NCRB on 3rd December released its 2022 report on crime in India which covers overall crimes and also has specific data about crimes against women, SCs, STs, cyber crimes, road accidents, etc. With a total of 58,24,946 cognizable crimes comprising 35,61,379 Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes and 22,63,567 Special & Local Laws (SLL) crimes being registered. This was a 4.5% decrease in the crime rate or crimes reported from 2021.

However, in spite of the said decrease in the crime rate or the crimes reported and registered, one city has once again come in the spotlight because of this report but it’s for all the wrong reasons. Delhi has somehow managed to gain the spotlight back on it be it for being called one of the most unsafe cities for women or for topping the occupancy rates in prisons in the entire country or for having the highest number of road crash fatalities in the country, the list simply continues.

These are all the things about Delhi in the NCRB reports 2022:

1) One of the most unsafe cities for women- Delhi accounted for 29.04% of the 48,755 crimes against women reported in 19 major cities across the country which averages to almost 3 rapes in a day, making it one of the most unsafe city in the country with 14,158 crimes against women being reported in the year which is a slight increase from 2021. This translates to almost 186.9 crimes against women per 100,000 people.

Delhi is, however, not the most unsafe city for women. Jaipur was the most unsafe city in India, with a rate of 239.3 crimes against women. The Rajasthan capital reported 3,479 crimes against women.

2) Tops crowded prison list- After the release of the report, Delhi has now overtaken states such as Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh in respect of having the most overcrowded prisons in the state. With an occupancy of 18,497 inmates lodged in space meant for 10,026, Delhi’s prison occupancy rate stood at 184.5% followed by Uttarakhand’s 183.3% which has 6,858 inmates against a capacity of 3,741 and Uttar Pradesh’s 179.9% where 1,21,609 are incarcerated despite space for 67,600 as on December 31, 2022.

This data means that Delhi has overtaken Uttarakhand and UP which were the top 2 states with the highest prison occupancy in 2021. It must also be noted that most of the criminals in prisons in Delhi have been arrested for either rape or muder.

3) Crimes against Senior Citizens in the national capital- When we look at crimes against senior citizens in Delhi, it turns out that cheating and theft are the top 2 crimes against them. The NCRB report shows 1,313 cases were reported in 2022 compared to 1,166 in 2021 and 906 in 2020. Out of these 1,313 crimes reported, 627 pertained to theft and 136 to cheating. Other than this, there were 22 cases where senior citizens were murdered and 14 incidents of assault on elderly women with intent to outrage her modesty.

4) Road crash fatalities- According to the NCRB reports, Delhi has also topped the list of most road crash fatalities with 2,103 people losing their lives in the national capital. As per the 'Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2022' report, Delhi reported the highest number of road accidents in the country, totaling 5,387, and documented 1,412 fatalities resulting from severe road accidents.

A significant majority of road accident fatalities in 53 megacities, including Delhi, resulted from over-speeding (51.5%), followed by dangerous or careless driving/over-taking (31.3%), and driving under the influence of drugs/alcohol (2.7%), according to the report.

In 2022, a total of 68,236 road accidents were reported in 53 cities across the country. These accidents resulted in 57,246 injuries and claimed the lives of 17,680 people, as indicated by the data. The data also showed that road accidents dominated the accidental deaths with road accidents constituting 97.3% of all accidents.

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