Analysis of Changes in Patterns and Composition of Crimes
5.8 Crimes against Property
5.8.1 Robbery
Robbery belongs to the category of crimes against property .The importance of robbery may be understood from the fact that very often, it is considered as an index of the general level of crime in a place because the statistical data on robbery may be taken as more representative of the general crime trend as compared to other varieties of crimes against property such as theft or burglary which are of lower magnitude in terms of their severity and intimidating characteristics.The use of violence and threat resulting in physical injury and psychological trauma to the victims, apart from loss of property, induces the victim to report the matter to the police more frequently than other property crimes ( Mark Shaw et al 2003).
The IPC section 390 defines ―Robbery‖. Simply, robbery relates to the offence of theft of property where there are components of fear, physical violence or even threats of violence. In this kind of offence, perpetrators take away the property against the will of the possessor by the application of violence or intimidation. Thus in all robbery, there is either theft or extortion. . It is having ingredients of a property crime as well as that of crime of violence (Cook,1987,1983). The subject matter of robbery has been widely discussed in terms of modus operandi, execution and, its organisation. The robbery may be armed or unarmed and it may be committed on varied places like the highway, commercial places, dwellings, houses etc. It is particularly fear inspiring as it usually involves surprise attack by the perpetrators on the innocent victims. Very often high levels of such crimes is taken as an indicator of the illegal activities of well organized criminal gangs.
Figure 5.14
Share of Robbery in crime against Property
Source : Author‘s calculation on NCRB data 01
23 45 67 89 1011 1213 1415 1617 1819 20
Percentage
Y ear
Robber y
Share of robbery in the four main types of crimes against property has remained constant in the time period under discussion. This has been in the range of 2 to 5 per cent. However, the increase in this crime has been significant in the decade of 1990-2000 to the tune of 8% of property crimes after which the trend shows a little less share of robbery since 2003. Incidentally this decade has seen the entry and peak of terrorist violence. Maybe some of the cases had been related to the violent activities of terrorists though this requires separate in-depth study; otherwise there is no known cause to explain these spikes in the increased robbery rate. Other than the hike in the 1990s, the share of robbery to total property crimes has remained stable. The absolute numbers of robbery incidents have been showing some fluctuating trend on year to year basis till 1998 when it had the maximum number, up to 1082 cases, after which it shows a declining trend reaching 451 in 2005 which is almost comparable to the figure of 437 in 1974. There is a slow increase since 2005 and it reached 907 in 2012.
Figure 5.15
Crime rate of Robbery per 1,00,000 population
Source : Author‘s calculation on NCRB data 0.00
1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00
Crime rate per 100000 Population
Year
Robbery
The robbery rate in terms of per 100,000 population has also been showing a more or less constancy during the period till 1990, then like the absolute figure of robbery incidents the rate of robbery increased. However, since 2001, there has been a decline in the rate, eg. while the rate of robbery was 2.47 in 2001, it came down to 1.84 in 2003, and 1.58 in 2007, but it showed some increasing tendency since 2008 when it became 1.92 and in 2012 it had increased to 2.73.
Incidence of robbery has been showing different trends in different districts. In Cachar, number of robbery cases was 48 in 2000 and decreased to 21 in 2010. In Dhubri, number of robbery cases reported was 14 in 2000, but increased to 37 in 2010. The decreases were seen in districts like Dibrugarh (46 in 2000; 15 in 2010), Goalpara (22 in 200; 4 in 2010). Some of the districts like Karimganj showed almost unchanged or marginal changes in the occurrences of robbery in the last decade, eg. it was 9 in 2000, and decreased to 7 in 2010 in Karimganj, Sivsagar decreased in 32 in 2000 to 17 in 2010.
The descriptive statistics have been calculated for the entire period 1974-2012 and further it has been sub divided into smaller periods to have a better understanding of these statistics.
Table 5.17
Descriptive statistics of Robbery
Period 1974-1990 1991-2000 2001-2012 1974-2012
Mean 594 975 622 700
Max 1575 1082 907 1575
Min 390 741 451 390
St Deviation 276 131 140 262
Source : Author‘s calculation on NCRB data
Charge Sheet and conviction rates in robbery:
As in other crimes the experience of Assam in terms of charge sheeting robbery cases has not been a satisfactory one. The all India C.S percentage has been significantly higher than that of Assam. For example, the rates of filing charge sheets in Assam for the years 2010, 2011and 2012 had been 46.9, 53.7 and 49.5 in percentage while that of all India rates for the respective years had been 70.6, 69.2 and 70.7 in percentage. It is
interesting to note that from the middle of the last decade, the percentage in regards to C.S rates has been better and this is the period when the terrorist violence has been waning due to surrender of a number of members for different militant groups.
The picture in conviction rate is worse than that of C.S rates when one compares this with the all India picture. For example 2012 conviction rate in Assam robbery cases was 16.2, while in all India rate was 28.6. The percentage of Assam is relation to other states in this regard is also poor, eg. in 2012, the conviction rate for robbery cases in Tamilnadu (40.9), UP (53.7), Uttarakhand (62.8), and in neighbouring NE region states like Mizoram (66.7), Nagaland (80), Sikkim (66.7).
All these indicate that there is a need to improve the quality of investigation of such cases so that these result in conviction. It is seen that number of persons arrested has come down even when the number of cases registered has been more. For example, in 2010, 2011, & 2012 the number of persons arrested in robbery cases were 1094, 985, and 950 respectively as against the total numbers of robbery cases registered in the state, viz 662, 837, and 907 respectively. It is worthwhile to note that majority of the persons arrested in this crime belong to the age group of most productive group of people, eg. in 2012 out of the total 950 arrested persons 78.4 per cent belonged to the age group of 18-45 years. And 14 persons were under 18 years of age. However, it may be noted that robbery in the state has been a crime dominated by males since there is no arrested female robber as per the data available.
Places of Occurrence
If one looks at the robbery by places of occurrence, a similar picture like that of burglary emerges. Here also one can see a shift away from residential premises to commercial establishments and others which include banks, railways, boats and ship etc. This shift may be the result of the following factors: (a) Increased commercialization due to growth of liberal economy that has paved the way for establishment of market and shopping places. (b) Citizens are going in for more secured residential system with increased home security measures. (c) There is increased police presence in the form of patrolling, private security services etc. It is noted that urbanization and life-style types have significant effects on the incidence of robbery in the urban areas (Cao and Maume,1993). It is seen empirically that most of the cases of robbery is localised in specific areas with public and
business/commercial setting (Gyamfi 1998). It may be mentioned that some geographical areas provide greater opportunity for certain criminal activities than others. This spatial opportunities of crime is due to the conglomeration and movement of people, money, goods and services across places. This is the reason why the urban areas or business places become the targets for crimes like robbery. The composition of booty received during robbery has undergone some changes in recent times. Robberies of electronic and photographic equipment have started becoming common though portable electronics were stolen only half as compared to cash (Sethi et al 2009).
However, one can see that the highway robbery incidents also have come down, though marginally. This reduction may be attributed to the increased vigilance in the high way though one could have expected such crimes to increase with the extension of highway networks etc.
Source : Author‘s calculation on NCRB data