NCRB Report : All You Need To Know

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released its annual report on crime in India for the year 2022. The report is a compilation of data on reported crime from across...

Ruby Thakur
December 5, 2023
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The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released its annual report on crime in India for the year 2022. The report is a compilation of data on reported crime from across the country, and provides the big picture of broad trends in crime registration. Reports by the NCRB, which functions under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, include statistics on offences ranging from crimes against women to economic and financial crimes.

NCRB Report : All You Need To Know

Why In News

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released its annual report on crime in India for the year 2022.
The report is a compilation of data on reported crime from across the country, and provides the big picture of broad trends in crime registration.
Reports by the NCRB, which functions under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, include statistics on offences ranging from crimes against women to economic and financial crimes.

How The Data For NCRB Reports Compiled

The NCRB was established in January 1986 as a body mandated to compile and keep records of data on crime.
It also acts as a “national warehouse” for the fingerprint records of Indian and foreign criminals, and assists in locating interstate criminals through fingerprint search.
For the NCRB’s flagship annual Crime in India reports, information is obtained from the police forces of 36 states and Union Territories.

Similar data are furnished for 53 cities with populations exceeding 10 lakh each as per the 2011 Census, by respective state-level crime records bureaus.
The information is entered by state/UT police at the level of the local police station, and is validated at the levels of the district and state, and finally, by the NCRB.

What Does The 2022 NCRB Report Say

The data cover overall crimes, and separately note crimes against women, Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), cyber crimes, etc. Here are some takeaways from the latest report:
In 2022, a “total of 58,24,946 cognizable crimes comprising 35,61,379 Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes and 22,63,567 Special & Local Laws (SLL) crimes were registered”.

This was a decline of 4.5% in the registration of cases over the second pandemic year, 2021.
The crime rate, or crimes registered per lakh population, has declined from 445.9 in 2021 to 422.2 in 2022. This is seen as a better indicator, since absolute numbers on crime increase as the population increases.
4,45,256 cases of crime against women were registered in 2022. This was an increase of 4% over the 2021 numbers.

The largest share of crimes against women under IPC sections was registered under ‘Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives’ (31.4%), followed by ‘Kidnapping & Abduction of Women’ (19.2%), and ‘Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty’ (18.7%).
Reporting of cyber crime increased significantly by 24.4 percentage points compared to 2021, to 65,893 cases.

Around 64.8% of registered cases were of fraud, followed by extortion (5.5%), and sexual exploitation (5.2%).An increase of 4.2% was observed in suicides reported during 2022 (1,70,924 suicides) as compared to 2021.

‘Family Problems (other than marriage-related problems)’ (31.7%), ‘Marriage Related Problems’ (4.8%) and ‘Illness’ (18.4%) have together accounted for 54.9% of total suicides in the country during the year 2022. The overall male-to-female ratio of suicide victims was 71.8:28.2.
According to the latest NCRB report, 57,582 cases were registered in 2022 under crimes against Scheduled Castes (SCs) — a spike of 13.1 percent from 2021, when 50,900 such cases were reported.

Issue With Data

The NCRB follows what is known as the ‘Principal Offence Rule’.
This means that among the many offences registered in a single FIR, the crime that attracts the most severe punishment is considered as the counting unit.

Thus, ‘Murder with Rape’ would be counted as ‘Murder’, not rape — which would result in an undercounting of the crime of rape.
Also, since the NCRB report is only a compilation of data submitted at the local level, inefficiencies or gaps in data at that level have an impact on the accuracy of the report. A report in The Indian Express made this point earlier through the example of a farmer suicide.

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Ruby Thakur

General Studies Lecturer SSBCrackExams, BSc In PCM, Trained Students For State Services Exams. Expertise in Geography ,Polity & Current Affairs. Love Travelling.