NCRB's Crime Data Needs a Comprehensive Overhaul

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) published its annual report on Crime in India for the calendar year 2023 on 29 September 2025. While this article does not provide an analysis of the crime statistics provided in the report, it aims to highlight the expectations of citizens and crime analysts regarding the production and quality of data. It also seeks to suggest improvements in NCRB’s methodology and the gaps that have emerged over time, which warrant urgent attention. Crime in India, much like other areas, has been evolving; newer types of crime have emerged with the transformation in the country’s demographic volume and characteristics. Therefore, data production must keep pace with changes in both the frequency and nature of crime.

The release of the 2023 annual report has taken an inordinately long time, extending beyond 20 months.

The primary issue persists within the timeline of NCRB’s lead annual publication, ‘Crime in India’. In the past years, the NCRB has typically released this report in the year that follows. However, the release of the 2023 annual report has taken an inordinately long time, extending beyond 20 months. The reason the government offered for the delay on the Parliament floor was due to the time-intensive nature of data validation by NCRB. However, by its own admission, NCRB is involved only in data collection and collation. The disclaimer to the report reiterates that the data on crime is an aggregation of reports submitted by the police of 36 states and union territories, as well as the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) and Central Police Organisations (CPO). The report furnishes data in the proformas prescribed by NCRB, through a software application developed by the same organisation. The data collection process begins shortly after the end of each calendar year. Once collected, the NCRB presents the data in a format that facilitates public understanding and appreciation of the information. The NCRB takes no responsibility for the authenticity of the data, presuming that the police organisations have compiled it within their domain with efficiency and reasonable accuracy. Given the availability of internal software and already established proformas used by police organisations across the country, the job of the NCRB should be relatively uncomplicated and not too delayed, ensuring that the data remains relevant. It would be ideal if the NCRB took stock of the situation and set a firm date by which it would annually release the report. 

Second, the NCRB must eschew the ‘Principal Offence Rule’ (POR). POR essentially means that in cases where multiple crimes are reported together in a single First Information Report (FIR), the NCRB will count only the most heinous of the crimes. For example, suppose an FIR combines a murder, rape, and robbery in a house, the report will ignore the latter two and only account for murder, thereby counting three crimes committed as one, substantially reducing the total incidence of crime. In harsh terminology, this could be interpreted as ‘definitional burking of crime’. The over-simplification of complex wrongdoings could mislead policymakers about specific types of crime trends, thereby impacting crime policies. The multiple disadvantages arising from POR, including numerical reduction, oversimplification of the kinds of harm caused, social and legal distortions in crime analysis, and resulting policy deficits, emphatically highlight that this consciously adopted practice creates a serious lacuna in data accuracy.  

NCRB data, despite being the country’s most comprehensive set of crime statistics, is entirely secondary, a mere compilation of statistics on crime as supplied by the nationwide police organisations.

Third is the question regarding data authenticity. NCRB data, despite being the country’s most comprehensive set of crime statistics, is entirely secondary, a mere compilation of statistics on crime as supplied by the nationwide police organisations. The NCRB cautions against the data, disclaiming any responsibility for its authenticity. Unlike the United States (US) Bureau of Justice Statistics, its primary statistical agency’s annual ‘National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)’, NCRB does not independently authenticate any data by conducting its own primary research. The NCVS collects data from a nationally representative sample comprising approximately 240,000 persons, covering around 150,000 households. The NCRB does not undertake any such survey. Consequently, data reliability is a pressing issue. It is also widely acknowledged that many police officers in charge of police stations are known to practice what is called the ‘burking of crime,’ a term indicating the practice of not registering an FIR on a committed crime, despite having been reported. This enables the local police to present a rosier picture of crime volume and crime rates—essentially, lower rates—in their jurisdiction than the real on-ground situation. There is, therefore, a clear need to establish a parallel mechanism for independent sample surveys regarding crime.    

Fourth, the NCRB admits that the gravity or nature of the crime does not receive any weightage and that it counts all crimes alike. This is likely to lead to a highly simplistic appreciation of crime in a state or a city, resulting in an inaccurate conclusion about territories where the volume of petty crime may be greater than in another state or city, despite the latter having a comparatively low total crime rate, but a high number of serious crimes. A more nuanced approach to judging crime would be a valuable improvement. Crimes could be categorised according to their severity, with greater numerical weights assigned to offences based on their seriousness. This would allow for a more accurate and fair comparison of different crimes.

The fifth area that requires much greater attention is the collection of separate data on all urban areas in the country. In 1963, the NCRB had separate data on cities with a population of more than eight million. In 1993, NCRB released a chapter on urban crime reporting across 19 urban agglomerations with populations above two million. In its latest report, the chapter on metropolitan cities continues to report on 19 urban agglomerations. However, additional tables in the report do have crime data on 34 metropolitan cities and a further set of additional tables on what is titled ‘Miscellaneous Mega Cities’, offering data on 53 metropolitan cities. Even this appears inadequate, as India currently has 77 police commissionerates across the country that have independent administrative jurisdictions in the larger urban settlements. 

There is, therefore, a clear need to establish a parallel mechanism for independent sample surveys regarding crime.    

Additionally, the urban population now accounts for more than 36 percent of the national population. As India becomes increasingly urban in the coming decades, a greater emphasis on addressing crime in cities is desirable. This will allow us to assess the volume and variety of crimes emerging in cities and also afford a comparison between the nature of crime in rural areas and urban settlements. 

In his foreword, the Director of NCRB sums up the current national scenario regarding crime and the imperative to provide comprehensive crime data that can enable investigative agencies to analyse trends, patterns, and causes and devise effective crime-combating strategies. He further explains that the primary objective of the report—the principal reference document for crime statistics in the country—is also to enable social scientists, criminologists, and officials of the criminal justice system to engage in analytical research related to crime. As a key police organisation, it would be appropriate for the NCRB to shoulder part of this responsibility rather than merely restrict itself to the aggregation of crime statistics.

Ramanath Jha is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation

• Domestic Politics and Governance
• India
• crime in india ncrb
• crime in india ncrb report
• crime rate in india
• crime statistics
• national crime records bureau
• ncrb data
• principal offence rule

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