{"id":6045,"date":"2020-01-31T16:32:02","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T11:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=6045"},"modified":"2020-01-31T16:32:02","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T11:02:02","slug":"national-crime-records-bureau-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/national-crime-records-bureau-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"National Crime Records Bureau: Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Polity Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency &amp; accountability and institutional and other measures<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Context:<br \/>\n\u2022 Publications such as \u2018Crime in India\u2019 (CII), which is brought out annually by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), offer some hope that at least some people, including researchers and discerning citizens, will give up sweeping analyses and rest their case on a rational platform.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Formidable challenges:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Lackadaisical approach of some of the States in providing data:<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The first is the lackadaisical approach of some of the States in providing data.<br \/>\n\u2022 The NCRB merely assembles the figures it receives from the State police forces and does not tinker with them to reach a predetermined conclusion.<br \/>\n\u2022 It hits a roadblock when a few States either don\u2019t bother to send the figures or send them much after the volume is published.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #ff0000;\"><em><strong>Questions are raised over the utility of the data:<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The questions are raised over the utility of the data. There was a two-year delay in releasing the crime statistics for 2017. Just two months after it was published, the \u2018Crime in India\u2019 2018 report was released.<br \/>\n\u2022 These numbers are only relevant to researchers, not policymakers. It is strange that we see such delays in an age of computerisation, when we boast of efficient and swift online services.<br \/>\n\u2022 Part of the blame rests on State police agencies. It is intriguing why they cannot send preliminary figures to the NCRB by mid-January every year and fine-tune the figures a few months later.<br \/>\n\u2022 There is nothing sensational to report on what happened in 2018 on the crime front.<br \/>\n\u2022 A less than 2% increase in the total number of cases registered under major and minor laws may be comforting, but it does not carry us far in understanding what is happening on the ground.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #ff0000;\"><em><strong>Lies with the police and the public:<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The police are notorious the world over for not registering complaints. They do this so that they can present a false picture of a decline in crime.<br \/>\n\u2022 This pernicious practice is often encouraged by the top leadership.<br \/>\n\u2022 The public are also not very enthusiastic about reporting crimes to the police. They are fearful of being harassed at the police station or do not believe that the police are capable of solving the crime. This is a Catch-22 situation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #ff0000;\"><em><strong>Crimes difficult to bury:<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>However, the problem has declined slightly over the years due to public awareness and intense media scrutiny.<br \/>\n\u2022 There are a few classes of offences which are becoming increasingly difficult to bury. This is attributable to the extraordinary interest evinced by the media in reporting crime.<br \/>\n\u2022 The following cases of crime are becoming difficult to bury.<br \/>\n\u2022 The first category of crimes that is difficult to bury is of homicides.<br \/>\n\u2022 India reports an average of 30,000 murders every year (29,017 were registered in 2018). Every murder is a matter of distress.<br \/>\n\u2022 Nevertheless, the stabilisation of the figure at 30,000 is a mild assurance.<br \/>\n\u2022 The corresponding figure for the period in the U.S. was around 16,200.<br \/>\n\u2022 Though the U.S. has about one-third of India\u2019s population, the reported decline in murders in many major U.S cities is worth studying.<br \/>\n\u2022 The common man in India does not lag behind others in reacting strongly to attacks on hapless women and men.<br \/>\n\u2022 The growth of the visual media possibly explains this welcome feature in Indian society.<br \/>\n\u2022 The nationwide outrage over the gang-rape in Delhi and the subsequent tightening of laws on sexual crimes generated the hope that attacks against women would decrease.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>The issue of under-reporting:<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2018, there were 33,356 rapes, a higher number than the previous year. But these figures do not fully reflect realities on the ground.<br \/>\n\u2022 There is still the unverifiable suspicion that while in urban areas sexual violence cases are reasonably well-reported, the story is different in rural India.<br \/>\n\u2022 Money power and caste oppression are believed to play a significant role in under-reporting.<br \/>\n\u2022 What is more significant is that a substantial number of such crimes are committed by the \u2018friends\u2019 and families of victims.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #ff0000;\"><em><strong>Conclusion:<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To be fair to the NCRB, we must concede that the organisation has more than justified its existence. The CII is used extensively by researchers.<br \/>\n\u2022 Need for educating the people on realities of crime and its reporting: There is scope for more dynamism on the NCRB\u2019s part, especially in the area of educating the public on the realities of crime and its reporting.<br \/>\n\u2022 Greater pressure on the States to stick to a schedule: The NCRB will also have to be conscious of the expectation that it should bring greater pressure on States to make them stick to schedules and look upon this responsibility as a sacred national duty.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Polity Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-6045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-studies-ii","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6046,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions\/6046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}