Part 1: What does the NCRB report tell us about the State of Crime in India?﻿
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 13, 2019
The NCRB
report is the primary source of state level crime data. In a two-part series,
we take a deeper look at the numbers from the NCRB’s 2017 Crime in India report
to understand the real picture.
National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB)’s annual Crime in India (CII) report not only provides numbers with respect to various crimes at a national level, but also provides these statistics at the state level. In fact, the numbers reported in this report are a consolidation of the data received from the States and UTs. A closer look at the various crimes reported at state-level would help in understanding the state of affairs and trends.
Hereis an analysis of the numbers from the Crime
in India Report-2017  about the stateof crimes across different states & UTs of India.
Kerala
has the highest number of reported crimes followed by Uttar Pradesh and
Maharashtra
For the year 2017, Kerala reported a total of 6,53,500 cognizable crimes, which is the highest among Indian States/UTs. Uttar Pradesh ranks second with 6,00,082 reported crimes. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh make up the top-5 in terms of states that reported the greatest number of cognizable crimes. It has to be noted that these numbers include crimes committed as per the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and other Special Acts & Local Laws (SLL).
Evenin the year 2016, Kerala recorded the highest number of cognizable crimes 7,07,870followed by Uttar Pradesh with 4,94,025 cases and Tamil Nadu with 4,67,369.
Reported
Crime Rate is highest in Delhi, followed by Kerala.
Crimerate measures the incidence of crime per one lakh of population. The NCRBreport uses the population estimates for 2017 on the basis of 2001 Census forthis calculation.
Among the States/UTs in India, Delhi has the highest crime rate as per NCRB data with 1050 reported instances of crime per one lakh population. Kerala, which has the highest number of crimes reported, has the second highest crime rate with 656 in 2017. Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana complete the list of top 5 states with the highest reported crime rate in India. However, the crime rates in these states is significantly lower than that of Delhi and Kerala. In general, lower population and the higher number of recorded crimes contribute towards a higher crime rate in these two states of Delhi & Kerala.
Conversely,Uttar Pradesh, which has the second highest number of recorded crimes in 2017,stands among the states with one of lower recorded crime rate with 139. Among thestates Nagaland has the least recorded crime rate with only 44 crimes per onelakh population.
Majority
of the crimes are reported are under SLL (Special and Local Laws) in Kerala
WhileKerala has the highest reported cases, it does not rank first when it comes tocases booked under the IPC (Indian Penal Code). Nearly 64% of the casesregistered i.e. 4,17,654 in Kerala in 2017 are under SLL (Special and LocalLaws).
Asper the Criminal
Procedure Code, crimes are classified into Cognizable andNon-Cognizable Crimes. Cognizable crimes are those which do not require anorder from magistrate, and which requires the police to take immediate actionon receipt of complaint or information. These cognizable crimes either fallunder Indian
Penal Code(IPC) like Crime against body, crime against property,sexual offences etc. or under Special
and Local Laws (SLL) like Arms Act, 1959; Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961;Information Technology Act 2000 etc.
UttarPradesh (UP) has the highest number of cases recorded under IPC for the year2017 with 3,10,084 cases which make up nearly 52% of the total cases registeredin UP.  Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh arenext in line in terms of the highest number of cases under IPC with 2,88,879and 2,68,512 respectively, followed by Kerala.  Both Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have alarge proportion of the cases registered under IPC with 62% and 76%respectively unlike in Kerala where 64% of the cases were registered under SLL.
Otherstates which have a larger share of crimes under IPC out of the totalregistered crimes include Delhi (95%), Assam (95%), Telangana (89%), AndhraPradesh (89%), West Bengal (83%), Odisha (80%), Karnataka (79%), Bihar (76%)etc.
As noted before, Kerala has the highest number of cases booked under SLL with 4,17,654 cases. Tamil Nadu with 57.5%, Gujarat with 61.5% and Haryana with 56% are the other states which have a higher proportion of total cases registered under SLL.
Uttar
Pradesh, Bihar & West Bengal among the states with the highest recorded
incidents of Violent Crimes in 2017
Apart from the overall data of the crimes in India,NCRB data provides further details in respect to the types of crimes committed.Violent crimes are a key category in view of the grave nature of such crimes aswell as the prominence accorded to them in news reporting and the impression onthe public memory.
As per NCRB Data, Violent Crimes include crimes such as – Murder, Culpable Homicide not amounting tomurder, Dowry Deaths, Attempt to Commit Murder, Grievous Hurt, Rape, Riotingetc.
Uttar Pradesh has reported the highest number of violentcrimes in 2017 with 64,450. Bihar has the next highest number of recordedviolent crimes with 50,700 followed by West Bengal with 48,609.  Maharashtra has a total of 40,010 recorded violentcrimes in 2017.
Assam and Madhya Pradesh are other states which havea high number of violent crimes recorded with 25,875 and 27.591 respectively.  Kerala which has the highest number ofrecorded crimes reported 13,315 violent crimes i.e. 2% of the total crimesrecorded in the state.
If one counts the proportion of violent crimes ofthe total number of reported crimes in a state, nearly 25% of the crimesrecorded in West Bengal are violent crimes. Bihar with 21.5% and Assam with23.5% are the other states which not only have a high volume of violent crimesbut also a higher proportion of violent crimes. Violent crimes in UttarPradesh, while being the highest in country constitute around 11% of the totalcrimes committed in the state.
Tamil Nadu, which has the fourth highest number oftotal crimes, reported 10,358 crimes under the category of violent crimes whichconstitutes approximately 2.5% of the total crimes in the states.
Gujarat, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana &Madhya Pradesh are among the other states which have a higher number of overallrecorded crimes but a lesser proportion of violent crimes with 3.1%, 5.5%, 5.6%,5.7%, 5.8% and 7.3% respectively.
What
does the NCRB Crime data tell us & not tell us?
Theoverall crime figures point out that states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu,Maharashtra etc. which are considered to be among the more developed states inIndia are also among the states with higher number of crimes. On the otherhand, the likes of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, known to be among the lesserdeveloped states have relatively lesser number of crimes and a much lessercrime rate as per NCRB records.
However,as we dwell deeper into the different types of crimes, we see that thedeveloped states have lesser crimes under IPC and much lesser number of violentcrimes with states like Bihar and UP reporting a greater number of violentcrimes.
This necessitates the need to explore the data further rather than being restricted to the overall number of crimes reported, to be able to understand the issue better. We have in an earlier story,  highlighted the inconsistency between the NCRB data & Home Ministry data regarding communal incidents especially in view of its dependence on crime being reported and FIRs being filed. In the second part of this series on NCRB’s CII report 2017, we explore other categories of crimes that may offer insights into and help us draw a better picture of the state of crime and crime reporting in India, beyond just the overall numbers.
Featured Image:Crime in India