Police Violence and how Some Lives Do Not Matter

Context: Principled commitment to the rule of law from the institutions and public is the need of the hour to address police brutality.

Reasons for police brutality:

• Low conviction rate: Out of recorded 1,727 deaths in police custody between 2000 and 2018, only 26 police officials were convicted.
• No domestic law: that enables torture prosecution by accounting for the custodial torture.

• Law requires the prosecution to prove that the police caused the death.

• Lack of political will: to address torture by its failure to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture. 
• Institutional apathy: independent magisterial inquiries took place for only 20% of custodial deaths.

• Prosecution of police officials for custodial torture requires the sanction of the government.

• The present system incentivizes torture by seeking convictions without modernizing the police force. 
• Justification of torture:  by police personnel as being required to teach hardened criminals on behalf of society. 
• Lack of accountability: as their chances of being held accountable are slim.

• National Human Rights Commission: received 5,300 complaints of custodial deaths in the last 3 years.

• Commitment to the rule of law is not principled:  Celebration and tolerance of police brutality by society is also responsible for the present culture.

Way Forward:

• Institutional and public culture that should not justify any kind of police violence.
• Law Commission of India recommendation: If a person dies in police custody the burden should be on the police to show that they are not responsible for it.