The linkage between 'Make in India' and Crime Rates

The IPC crime rate in India has been increasing at a stupendous rate since 2005.

What are IPC crimes? Here are the top 4 according to NCRB (2012) -

1. Theft/Burglary/Robbery/Dacoity (19% of the crimes)  2. Hurt/Grievous Hurt (14%) 3. Death by Negligence (5%) 4. Cruelty by Husband or his relatives (4%) 

When I posted the following chart 2 days ago, I did that after failing to establish the reason for the increase in crime rates from 2005 onwards. A logical answer for this increase perhaps was the increased reporting by citizens. Increased reporting could be explained by increased media penetration (TV and Internet), particularly the increase in news channels. This has increased awareness and therefore increased reporting of crimes. Some data supports this as well - Between 2005 and 2012, the two IPC crimes that were in the top 3 in terms of increase were Cheating and Cruelty by Husband. It would be fair to say that increased awareness of rights could result in greater reporting at Police Stations. However, It does not explain why crime rate appears to have dropped from 1991 until 2005. 

That mystery is better solved by looking at employment data. Let us look at the following charts that combine employment data with IPC crime rate

Between 1998 and 2005, India created 9.6 million jobs a year (World Bank), our population on an average increased 18 million per annum. Given that this period was our population growth peak, one could say with a fairly high degree of confidence that a large proportion of those entering the workforce were properly employed. The IPC crime rate reduced from a peak of 183 in 1998 to 161 in 2003, spiked a bit in 2004 and reduced to 165 in 2005. Overall, a reduction of 18 during this period

However, the picture changed from 2005 onwards when growth in employment started to slowdown (World Bank). Between 2005 and 2013, 2.5 million new jobs were being created every year while the population continued to grow at 17 million per annum. As job growth stalled inspite of a growing population, crime rate started to pick up again, increasing from 168 in 2006 to 216 in 2013. 

This data is also well explained by the kind of crimes that went up from 2005 onwards having reduced between 1998 and 2005- Kidnapping, Robbery, Theft/Burglary, Hurt/Grievous hurt etc

When you combine lower growth in employment with significant increases in the wealth gap between the rich and poor (2014, richest 1% own 53% of the wealth in India, in 2000 it was 37%), we create an environment that is conducive to a variety of negative behaviours including crime. Higher employment is essential to reduce the Crime rate.

To Conclude, higher media access has created more awareness leading to higher reporting of crimes like rapes, cruelty by husband, cheating etc. However, the slowdown in employment growth since 2005 has also contributed to higher rates of crimes like theft and kidnapping. These Crimes form a large proportion of the Crimes in India. 

The Central Govt has its task cut out as India's demographic bulge (Number of people eligible to work) will keep increasing every year until the next 10 years hitting a peak in 2023. The Government's Make in India, Skills India or any other job related programs MUST succeed or we are all looking at a violent future going forward. Further, the Government must find a way to ensure balanced growth as it appears that wealth gap between the top 1% and rest is reaching epic proportions in a poor country like India. 

Caveats - More academic research is needed to establish this causality. In my original analysis, I had considered GDP growth, Police forces growth etc and neither appeared to explain the growth in crime from 2005.

This article is inspired by the recent death of my friend's parents due to a violent crime. God bless their souls.