This thesis investigates the relation between legal institutions, strengthening of legal rights and criminal behaviour in India with a focus on the gender gap in access and welfare. In Chapter 1 I provide an overview of the determinants of violence against women in India using micro-level data. In Chapter 2 I investigate how strengthening women’s legal rights affects women’s position within the household. I find that following the amendments to the major inheritance law in India reported and self-reported violence against women fell. This result is explained by an improvement in husbands’ behaviour and in marriage market negotiations. Finally, in Chapter 3 of this thesis, I analyse the implications of missing women on overall crime and on violence against women by investigating the relationship between uneven sex ratio and illegal behaviour. Using district-level information of age-specific sex ratios, I estimate the effect of a surplus of males at crime and marriage prone-ages on violence against women, general violence, acquisitive crime and aggregate gender-specific juvenile delinquency. I find a negative relation between sex ratio of the crime-prone age cohorts and violence against women.