Here is a reality check on how safe is aam aadmi on Odisha’s roads. When around 85,000 - 90,000 new criminals were on the prowl during the year 2014, there were mere around 31,000 policemen, including District Armed Reserve Force (DARF) to guard against. The DARF is not supposed to maintain daily law and order problems. It’s no wonder then to see criminals feeling emboldened and the State registering around 172 IPC crimes per one lakh population.
The data available with the State police is somewhat a shocker. last year police have arrested as many as over 1 lakh criminals under various IPC sections but the shocking information is over 85 per cent are new offenders. This is not an aberration. Data for over a decade reveals that on an average every year around 80,000 new criminals join the mainstream of criminals in Odisha. Police sources added that serial criminals (in police lexicon offender arrested more than once) are only a handful with around three per cent of the total arrests made last year. The catch here is policing has a salient effect on crime control as serial offenders are in a minority in the world of crime.
But data throws bizarre statistics that reflect how impoverished is policing itself in the State. For around 811 aam admi, there is only one constable to guard. More shocking is the State has only 20 policemen to cover every 100 square km area. Interesting details here is Delhi despite having over 4,500 policemen to cover every 100 sq km, registered a high violent crime rate of 54 per cent. It’s no surprise then to see Odisha registering a violent crime rate of 31-32 per cent - much higher than the national average of around 24 per cent only.
Another interesting side here is when Delhi needs over 6,500 more policemen to bring the crime rate down Odisha shows a vacancy list of over 7,000. The State’s around 203 urban police stations need a whopping over 15, 600 policemen to prune the rising crime rate. The rural police stations need around 16,000 personnel.
The irony for the State police is it neither has enough teeth to bite nor long tail to tighten the noose around the anti-socials as data put the teeth to tail ratio at 1: 3.3 against the national ratio of 1:6. Odisha is presently grappling with vacancies of over 2,500 from the rank of ASI and above (the teeth as per police terminology) and the tail (constabulary) is short by over 1,500 personnel.
Sample the slip-ups. When around ten girl/women in every one lakh female population are being kidnapped in the State, the average nationally is only eight. Similarly, when over 22 females per lakh women population are subjected to outrage of modesty in Odisha, it’s only eleven nationally. And the rate of murder and attempt to murder in Odisha is over 3.5 per cent and 5.2 per cent respectively, which is also a notch higher than the national average. In every 24 hours, on an average the State records ten IPC crimes.
Data shows a steep rise in crime load under rural police stations with recording of the maximum rioting cases in the State. But Odisha has over two dozen less police stations than required in rural areas.