A Library for Crime Records in India

Library is an inevitable source for those who intend to gather information for individual or social purposes. These purposes vary from garnering information for self-understanding or to take such information to the society for benefitting its members. When taking this information to the public, evidence as to the credibility of such information, particularly when such information is related to criminal records, is crucial and requires credible references as to the source of such information. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) provides for the annual report of the crimes with detailed statistics on different types of crimes in India. Though the NCRB annual reports are open for public access, the source data of these reports, which are the data collected from various states, are available only to the law enforcement, forensics and other crime investigation agencies under the Central and State Governments in India. Highlighting the multiple crime information library services available in the US and UK, this article aims to provide acquaintance that the NCRB doesn't serve as a library for crime information and also that the nation requires a library to rely on for dependable, credible and updated information on the crimes in India which shall include the details of the offences, offenders and the exonerations.