Question

What is the importance of focusing on certain groups of victims like women or the elderly? Why is it important to track hate crimes? What about other categories like organized crime, cyber-crime and others? How will tracking these victims and types of crimes help to prevent or reduce them in our society?

Answer 1

Women and elderly are the kind of groups that need special focus since it is important to maintain sex ratio as well as dependency ratio in the nation. Changed demographics can have profound negative impact on the society at large. Dependency ratio is the age composition of a population:

Ratio of number of children (<15 years old) and older persons (? 65 years old) in the population, to number of people in the working-age groups (15–64 year old).

The value is interpreted as the number of children and older persons who need to be supported by every 100 adults in the working-age groups.

Measure of the age-induced economic burden on the population.

In some countries, cut-off point for older persons is set at a lower age of 60, based on the retirement age.

All countries in the Asia Pacific Region will see a shift from child dependency to old-age dependency as the fertility rate declines and life expectancy increases. Similarly, in case of sex ratio, if the rate of female infanticides increases at the current pace, the sex ratio will see a huge population demographic shift in the society that may have detrimental impact overall on the functioning.

It is important to track hate crimes since they need to be tapped and addressed before the crime increases to a level that it leads to a societal impact. Organised crimes, cyber crimes and other related crimes are likely to impact a society negatively by creating a bitter experience for individuals and as a society at large. Tracking these victims will help reducing this crime since redressal will be provided. Identification and tapping the cause of such crimes may help to cater to them and attempting reduction of such crimes.