The ‘State Capacity & Access to Justice’ webinar series is housed within IDFC Institute’s Access to Justice initiative. The series endeavours to showcase research and innovations that enhance the state’s capacity to deliver a more equitable and accessible form of justice. The second session of the series, held on 22 April, featured Dr Beatrice Jauregui, Associate Professor, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto. Dr Jauregui discussed Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion within the Police in India. Based on her extensive ethnographic research, she presented the historical contours of police reform in India. Dr Jauregui particularly delved into the nature of internal working conditions for field-level police and its impact on their capacity to deliver services. The conversation sought to address the central question, ‘what would it mean to have a truly inclusive and equitable movement for police reform in India today?’
Dr Beatrice Jauregui is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto. She specialises in the anthropology of policing and the military. Her book Provisional Authority: Police, Order, and Security in India is an ethnography of everyday police practices in northern India. She has also co-edited the Handbook of Global Policing and Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency. She teaches courses on Policing; Human Rights and Security; Gender, Sex, and Crime; and Qualitative Research Methods. She is generally interested in historical transformations of security actors and institutions as cultural figures.