Utilizing Machine Learning Techniques for Crime Classification Under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Based on Crime Reporting Data

Crime classification using the Indian Penal Code (IPC) is a common task at each police station. It involves complex decision-making related to crimes and respective IPC sections for different cases. The IPC is the foundational criminal code in India, containing a list of all substantive penal laws with definitions and punishments for each offense. Automating the crime classification is helpful due to the complexity and sheer volume of crimes reported daily. This work uses machine learning techniques to automate crime classification based on IPC. To serve this purpose, this paper utilizes the K-Nearest Neighbors algorithm. The proposed system accepts an input crime report and textually corroborates the report to an IPC section. For this intent, the system relies on the bag-of-words technique for identifying sections under IPC by scrutinizing repetition and availability of key terms in the crime to 98% accuracy in classifying crimes. Hence, the automated method is quite effective for mapping crime reports into the corresponding sections of the IPC. Also, because the system can easily be deployed online, it will be easy to integrate with existing workflows at the police stations. So, case filing and management would become more effective. This reduces the amount of manual effort and also brings consistency in classification; for this reason, the tool is of immense value to law enforcement agencies nationwide. The innovation in the paper is the development of a machine learning-based system using the K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) algorithm to automate the classification of crimes under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) based on textual crime reports.