Explaining Crime against Women in the Districts of West Bengal: An Analytical and Empirical Analysis

Crime against women has been a major social problem originates from our patriarchal socio-cultural system. The present study estimates the district specific crime rate against women in West Bengal using the data drawn from the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) in 2021. There exists a wide range of variability of the crime rate across the districts. Cruelty by husband shares the maximum percentage (viz. 74.73) whereas the least percentage (viz. 1.93) is found in dowry death in total crime against women. The maximum crime rate is found in Darjeeling and the minimum is found in Purulia district. We try to understand the association between crime against women and selected socio-economic and cultural parameters of the districts in West Bengal. It is observed that crime against women is positively associated with female education and urbanization whereas it varies negatively with the multidimensional poverty. Our findings go against many studies highlighting the facts that female education reduces the crime against women and it aggravates with the incidence of poverty; thus our results reignite the issue of the determinants of crime as well the under-reporting cases of crime against women in West Bengal.