THE statistics related to crime play a pivotal but subterranean role in the common man’s understanding of criminal behaviour, criminal trends and gaps in the criminal justice system, which includes both the investigative and judicial process. Therefore, it is necessary to examine how statistics relating to crimes are collated and why they are collated in that fashion, as the presentation of these statistics plays a major role in influencing debates on crime and punishment.

In the Indian context the Crime Records Bureau performs this important role. The National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB), which is situated in Delhi, is responsible for the collation and compilation of criminal statistics for the country. In this role the NCRB is supported by the district and state level Crime Records Bureaus in the country.

The process of collation of criminal statistics begins from the level of the police stations. The NCRB has a very comprehensive proforma for the collection of data related to crimes. However, an essential aspect of the NCRB data is that it is based on an FIR (First Information Report). These data collection proformas cover all aspects relating to a criminal case post the filing of a FIR and also tracks its progress through both the investigative and trial stages, including plea bargains, disposals, convictions, acquittals and settlements where it is allowed under criminal law in specific cases. All this data is collated by each police station, which in turn sends it to their District Crimes Record Bureau and the District Crimes Record Bureau collates the data of all police stations under its jurisdiction and sends it to the State Crimes Record Bureau for a similar exercise at the state level. Finally, the records of all the states and union territories reach the NCRB and are put together to form the national level statistics for crime in India.

The collated data is published on an annual basis by the NCRB through its publication titled Crimes in India, which is also accessable on the web portal of the NCRB. This report is a public document and can be used by a variety of persons/institutions including the government, criminologists, academicians among others, to study, review and revise policies, laws and programmes related to crimes and criminal behaviour. Moreover, this data is equally used by the police to design its strategies, action plans, deployment of personnel, assessment of geographic locations related to crimes etc in its day-to-day management of law and order concerns.

However, the role of the NCRB is not merely limited to the collation of the national level data on crimes in India but also to analyse this collated data for crime trends, so that a better and deeper understanding of the occurrence of crime and the mechanisms of response can be developed. At times, the government may also ask the NCRB to provide recommendations while considering an aspect of the criminal justice system, policies and criminal laws for revision, improvement or expansion.

 

In this context, it has to be understood that the criminal statistics are collated at two levels, one showcasing the total number of crimes in the country and second, at the disaggregated level for each offence. For example, take the infamous Nirbhaya case of Delhi. If this is registered primarily as a case of rape and attempted murder, invoking Sections 376 for rape and 302 for murder in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), it gets reported for the national figure of crime under murder. This is so because the collation of criminal data at this level is complied on the grounds of the highest offence, in terms of the maximum punishment, which in this case is under the offence of murder and not rape. However, in the detailed disaggregated reporting on the grounds of each offence, the case would also figure under rape statistics.

This form of representation of data is also important as in many criminal cases the incidence of crime would likely invoke more than one penal section with investigation, charges and sentencing for each of the offences. To explain my point, say there is an incidence of dacoity in which all the victims are badly beaten up and the female victim is also raped, the case would then primarily be of dacoity and accounted for under that head in the compilation of data for the total figures of crime in India, but it would also get reported under the data collected for the specific sections on grievous bodily hurt and rape.

 

Thus, if one was to analyse the data on rape in India, one will find two levels of data on the basis of criminal provisions related to rape. There would be a reporting of rape under the IPC section on rape (Sc. 376), which would cover all rapes in the country including rape of minors and a separate reporting of rape of minors under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act) sections as well. This would immediately reveal, for example, the percentage of child sexual abuse cases from the entire sexual abuse cases in the country.

In an overview of rape statistics from the NCRB it can be seen that since 2012, reported rape cases climbed approximately 60% to 38,947 in 2016, with child rape (19,765) accounting for about 40%. The conviction rate of people arrested for rape remains only 25%. The National Crime Records Bureau data shows that the backlog of rape cases pending trial stood at more than 133,000 by the end of 2016, up from about 100,000 in 2012. In each year during that period, about 85% of the total rape cases being heard remained pending.

Though the segregation of offences by criminal sections is not the only form of disaggregated data that NCRB collates, it looks at many other factors as well, which are very important in developing an understanding of issues related to crimes and criminal behaviour. For instance, in the case of sexual assaults, the 2016 National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data on the proximity of offenders to victims shows that in 94.6% of all rape cases, the offender knew the victim. For example, 27% of rapes were committed by neighbours, 22% involved a promise of marriage and 9% were committed by immediate family members and relatives. The data further stated that at least 2% of all rape cases involved live-in partners or husbands (former partners or separated husbands – rape within marriage is not recorded), 1.6% were committed by employers or co-workers and 33% were committed by other known persons.

 

Particularly in the cases of rape, the number of rape cases in any country is generally proportional to its population. That is why the incidence is taken as per 1,00,000 population for purposes of study. According to UN crime trend statistics, in 2013 UK (36.44) had the highest incidence of rapes followed by USA (35.85) and Brazil (24.44). For India the figure was 5.7. In absolute terms, USA had the maximum rapes (1,13,695) followed by Brazil (49,929) and India (33,707).¹ Thus, though we have the third largest number of reported rape cases, we also know that there is a far greater number of rape and sexual assault cases that go unreported. By one estimate, the number of unreported or unregistered cases is as huge as 70%. Therefore, sexual assault and rape, more often than not, is not reported because of the stigma attached to it and collusion of familial, social power structures, shame and dependency specially for minor children. For the same reasons the conviction rates are poor as victims compromise due to familial pressure or threats by the accused.

In April 2018, in the wake of the outrage following cases of gang rape and murder of minors – an eight-year-old at Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir, a teenager in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, where a legislator was accused of committing rape and the local police tried to downplay the offence till she threatened to commit suicide, an 11-year-old in Surat and another 11-year-old in Manipur who was gang raped and then burnt – an ordinance to strengthen the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act was enacted by the government by introducing the death penalty into its provisions for the offence of rape or gang rape of a minor below 12 years of age.

To understand how the stringent provisions of imprisonment for life and death are likely to impact the incidence of this crime, we must take into account the complex scenario as noticed from available and constantly generated data.

The death penalty alone will not go far in deterring people from attacking children; it is the expeditious investigation, trial and disposal of appeals that needs to be improved to bring in meaningful change in the incidence of crime. Furthermore, without any discernible improvement in our understanding of the crime, post the introduction of the death penalty, the methodology of the collection and collation of crime statistics will remain the same as before.

 

Footnote:

1. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/countries-with-the-most-rape-cases/articleshow/63897729.cms