The 27-year-old executive on her way home from Gurgaon was not the first victim of Uber cab driver Shiv Kumar Yadav. Convicted at least six times for offences, including rape, Yadav has been in and out of jail over the last decade. Three of the accused in Mumbai’s Shakti Mills gang-rape were repeat offenders too. As was one of the defendants in the Delhi gang-rape on December 16, 2012.

In June 2013, Delhi Police put out a list. One that was meant to ‘out’ those with a history of sexual assault. The original list had 664 names and detailed those arrested for rape or similar charges since 1983. With over 1,300 entries (now updated from the year 1993), the list has been growing. But in the 18 months since it went online, has it reduced the number of sexual offences in the Capital?

Not helping the cause

“No, it hasn’t,” claims Ruchi Sinha, a criminologist at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. “Research has shown that crimes don’t reduce by evolving a prescriptive, descriptive list. The problem is that there’s no such thing as a ‘sex-offender profile’. So although the label of ‘sex offender’ might seem to suggest that individuals who commit these crimes are all alike, that is not the case,” she says.

In the US and the UK, where such lists are two-decades old, more than 7.5 lakh and 40,000 people respectively are registered on the databases. While in the former most lists are public, in the UK, information is strictly given on a need-to-know basis.

“In large parts of India, honour and shame are primarily attached to the victim, not the offender. Where Khap Panchayats order the gang-rape of women for an affair with a man of another caste without the consent of the community, there is little that the list can do by way of shaming,” says Harsimran Kalra of the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, Delhi, adding, “Research by American scholars, such as Amanda Agan and JJ Prescott, reveals that unrestricted publication of these lists does not reduce the incidence of crime and, in fact, are counter-productive.” The reasons are manifold. Once labelled, the offender has little left “to prevent recidivism”, says Kalra. Besides, these lists often interfere with new investigations, discouraging the police from looking for new suspects. And then, there’s the issue of vigilante justice. Following the December 16 incident, mobs attacked the families of the accused.

Instead of adding another task on the to-do list of an overworked and understaffed police force, say experts, the energy spent on such lists can be put to better use by collecting scientific evidence, establishing more fast-track courts, and enforcing equality between the sexes.

Following orders

Delhi Police, however, continue to regard it as a step forward — at least, officially. “We think it’ll be useful to the public. That’s why it’s there,” says spokesperson DCP Rajan Bhagat. Off the record though, others within the force question the efficacy of an open list. A senior police officer, who has investigated many high-profile rape cases, confesses that it may have done more damage than good.

Even the police’s claim — that they created the list at the bidding of the then home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, following the recommendations made by the Justice Verma Commission — is contested by Shwetashree Majumdar. A legislator who worked with the Commission, she claims their counsel was to create a roster of candidates with criminal records seeking to be elected to public office, not of sex offenders. “The ultimate purpose of a sex offenders’ list is public shaming. It’s surely not a lack of shaming that’s leading to such crimes,” she says.

Beyond jail

The voices decrying such ‘proactive’, ‘transparent’ measures are those of social scientists, activists and other stakeholders who have been following the trajectory of both the accused and the victims in recent years. Chief psychiatrist at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Delhi, Nimesh Desai says, “It might seem like a good idea in theory but it must be matched by social attitude.” He draws attention to the fact that while there have been some attempts, especially by the Delhi High Court, few establish the link between the criminal justice system and mental health solutions.

Serving a term in jail doesn’t preclude gender violence. Surprisingly, studies on the situation post-incarceration are few and far between. Delhi-based Swanchetan Society for Mental Health conducted research related to sex offenders lodged in Tihar jail between 1999 and 2004, and it’s one of the few such reports available. Swanchetan found that out of 242 sex offenders, around 140 admitted to committing a sex offence earlier. “In the Uber case, for example, Yadav was a delinquent and surely had something psychologically wrong. We have incarcerated him, but what about additional interventions?” asks Vrinda Grover, women’s rights activist and lawyer, adding, “We pluck some things from the West and after the noise dies down, they disappear.”

Kavita Krishnan, secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association, points to other administrative issues: “The idea that putting strangers’ faces on such a list will keep us safe makes no sense to me. The vagaries of our system are such who ends up on the list and who doesn’t can be arbitrary too.”

Related Topics