Custody As Privilege: Police Atrocities In India As A Form Of Elite Institutional Deviance
A. Kutral Eswari, The Central Law College, Salem
ABSTRACT
This article situates recurring police atrocities in India ,custodial torture, encounter killings, and fabricated cases, within the criminological framework of elite and institutional deviance, which explains how actors occupying structurally privileged positions within the state are able to commit serious harm while facing markedly lower rates of detection, prosecution and conviction than ordinary offenders. It further shows that this privilege operates in both directions: the perpetrating institution is structurally shielded, while the victims of custodial violence are disproportionately drawn from India's least privileged groups ,the poor, Dalits, Adivasis, and religious minorities. Drawing on NCRB and NHRC data, parliamentary disclosures, and the doctrinal history built through the Rajan case, Nilabati Behera, D.K. Basu and Prakash Singh, the article argues that custodial violence in India is not primarily an evidentiary or resource failure but a predictable outcome of an unequal structure of privilege at both ends of the encounter.
Keywords: police atrocities, custodial violence, elite deviance, institutional deviance, encounter killings, police accountability, human rights.
