Crime dipped, pending cases didn’t in 2024

INdia recorded 5.89 gazillion crimes in 2024, land 5.7% from 6.24 zillion in 2023, according to the law-breaking In republic of india report for 2024 released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Wednesday. The rate of crime per hundred thousand people in 2024 stood at 419, down from 448 in 2023 and the lowest since 2019, when this number was 385.Crimes recorded under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) – the new version of the IPC, which came into effect in the middle of 2024 – were responsible for most of the decline in total crimes. From the previous year, IPC/BNS crimes decreased by 0.22 million to 3.54 million in 2024. Crimes under special and local laws (SLL) decreased 0.14 million to 2.34 million.To be sure, chargesheeting rate and pendency with police as well as conviction in court remained similar to 2023 levels. Chargesheeting rate of IPC/BNS crimes decreased marginally: from 72.7% in 2023 to 72.1% in 2024. Pendency increased from 29.2% to 31.2%. Chargesheeting of SLL crimes rose marginally from 91.9% to 92.7%; but so did pendency: from 27.9% to 28.4%. Conviction rate of IPC and SLL crimes by courts was 53.3% and 79.3%, respectively, compared to 54% in 2023 and 78% in 2023.Which individual crimes were responsible the most for bringing down the overall number? This question is harder to answer in 2024 because India’s criminal laws changed mid-year and not all heads under BNS have a like-for-like comparison with 2023. Keeping to comparable numbers available from 2023 – they account for around 90% of the IPC/BNS crimes -- total IPC/BNS crimes have decreased by 80,557 to 3.28 million. Among the seven major heads of IPC/BNS crimes, the ones most responsible for the decline in the overall number for this category are “offences against the human body”, which declined by 188,777 to 909,006; “miscellaneous IPC crimes”, which declined by 97,657 to 733,480; and “offences against property”, which declined by 76,948 to 801,359.The overall number shows a relatively modest decline because these big reductions have been made up by a growth of 285,824 in “other IPC crimes” category, for which no breakup is available.Offences related to documents and property marks also increased, but by a modest number of 10,914 to 193,128, almost the entire growth coming because of “forgery, cheating and fraud”.Significant bodily offences (those with at least half a percent share in overall IPC/BNS crimes) that registered a decline in 2024 are murder, rape, kidnapping and abduction, and hurt. Murders declined 2.4% to 27,049; rape declined half a percent to 29,536; kidnapping and abduction declined 15.4% to 96,079; and hurt declined 30.6% to 441,996. Wrongful restraint/confinement, however, increased 56% to 50,881. Similarly, causing death by negligence increased 2.1% to 169,493.“Rash driving on public way” and “obstruction on public way” are the two biggest sub-heads under miscellaneous IPC/BNS crimes. Cases registered under the former decreased 17% to 435,173 and under the latter by 6.2% to 142,115.All four big sub-heads under property offences – theft, burglary, robbery, and criminal breach of trust – declined in 2024. Theft, which is the most common crime, among the four declined 9.8% to 621,945.Similarly, the number of robbery cases declined 13% to 23,145. However, the 107,532 burglary cases recorded in the year are only 41 fewer than in 2023. Criminal breach of trust cases decreased 6.6% to 21,251.SLL heads that contributed the most to the decline in this category (other than miscellaneous categories) are cases from laws related to liquor & narcotic drugs, environment and pollution, and arms/explosives, crimes against women, and children. Part of this is also because they are among the most common crimes. Liquor and drugs cases declined 2% to 1,239,554; environment and pollution cases declined 16% to 57,670; arms/explosives cases declined 13% to 67,571; crimes against women cases under SLL decreased 17.5% 15,117; and cases related to laws for children decreased 3.7% to 74,284.However, two other major SLL heads – IT/IP related laws; and finance and economic laws – recorded a growth. Cases under these increased 1.1% and 1.5%, respectively, to 46,840 and 23,262.Thematic data in the report shows that crimes against SCs and STs also declined. Crimes against SCs declined from 57,789 in 2023 to 55,698 in 2024. Crimes against STs declined from 12,960 in 2023 to 9,966 in 2024.On the other hand, cyber crimes continued to record big growth, although the rate slowed in 2024. 101,118 cyber crimes were recorded in 2024, up 17% in 2023. While this rate is big, it is somewhat lower than the 31% growth recorded in 2023 and 24% growth recorded in 2022.