India ‘s criminal justice system is facing some serious issues. Its lethargic performance and sometimes non action has eroded the trust among the people of the country. Weak criminal justice system ultimately fails democracy by not providing the rule of law. The Criminal justice system need reforms in all three components i.e. Law enforcement, adjudication and correction
Law enforcement
Police personnel are not adequate enough. Statistically the number of policemen per 100,000 people in India is just 137.8 against the UN norm of 220.
- Enforcement agencies are not equipped enough to deal with new kind of crimes like white collar crimes, organised crimes.
- Police community relations ship are normally brief, contextual and even negative in nature.
- The training arrangements are not satisfactory in both quality and quantitative terms. Especially for sub inspectors and constable.
- Lack of proper equipment like weapons, gadgets, protecting gears and communication device for police personnel.
Adjudication:
- The total number of cases pending with the HC and subordinate court amounts to 3 crore.
- Delay in adjudication
- Huge litigation cost
- Loss or diminished reliability of evidence by the time of trial.
- Low conviction rate has created a perception that crime is low -risk and high profit venture.
- The current ratio of 13 judges per million should be increased to 50 judges per million.
Correctional system:
- Indian jails are overcrowded.
- As on December 2011, total capacity of jails in the country is 332,782 as against 372,926 jail inmates.
- Ironically 2/3rd of the inmates constitutes the under trials.
- Poor hygienic conditions of the Jails.