Changing landscape shuffles crime trends

JAIPUR: As sand dunes and large patches of barren lands have turned into swanky, urbanized areas in Rajasthan over the past six-and-a-half decades, the crime scene has taken some interesting twists and turns.
TOI gathered crime statistics spanning from 1947 to 2014. Contrary to the genera perception that all types of crimes have increased, there are a few that have come down or remained more or less the same.It includes riots, dacoities and burglaries. Sociologists say that the primary reason behind the change in the crime scene is the shift in the nature of landscape from rural to urban. The number of dacoities considered to be a crime of rural areas has come down dramatically since the Independence, while the incidents of rapes ­ considered to be the vice of urbanization have gone up manifold.
Rajeev Gupta, former he ad of the department of sociology , RU, said that the study of crime trends in the state throws up some interesting facts. There had been 320 incidents of dacoities in 1947. A robbery committed by five or more persons is a dacoity as per the law. The number went down to 64 in 2014.
“Dacoity used to be a tribal or rural crime. The landscape in the state has changed.Now fast gratification in most areas in the state has led to growth in urbanization, so it's obvious that the dacoities have come down over the years,“ said Gupta.
One example of the impact of urbanization is the tremendous increase in the number of rapes. There is no official record of number of rapes that took place from 1947 to 1974. Just 164 rape cases were reported in 1975. The number of rapes that were reported in 2014 was 3,795.
“It is a great example how the change in sexual relations due to modernization has led to increase in the number of rape cases,“ said Gupta. Likewise, the number of murder cases went up from 421 in 1947 to 1,631 in 2014.“Murders can be linked to economic situations, sexual relations or family disintegration. Increasing level of unemployment results in such crimes. The increase in population is also a contributing factor,“ Gupta noted.

Another crime that has seen a jump is robbery . “As people aspire for more wealth than what they can legally acquire, they take to crimes like chain snatching and petty robberies,“ said Gupta.
The incidents of riots have come down. There was a time during the 90s when nearly 15,000 cases of riots were being reported on an average.It came down to 536 in 2014.