The Nirbhaya incident in 2012 brought infamy to Delhi as an unsafe place for women. Even after five years, data indicates that Delhi continues to report the most number of cases of crime against women for every lakh women. It is the only state, along with Assam, that has reported more than 100 crimes against women for every lakh women, in each of the years from 2014 to 2016.
Only Three States Report More Than 30,000 Crimes Against Women
In 2016, a total of 3.52 lakh crimes were reported against women. This is about 20,000 more than the number of crimes reported in 2015. Uttar Pradesh reported the most number of crimes (48,757), followed by West Bengal, and Maharashtra, respectively.
Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are the only two states that have reported more than 30,000 crimes against women in each of the years from 2014 to 2016. A total of six states reported more than 20,000 crimes each in 2016, while 14 states reported more than 10,000 crimes each.
The six states of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Assam accounted for 55 percent of all the crimes reported against women, while together, they account for 47 percent of the total female population in the country. Of all the states with more than a crore of female population, Punjab reported the least number of crimes against women.
Uttar Pradesh Has the Best Conviction Rate of the Bigger States
Conviction rate is defined as the percentage of cases that resulted in conviction, out of the number of cases whose trial was completed in a particular year. In terms of conviction rate in cases of crime against women, some of the north-eastern states are way ahead of the rest of the states. Mizoram has reported a conviction rate of more than 75 percent in each for 2014, 2015 and 2016, the best for any state.
Of the bigger states with more than 50 lakh female population, Uttar Pradesh reported a conviction rate of more than 50 percent consistently. Uttarakhand, which was previously part of Uttar Pradesh, also reported more than 40 percent conviction rate on a consistent basis.
The conviction rate in both these states is more than twice the national average conviction rate. Of the states that reported more than 10,000 cases of crime against women, both Karnataka and West Bengal reported a conviction rate of less than five percent in 2016, the lowest for such states.
Delhi Continues to Report the Most Crimes Against Women for Every Lakh Women
If the number of cases of crime against women is normalised with the female population, Delhi continues to report the most number of crime against women for every one lakh women.
While the national average stands at 60 crimes per lakh women in 2016, Delhi reported more than thrice this number at 197 crimes per lakh women. In 2015, Delhi reported more than 200 crimes per lakh women, the only such instance till date. Only Delhi and Assam have consistently reported more than 100 crimes against women per lakh women in each of the last three years.
(This article was originally published in Factly.)
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