Abstract

This study has compared the custodial violence and circumstances prevalent in India to that of United States of America and found that despite the US being a developed country and its police force using much more advanced technology, paid handsome wages and has every kind of resource but still, it failed to preserve human rights. Custodial deaths are rampant in the United States, and black people are mostly targeted by the police. Well-known examples are George Floyd’s death and the Enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA in the United States. So, from this comparative study with the US, it is perfectly evident that custodial violence in a nation is the result of a number of factors such as deeply ingrained sentiments of discrimination, Political support for torture, flaws in the law etc. The US has a long history of racism, and many times these deeply ingrained biases culminate into custodial deaths. Similarly in India, biasness is prevented by Indian police as indicated by reports of a number of judicial committees formed for inquiry into large-scale riots that most of the time found that police acted toward a particular community with prejudice and falsely implicated people from that particular section of society. No doubt reforms in the police system and penal and procedural laws are necessary, but along with it, there is a need for bringing respect for the rule of law in society, the need for attitudinal change otherwise no matter what laws we bring to curb the custodial violence, the atrocities will continue to happen against various sections of society in the police custody.

Keywords