NCRB Crime in India 2020 Report

Table of Contents

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)- Relevance for UPSC Exam

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NCRB Crime in India 2020 Report- Context

According to the recently released National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, overall crime numbers in the country increased by 28 percent in 2020 over the non-pandemic year 2019.
However, this increase has been largely attributed to crimes registered for Covid-19 violations as other crimes actually decreased in 2020 compared to 2019.
- According to the home ministry, people violating the Centre’s guidelines on Covid containment were supposed to be booked under IPC Section 188 and Disaster Management Act.

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NCRB Crime in India 2020 Report- Key Findings

Increase in Overall Crime Case Registration: Overall crime registration in India increased by 14,45,127 (28%) cases over 2019 (51,56,158 cases).
- The NCRB Report recorded 66,01,285 cognizable crimes comprising 42,54,356 Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes and 23,46,929 Special and Local Laws crimes.
Increased Crime Rate: The crime rate (the number of cases registered per one lakh population) increased from 385.5 in 2019 to 487.8 in 2020.
Increase in Caste-based crimes:
- Crimes against Scheduled Castes: showed an increase of 9.4%.
- Crime against Scheduled Tribes: Showed an increase of 9.3% over 2019.
Decline in Crime Against Women: There was an 8.30% decline in cases of crime against women.
- A majority of the cases were related to “cruelty by husband or his relatives” (30.0%), followed by “assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty” (23.0%), “kidnapping & abduction of women” (16.8%) and “rape” (7.5%).
- Crime Rate against women: The crime rate registered per lakh women population is 56.5 in 2020 in comparison with 62.3 in 2019.
Decline in Crimes by Juveniles: A total of 29,768 cases were registered against juveniles during 2020, showing a decrease of 7.8%.
Murder registered a marginal increase of 1 percent while offenses in the category of “Violent Crimes” decreased by 0.5 percent.
Increased rate of Charge-sheet filing: In nearly 26.12 lakh cases, charge sheets were filed, resulting in a charge-sheeting rate of 75.8%, an increase by 12.50% compared to 2019.
- The States reporting high charge-sheeting rates under IPC crimes were Gujarat (97.1%), Kerala (94.9%), and Tamil Nadu (91.7%).
COVID-19 led Lockdown Effect: due to covid led lockdown in India last year, cases of crime against women, children and senior citizens, theft, burglary, robbery and dacoity declined.
Decline in overall registered Economic Offenses: showing a decrease of 12%.
- Decline of 27% in cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act from 4,244 to 3,100 cases.
- Increased Cybercrimes: with 50,035 cases, cybercrimes recorded an 11.80% increase.
Decline in Cases of Human Trafficking: declined from 2,208 to 1,714 cases.
- The number of missing persons decreased by 15%. A 19.80% dip in children who were reported missing in 2020, compared to 2019.
Increase in Environment-related offenses: The year 2020 saw a 78.1 percent increase in Environment Related Offences compared to 2019.

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National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)- Key Points

About NCRB: It is a government agency, established in 1986, for collecting and analyzing crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special and Local Laws (SLL).
- Headquarter: New Delhi, India
Parent Ministry: It functions under the administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Key Functions of the NCRB: The following are the key functions of the NCRB-
- To Create, lead, and coordinate the development of IT applications for Police.
- To Collate information and maintain statistics on crime and criminals at the national level.
- Creation and maintenance of Database at the National level for law enforcement agencies.
- To coordinate, guide and assist the functioning of the State Crime Records Bureaux, along with, providing training facilities to personnel of the Crime Records bureaux
- To function as the National storehouse of fingerprint (FP) records of convicted persons including FP records of foreign criminals
- To keep the central and state governments updated with the official records and findings related to any case.
- Maintain a national database of fingerprints of all criminals in India.