State presence and increased trust: evidence from the pacifying police unit on violence against women

Millions of people around the world live under the rule of criminal organizations. In Rio de Janeiro, more than 3 million live in areas dominated by criminal organizations. Fighting crime depends on reports, which in turn depend on the presence of public services and trust in public security agents. Specifically, gender-based violence is a type of violence that needs even more reports to be combated, since in most cases the perpetrator is known and almost half of these crimes occur inside the home. This paper assesses the impact of an increase in state presence driven by a public security program — the Pacifying Police Unit, introduced in 2008 in Rio de Janeiro — on reports of violence against women. We use a differences-in-differences strategy and compare reporting between slums that were part of the program and those that were not, before and after its implementation. I find that the program significantly reduced underreporting, especially right after it began.