The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is a central government institution under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), headquartered in New Delhi, that functions as the national repository of crime and criminal information. It was established in January 1986 following recommendations from the National Police Commission (1977-1981) and the Tandon Committee to solve the problem of fragmented and non-uniform crime data maintained by state police departments. The NCRB was formed by merging the Inter-State Criminals Data Branch, the Directorate of Coordination and Police Computer (DCPC), and the Central Finger Print Bureau of the CBI.
The NCRB's core mechanism involves collecting, collating, and analyzing crime statistics from all States and Union Territories, covering offenses under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special and Local Laws (SLL). This data is published annually in key reports like 'Crime in India'. The Bureau is the nodal agency for implementing the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS), which links over 15,000 police stations for seamless data sharing. It also maintains the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS), which assigns a unique 10-digit National Fingerprint Number (NFN) to every arrested person. The NCRB connects to the broader Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS), which integrates databases of police, courts, prisons, and prosecution.
A significant recent change is the shift in the legal framework for recording crime, moving from the IPC to the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which will impact how crime data is classified and reported in future 'Crime in India' reports. The NCRB has also recently included data related to transgenders in the persons disposal category in its 2021 report.