good procedure for collecting evidence and creating a rape kit
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The moment victims actually go to the police station first of all so often they just sent home
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And they say why don't you sleep on it and come back and report the crime in three days
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Well in three days all the biological evidence is lost
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You need to record marks on the body or any kind of other DNA material that might have been left behind
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Everything is washed away when you ask victims to wait three four days
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Or you send victims away when they're reporting a crime
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Or government hospitals are so overcrowded that are you going to save lives or are you going to make a rape kit
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So the conviction depends so much on evidence and our evidence collection
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And the way we handle it for a decade long trial is so poor that virtually there is no hope
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There is no hope of getting a conviction unless you've had 20 witnesses
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And most rapes don't happen with 20 witnesses
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Unfortunately many of them do in rural India where upper caste men just think they can strip and rape a Dalit woman in the middle of the village
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But most rapes don't take place like that
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Which means most rapes you don't have photographic evidence, you don't have physical evidence
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So the conviction rate is so strongly linked to that
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And we need a bigger infrastructure of public goods and services which is dedicated to this
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So absent these three things I think it's very difficult to improve the probability of getting caught and convicted
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That's a really big problem
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The additional part associated with the cost on the perpetrator
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Now of course a really long trial also hurts the perpetrator because it's a long trial, there's legal fees
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But on the other hand it also absorbs the perpetrator a little bit
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Most men within the community or at the workplace are like yeah this is going to take 10 years
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We can't suspend him for 10 years
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So the moment the perpetrator gets bail or something they go back to work
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And that is not the outcome that we want
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So if there is a swift procedure it both protects the perpetrators who are false positives and have been wrongly accused
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But it also improves the chances of a social shaming system around it
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Because you know there's media attention, we can focus on something for six months
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We can't focus on something for 10 years
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So even their social system, the workplace, their friends, their family, their alumni network
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No one has the stamina to hold that in their mind for 10 years
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And I think that's a really big problem of social costs being imposed on the perpetrators because of this
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But that I would say is how we should interpret Gary Becker's big insight
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We need to improve the probability of getting caught
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Which means addressing all these different various aspects of reporting the actual trial and the conviction rate and the appeals process
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Such that perpetrators think twice on the margin when they commit a crime
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So let me just sort of try and summarize a very depressing picture that you painted
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The first thing that you pointed out was that look, there are two things you typically address when you talk about the cost of a crime
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One is a punishment and the other is the probability of getting punished
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Now as far as the quantum of punishment is concerned, India is not really much worse than most other developed countries
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And that's absolutely fine, we don't need to do anything there
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The problem there is the probability of getting punished which is very low on three different margins
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One is reporting rates are extremely low and the only thing that can solve this is higher state capacity
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Like you pointed out, India has about 130 policemen per 100,000 people
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This is much less than half of say the USA which is more than 300, we need to increase state capacity
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What this would also do is that this would allow division of labor
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And within each police station even if policemen remain largely misogynist
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Therefore reflecting our culture itself, you can still have women's cells within each police station
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Where women might feel more comfortable to go and to be able to report and they might even be better trained
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The second margin besides the reporting, the second area is the trial
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Where you pointed out that cases can drag on for 10 years or more and the only way around this again is
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Expanding state capacity, having more judges who can act faster
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Again we did have an episode on this and that will be linked on the episode page of this
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Very deep problem, same kind of solution
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And the third is the conviction rates are very low which is partly because cases drag on for so long
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It's partly because the police of which there are so few are already so overworked
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That they don't go through the proper procedures, they're not trained to go through the procedures
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Evidence is often not taken and when it is taken, it's just lost or it degrades over time in different ways
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You know, the common solution to this entire mess would seem to be just increased state capacity
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As long as the rule of law is concerned but like you pointed out that requires political will
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And the incentives for that are not good either
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Yes, so having painted this terribly dismal picture, I do have some glimmers of hope, right?
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Now, you and I have had this conversation many times before that whenever the state has weak capacity
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And hasn't provided the public goods we need, the private sector steps in, right?
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Now, criminal justice is one of the areas where that's very difficult
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Private sector can't easily step in but there are margins on which it can, right?
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If you observe now, so many places have security cameras
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The probability of getting caught privately, right?
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By the security officer of the building or the mall or the workplace is much higher
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That is a big deterrent to crime, just the fact that there are video cameras everywhere at the workplace
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So I know that is again a privilege of the rich people who work in the formal sector
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But it's a really good start, right?
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The second is, now post-Vishakh, every firm in the formal sector was supposed to create a procedure
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And a committee to deal with sexual harassment and sexual assault
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Now, the good thing about these committees is the standards for fair procedure are much lower than a criminal trial
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And I say that that's a good thing because I don't want the state to relax the standards
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I think it's a terrible idea to create fast-track courts that compromise due process and things like that
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But the state has a particular kind of monopoly over violence and that we want to keep these checks and balances on the state
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But I am much less worried if there is a false positive at a workplace, right?
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It's a he said she said and they believed her and there's a false positive and someone was wrongfully accused
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Fair enough, I think it's a terrible thing, but it is not as terrible as when state courts do it
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It's not seven years in jail
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Exactly, which means I am a little bit more comfortable on the margin with relaxing those standards
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And second, I'm a little bit more optimistic about the results of that kind of procedure
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Now, what's the consequence? You get fired, right? And you lose reputation
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Now, that's a terrible thing if you're an innocent person
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And while it's a terrible thing if you're an innocent person, it is still not as terrible as going to prison
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But it's a wonderful thing if you're a woman in a workplace with not much power within the power structure of society
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And don't have the emotional, financial or political connections to go through the entire criminal justice system process for 10, 12, 15 years to get a conviction
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So I think swift delivery of justice, even if there are some false positives
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I'm comfortable with as long as these are decentralized versions of the procedure, right?
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Not at the government level, but at the workplace level at the association level
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And again, there will be competition, right? All of these things are trial and error process
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If there are some people who have gone too much on the other side and there are too many false positives
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Men will think twice before they work at such a place
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So what I mean is that I think this decentralized system is much quicker because of the trial and error process
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And second, the justice is swift, the consequences are immediate and sometimes can also be long term
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There are real economic consequences and I think that is the answer to this very dismal picture that I paint at the state level
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The problem with that answer is most of India works in the informal sector
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And we've got to fix that and bring more of India's informal sector into the light so that all women can have this protection of an internal committee process
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I agree with that and beyond just the workplace context, if I might segue back to MeToo for a moment
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What you've seen in MeToo since it broke is that none of these people have yet been legally punished
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The legal system hasn't even come into play
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What is instead happening is that social sanctions have become swifter and more severe
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A lot of people have been sacked, a lot of people have had their careers ruined and thank goodness for that
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And the way I saw a lot of it play out the MeToo movement and it's very fascinating to me as someone who's thought about the subject of spontaneous order
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Is that this is spontaneous order in action
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The MeToo movement wasn't centrally planned from anywhere
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It kind of arose organically and there were different kinds of ebbs and flows and within the movement you had different people who gained credibility over a period of time
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And it's still playing out in real time which is really fascinating and maybe a subject for us to talk about or write about at a different point in time
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I think I've taken a lot of your time today, Shruti
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So before I sign off, any final words on the lessons of criminal economics for the state of women in India?
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I think the lessons are we need to impose a higher cost, a higher expected cost
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Which means we either improve the probability that the cost will be faced for the actual cost
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The probability can be increased either by social shaming and shunning, reporting on social media, MeToo movement or actually making the criminal justice system better
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These are all available options for reform
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And the social cost can be improved by both legal mechanisms in terms of what is the actual punishment for sexual assault
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But also what is the social punishment for sexual assault which is getting dropped from projects and losing your job and losing association membership and so on and so forth
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So I think there is much to do on both these sides
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The wonderful thing is this has started happening
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But I think the MeToo movement really, all of us need to be in it for the long haul
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This can't be just a cultural moment where we are fascinated by everything that's happening every single day
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And we're all in shock and awe that these predators existed in plain sight or that it's all cracking open right now
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That's sort of what's happening right now
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The big thing we need is every firm, every building, every school, every temple trust, everybody needs to create some internal procedures so that we can actually prevent this in the future
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The sad part of the MeToo movement is that there are this many victims and we are still at the tip of the iceberg
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So in the future we've got to stop having so many victims and that is possible only if we change the incentives both in terms of probability of facing some kind of sanction and the actual sanctions
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Shruti, that's a great note to end on
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Thanks so much for your time
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Thanks so much for having me Amit
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