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Cover Photo: In the wake of school students dying in road accident, policemen help school children cross the road. (Credits: Praful Gangurde, Hindustan Times, 19 January 2010, Mumbai) Team Advisory Committee Sandeep Shastri Sanjay Kumar Suhas Palshikar Vipul Mudgal Analysis and report writing Research Support Ananya Singh Ankita Barthwal Dhananjay Kumar Singh Asmita Aasaavari Himanshu Bhattacharya Arushi Gupta Jyoti Mishra Radhika Jha Vibha Attri Shakeb Ayaz Shreyas Sardesai Vijay Prakash State Coordinators State Supervisors A. K. Verma Anita Agarwal Annapurna Nautiyal Kamal Srivastava Anupama Saxena Nidhi Seth Bhanu Parmar Nirmal Singh Biswajit Mohanty Nurul Hasan Dhruba Pratim Sharma Reetika Syal E. Venkatesu Shamshad Ansari Gyanaranjan Swain Umesh Bujji Harishwar Dayal Veena Devi Jagrup Singh Sekhon K.M. Sajad Ibrahim Kushal Pal M. Asmer Beg Mahashweta Jani Nitin Birmal P. Ramajayam Rakesh Ranjan Sanjay Lodha Sudhir Kumar Suprio Basu Yatindra Singh Sisodia Contents List of Tables 1 List of Figures 3 List of Abbreviations 6 Surveyed States 8 Acknowledgement 9 Introduction 10 Chapter 1: Let the Numbers Speak: Police Performance Review 14 Chapter 2: Experience with the Police 33 Chapter 3: Trust in Police 54 Chapter 4: People’s Perception of Discrimination by the Police 70 Chapter 5: Fear of Police and Attitudes towards its Excesses 90 Chapter 6: People’s Perception on Different Aspects of Policing 105 Chapter 7: Analysing CAG Audit Reports 124 Chapter 8: Conclusion 133 Appendix 1: Technical details of study design and sample 141 Appendix 2: Questionnaire 144 Appendix 3: Details of how the indices were constructed 154 Appendix 4: Details of state rankings 160 Appendix 5: State wise findings from the survey 171 Appendix 6a: Police performance review using official data 185 Appendix 6b: Police performance review using objective data 192 Appendix 7: States’ compliance with Supreme Court directives 201 Appendix 8: CAG Report on Modernisation of Police 205 List of Tables Table no. Title of the tables Page no. Table 1.1 Crime rate index 18 Table 1.2 Disposal of cases by police and courts index 22 Table 1.3 Police diversity Index 23 Table 1.4 Police infrastructure Index 24 Table 1.5 Prison data index 26 Table 1.6 Disposal of cases of crimes against SCs, STs, women and children Index 28 Table 1.7 Comparison of state performance 30 Table 2.1 Mode of police contact by caste 37 Table 2.2 Form of FIR registration by locality and gender 40 Table 2.3 Receipt of complaint/ FIR across localities and gender 41 Table 2.4 Poor Muslims and OBCs are most likely to have paid bribe on contacting the police 42 Table 2.5 State-wise ranking of responses about satisfaction with police help after having contacted it 43 Table 2.6 State-wise ranking of responses on incidence of crime 45 Table 2.7 State-wise perception on police’s investigation of crime 48 Table 2.8 Sense of safety among people at different times of the day 50 Table 2.9 Upper castes most vocal about greater police presence 51 Table 3.1 Trust in local police by state 56 Table 3.2 Trust in senior police by state 57 Table 3.3 Respondents in West Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand most willing to send their child to the 58 police station if need arises Table 3.4 Ranking of states in terms of trust in police 62 Table 3.5 Satisfaction with police performance and its impact on levels of trust in it 63 Table 3.6 Trust in police and its impact on satisfaction with its performance 63 Table 3.7 Ranking of states in terms of satisfaction with police performance 64 Table 3.8 Distrust levels highest for those who believe police intentionally implicates 65 Table 3.9 Perception of corruption and level of trust for local police 65 Table 3.10 Perception of corruption and level of trust for senior police officer 65 Table 3.11 Perception of corruption and level of trust for traffic police 65 Table 3.12 Satisfaction with police helps aid trust level 66 Table 3.13 Satisfaction with the help provided by police is positively related to willingness to approach 67 it again Table 3.14 Dissatisfaction in Muslims most in states with ‘very bad’ Muslim representation 68 Table 3.15 Poor representation of women in police leads to dissatisfaction with police among women 68 Table 4.1 State-wise opinion on caste-based discrimination by the police 74 Table 4.2 Perception of castes and communities on police impartiality in the event of a caste strife 75 Table 4.3 State-wise opinion on religious discrimination by the police 77 Table 4.4 State-wise opinion on gender discrimination by the police 80 Status of Policing in India Report 2018 | 1 Table 4.5 State-wise opinion on class-based discrimination 82 Table 4.6 State-wise opinion on state-based discrimination 84 Table 4.7 State-wise ranking based on overall perception of discrimination 86 Table 4.8 Opinion on false implication of marginalized communities by the police 86 Table 4.9 State-wise opinion on false implication of SCs in petty crimes 87 Table 4.10 State-wise opinion on false implication of tribals on Maoist charges 87 Table 4.11 State-wise opinion on false implication of Muslims in terrorism related cases 88 Table 5.1 People most fearful of being beaten up by the police 91 Table 5.2 State-wise responses about fear of police: Punjab is the most afraid 92 Table 5.3 Muslims most fearful where their numbers are low 94 Table 5.4 Fear highest when one believes police is highly discriminatory 96 Table 5.5 Relation between awareness and fear of police: fear increases with awareness 97 Table 5.6 SCs very fearful of police if 97 Table 5.7 Muslims who believe police falsely implicates their community in terror related cases are 97 most fearful of it Table 5.8 STs who believe police falsely implicates them are three times more likely to be highly 98 fearful of it than those who don’t Table 5.9 Highly fearful respondents most likely to have a negative perception of the police 98 Table 5.10 Fear increases the level of partiality people perceive in the police 98 Table 5.11 People afraid of the police are less likely to approach them 99 Table 5.12 Fear leads to a demand for lesser police presence 99 Table 5.13 State-wise arrangement of scores showing attitudes towards police violence 100 Table 5.14 Sympathy for police likely to influence attitudes towards police brutality 102 Table 5.15 People in Jharkhand are most aware about quite a few cases involving police violence 103 Table 6.1 Trust levels lowest for traffic police 106 Table 6.2 Senior police thought to be least corrupt 107 Table 6.3 Scheduled tribes most likely to hold a negative perception of the police 110 Table 6.4 Haryana and Himachal Pradesh have the most positive perception of police 111 Table 6.5 People with a negative perception of the police least likely to seek police help 111 Table 6.6 Extent of interference in the police’s functioning in one’s area 112 Table 6.7 State-rankings on the question of police independence 113 Table 6.8 Negative perception of police greatest among those who don’t see police as independent 113 Table 6.9 Sympathy for the police increases with improvement in the literacy levels of respondents 116 Table 6.10 Ranking of states on sympathy for police’s working conditions 117 Table 6.11 Perception depends on sympathy levels for police 118 Table 6.12 Responses to questions on women working in the police force 120 Table 6.13 Gender based responses on women working in the police force 120 Table 6.14 Overall favorability towards women in the police force 121 Table 6.15 Young women more favorable towards having women in police than older women 121 Table 6.16 State-wise favorability towards women in the police force 122 Table 6.17 Fear of social stigma and harassment biggest reason why women don’t approach the police 123 2 | Status of Policing in India Report 2018 List of Figures Figure no. Title of the figures Page no. Figure 1.1 Rate of total cognizable crime and rate of violent crime indices 20 Figure 1.2 Disposal of cases: Police and Court Indices 21 Figure 1.3 Percentage of Muslim prisoners vis-a-vis percentage Muslim population in the states 27 Figure 1.4 Disposal Indices 29 Figure 2.1 Over four in five respondents did not have any contact the police in recent past 34 Figure 2.2 Men are more likely to have contacted the police 35 Figure 2.3 The well-to-do reported greatest police contact 35 Figure 2.4 Those who are most educated report highest police contact 36 Figure 2.5 Muslims reported highest police contact 36 Figure 2.6 Mode of police contact 37 Figure 2.7 The poorest are nearly twice as likely to have been contacted by the police as the rich 37 Figure