The issue of grooming gangs has been a major subject of debate in recent weeks. One figure that has been repeatedly cited is that 1 in 73 Muslim men in the town of Rotherham has been prosecuted for grooming gang offences. While technically true, this figure is slightly misleading.
Its source is a 2020 paper by Kish Bhatti-Sinclair and Charles Sutcliffe. These researchers collected data on prosecutions of grooming gangs between 1997 and 2017 by reviewing over 2,000 media reports. They identified 498 accused perpetrators, of whom 83% had Muslim names. The researchers then calculated, for each local authority where there had been at least one prosecution during the relevant time period, the number of Muslim men per Muslim prosecuted for grooming gang offences. For Rotherham, the number was 73.
Why is this figure misleading? There are two reasons.
The first is that it is the second highest fraction out of all the figures in Bhatti-Sinclair and Sutcliffe’s table. For example, in Slough (which had the second lowest fraction) the number of Muslim men per Muslim prosecuted for grooming gang offences was 10,874. Is this because there is something fundamentally different about Slough? Perhaps. More likely is that the rate of prosecutions for grooming gang offence is a noisy measure of the true, underlying rate of grooming gang offences.
Overall, Bhatti-Sinclair and Sutcliffe estimated that 1 in 2,200 Muslim men in England was prosecuted for grooming gang offences. This figure is arguably more informative than the one for Rotherham, since it averages out a lot of the noise. The true underlying rate could, of course, be higher than 1 in 2,200 if many cases are not recorded. And it could vary between smaller towns like Slough and Rotherham, and larger cities like Birmingham and London.
The second reason why the figure for Rotherham, and indeed all the figures in Bhatti-Sinclair and Sutcliffe’s table, are misleading is that they were computed by dividing the number of Muslim men in a single year by the number of Muslim men prosecuted over 20 years. This is not normally how crime rates are computed, and for good reason: it’s not comparing apples with apples.
Crime rates (or prosecution rates) are useful because they tell us how many crimes were committed relative to the total number of potential opportunities for crime. For crimes committed over multiple years, the total number of potential opportunities is much larger than the number of people who were alive in a single year. Assuming for the sake of simplicity that the population is stable, the total number of potential opportunities is equal to the number of people multiplied by the number of years (i.e., the number of person-years).
To see why this is right, note that if we used an arbitrarily long time-interval for the number of crimes, we could eventually conclude that every single person in the relevant category had been prosecuted! But this would be meaningless.
We therefore need to multiply the denominator of Bhatti-Sinclair and Sutcliffe’s figures by 20. In other words, the least misleading way to present the numbers from their table would be to say that: in the period 1997–2017, Muslim men in England and Wales were prosecuted for grooming gang offences at an average rate of 1 in 44,000.
Once again, this could well be an underestimate of the true underlying rate if many cases are not recorded. But the statement itself is accurate, since it refers to prosecutions not actual cases. It’s also worth noting that Bhatti-Sinclair and Sutcliffe found evidence that Pakistanis specifically, rather than Muslims in general, were dramatically overrepresented among grooming gang offenders.
An earlier version of this article referred to “potential criminals” rather than “potential opportunities for crime”.
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Your house gets burgled —-Where are the Police? How many burglaries were solved last year or the year before? Yet if you have little disagreement on the Internet somewhere the Police are now supposed to have nothing better to do than chase after people saying some stuff in their own bloody house. ——–All of this reveals one thing only. The Cultural Marxists that control our lives now don’t care if you get burgled or stabbed, they only care that you do not say anything to undermine their pathetic leftist policies that are deliberately destroying western culture. ——The “Hate Crime” laws are really just “Different Opinion” laws and we should all realise that Liberal Progressives and Cultural Marxists don’t like you having an opinion, unless it is THEIRS.
Out in the shires you rarely see the police so it follows we must be totally crime-free!
Yep, that’s why the countryside is ”racist”, you know? Because it hasn’t yet been colonized, but give it time. The ‘no-go’ ghettos and parallel societies must be established in the inner city areas first.
No just the results of the fly tippers.
Hear hear! There’s going to be a significant increase in freedom-loving folk in Clown World, Scotland getting criminal records very soon then. And I’ll bet none of them are from the Transtifa or Muslim communities. It reminds me of the bonkers human rights abuses of the Plandemonium years, where police drones would find a lone ( maskless! ) person, hiking in the middle of nowhere instead of being stuck at home, and fine them. Or people would get fined due to their neighbour grassing them up for having 4 guests round the house instead of the permitted 3. Or meeting your friend for an al fresco cuppa on a bench at the seaside saw you get cuffed and forcibly removed. Essentially, perfectly normal human behaviour was weaponized and criminalized. Same as with these farcical new ‘laws’. There needs to be zero compliance, simple as that. As with people rebelling and opposing anything en masse, the Gestapo and authoritarians can’t punish everyone collectively. Legit criminals are going to have a field day with this too so we’ll await the rise in serious actual crime as a natural consequence of this monumental p*ss-take.
I’m waiting for the first person to be prosecuted in their own home for “hate speech” ….. because the ever-listening Alexa they willingly brought into their home reports them to the Police.
Hi Toby
I would say that a significant aspect to the modus operandi of progressives where law is concerned, is that they avoid the discussion and realisation that they are undoing previous principles by avoiding a direct repeal and instead overlay the old with new progressive ideas/legislation. Maybe they justify this approach with some reference to evolution, but it is an inevitable wet dream of a fudge for advisors and lawyers, leaving the man in the street unsure of what they law actually really means.
I would also suggest that one of the significant realisations of the American declaration of Independence and the subsequent Amendment principles was that law was needed for two functions. 1.) to enable the executive to control and organise society but 2.) and significant to the reasons for the American revolution, to define the limits of that executive over and against the basic rights of the common people.
Your statement that we might not need the equivalent of a 1st amendment, because we already have it buried in common law misses this “who is the law directed at” point, and also the problem of legal overlay.
I would however suggest that the old principle and the one enshrined in the first amendment, (certainly the way you have described it), is not quite what is needed anyway. It does need to be stronger than immediate violence, because a drip, drip, drip can be just as deadly and prejudiced. The boundaries of all freedom of action are enshrined in the Golden rule principle, do unto other what you would have then do to you, or give unto others the freedoms you would want (if you actually bothered to stop and think about it properly) for yourself.
The new Hate speech legislation as well as being a progressive overlay of the common law principle, which you cited, is in effect a new anti- blasphemy law. It fails to distinguish between; speech and action which is in effect violent or anti another person’s basic person, and what is against what in effect another person believes. One of the reasons for this is because the Equality act 2010 principle of protected characteristic muddles this aspect up, which has then been made worse by the common language and common scientific wars explicit within the transgender debate (underlined by similar regarding Covid and also the Co2 climate change issue). Basically what the Hate speech and misinformation approach will enshrine is an inability for society to self- correct in any area covered by these new “red tape” shibboleths, because no one will be allowed to critique it for want of being labelled/arrested/cancelled as a hater or a spreader of misinformation. This quite literally incites hatred against all those who believe in the right to critique beliefs to see whether they work or not. It puts us back into a new dark age with a new inquisition.
Like the American’s in the revolution what is needed is a new realisation of what the basic rights of man are, and they then need to then be enshrined in a new basic bill of rights (even if this is partly just a bringing forward or restatement of what is already there), with an active free court which can defend them “in principle” over and against the executive and interests groups overlaying and undermining them with other stuff. (Note the court would also need to defend them against subsequent progressive overreach of them. Basic public equality rights should not be muddled or conflated with private diversity rights, apart from the fact that public basic equality right are the foundation upon which private diversity ones sit)
One reason why the American’s are also in trouble over all of this is because their court system is too slow, but it may yet still drag them out of this mire. Also the principle of a “man of standing” is unwarranted, when there is no balancing demand on new overlaying legislation or products. Given basic rights any new legislation/products should up front explicitly indicate how it does not reduce undermine basic rights principles, which should be open to immediate challenge by the basic rights court.
Parliament can be sovereign, but they are cannot be sovereign over the basic rights upon which their sovereignty depends.
Very good comment you made. ———–I always remember this—There are two important things about “Free Speech” (1) It is Free, and (2) It is only Speech. ——–Once free speech is removed then people are no longer free. Is this the goal of the Cultural Marxists ?—-YES.
“…law was needed for two functions. 1.) to enable the executive to control and organise society”
I thought law was there to define the boundaries when they needed defining such as when someone does to someone what they don’t want done to them. We ceased being a top down economy/society with the execution of Charles I and therefore in the main the individual was not controlled or ‘organised’ by the executive, but by there own conscience. For the most part we have been a high trust society which came from Christian traditions with a foundation of just 10 laws. People did not murder or rob because the law forbade them but because they understood and judged both (and other transgressions) to be wrong. In addition, and although not enshrined in law, it was considered unjust to pick on those that couldn’t defend themselves. What the new Hate Crime laws are doing is removing the ability of people to defend themselves that can and allowing those that imagine themselves as victims free reign to hate anyone of their choosing.
Any news on why comments were blocked on the Melissa Kite article? Did I miss it?
Nothing that I have seen
Two dimwits have downvoted stewart for asking a question, and probably the same two dimwits have downvoted me for answering. I do wonder why such dimwits would bother reading DS, which is about questioning everything last time I looked.
My theory is that they are rather low-IQ obsessives who either (a) don’t understand the points being made, so like to dismiss them to feel better; or (b) have an irresistible compulsion to balance thumbs up/thumbs down to equal numbers, however futile the attempt.
Downticks are inevitable for this theory, but it’s as good an explanation as any.
I think it’s mainly “I don’t like what you are saying, or what I think you are saying, but I am too lazy to say why, or subconsciously I feel my argument is weak”.
Mutual upticks are welcome.
When everybody in Scotland has had a ‘hate crime’ charged against them – real, perceived or simply made up – what are they going to do then?
Everyone in Scotland is bound to hate Hummus Yoosuffer for f***king up their country, so the cute HateMonstery police should blanket charge the whole population to save time and paperwork. After all, there are only so many trees in the world.
Everyone, that is, except the intellectually-challenged 1984 Leftards, and those Scots who routinely express hatred for the English aka as the Scottish Nationalist-Socialist Party, SNaziP for short.
Below is a crime map of Glasgow by Sally Nichols. I have just shown 3 different views of specific crimes – Serious Assault, Common Assault (Misc. Offence), Hate Crime (Misc. Offence). Is it necessary to point out where priorities need to be, because all those writing and implementing laws are the brightest and best possessing large quantities of knowledge and wisdom?
(to see the image details Open Image in New Tab)
The author is correct in asserting that the assault on freedom of expression goes back to the Race Relations Act of the 1960s. Since this legislation was passed there have been 36 years of Conservative Party led government. Not only has the Conservative Party failed to repeal this appalling legislation, it has accepted and promoted even worse legislation. For freedom and democracy to be restored the Conservative Party must be destroyed.
This article is quite staggering, to know that we already had a First Amendment as part of English Common Law, until that fateful year of 1965.
In that same year, “Race Relations” acts were almost simultaneously shoved through both the UK Parliament and the US Congress, to crush all opposition to “The Great Replacement”. That same year, another act set up the UK Law Commission “to keep the law of England and Wales under review and to recommend reforms”. Since then, “Approximately 70% of the Law Commission’s law reform recommendations have been enacted or accepted by Government.”
In other words, the beginnings of a “Judocracy” = “Rule by Judges”. You can see this in the words of one Third World immigration lawyer in the UK, who said that every immigration law passed by Parliament needed to be “tested in court”.
The Law Commission says that “At any one time, around 15 to 20 areas of law will be under review. Law Commission projects cover a wide range of subjects that belong to the criminal law, property law, family and trust law, public law, and commercial law.
The Law Commission has a rolling programme of law reform projects, and every three years or so it consults on any new projects that should be added to the list of those that it already has under way.”
Sensibly suggesting that all the hate speech and equality laws be revoked, Toby Young’s final paragraph says, “What is the prospect of such a proposal finding its way into the Conservative manifesto?”
None, of course. But how about the Reform manifesto, I wonder? And let’s abolish the Law Commission while we’re at it.
Indeed. You have to ask yourself why anyone thought or pretended to think that the Race Relations Act 1965 and the various acts that followed it were needed, and whether it may have been better to avoid the “problems” it was purported to be solving. If only leading politicians had warned us.
Barbara Lerner Spectre explained it very clearly in her sweet, soft, reasonable voice, at 0:38 seconds here:
Barbara Lerner Spectre – YouTube
Still waiting for her explanation of why Israel is allowed to maintain its “monolithic” non-multicultural society, but Europe cannot be allowed to do so.
Well I know nothing about her beyond the words she speaks here, but based on that evidence she is happy to harm me and my family so I would regard her as an enemy. She is sadly probably right that Europe will not survive though.
Interested to hear from the dimwit downvoter you’ve attracted as to what you’ve said that they object to.
In case there are any new downvoters here, my view is that you should engage or jog on, because if you don’t then you’ve missed the point of DS.
Of course Europe managed to survive for millennia without becoming “multicultural”. She’s just making a ridiculous attempt to justify The Great Replacement.
I don’t mind getting downvotes at all, and I certainly don’t whine about getting plenty of them, either.
The point of the Daily Sceptic is Freedom of Speech, and that includes downvoting as much as you want.
I don’t “mind it, I just find it disappointing. I am fine with people disagreeing with me vehemently, but I want to hear their arguments in case it makes me change my mind – or it might make my thinking clearer.
Don’t worry, sometimes people downvote just for spite, or to try to drive you away, not because they have any valid arguments against your comment.
Just ignore them and carry on.
Indeed
Shame though because you’ve touched on a subject that merits debate – the future of our civilisation
Well, sometimes people will write excellent DS articles that don’t get many comments in response, but that doesn’t mean readers haven’t taken their points onboard, and are pondering them at leisure. And sometimes commenters happen to express your own view even better than you can yourself, so you just upvote them and move on to another article. And sometimes you can’t summon the energy for a debate at that moment, but leave it for another day.
All good points
Enoch Powell tried to.
Another good reason to never visit Scotland again and boycott all Scottish produce.
I’m on it already. Who wants to visit a country ruled and ruined by idiots?
Oops, I live in the UK, so perhaps it’s time to look into emigrating to Switzerland. They have direct democracy there, in the form of referenda. It might not eliminate all the ruling idiots, but at least you’re given a say on important issues such as demonising a whole population for expressing their views.
Scotland is izlam’s dream, go-to country now, isn’t it? Blasphemy is a HateMonstery crime. How did that happen? Who elected Hummus Yoosuffer?
I had to work in Scotland for a couple of years and never been back since. I found the majority of Scots to be surly individuals with a massive chip on their shoulder. If they vote for this moronic far left political party, they have themselves to blame.
It seems eminently possible that, should this become law in England and Wales, spurious accusations of ‘hate speech’ could be made against almost anybody. Would it therefore be appropriate to report a politician for a ‘hate crime’ if they proposed, supported or spoke up for a cause that I deemed offensive or psychologically hateful to myself? I’m sure this would create a veritable flood of incidents requiring to be ‘investigated’ and may cause said politician to review the effectiveness of such a law.
What is the prospect? Nil. Nada. Niet. There is no prospect whatsoever because the not-a-Conservative-Party is now almost as left wing as Labour and its Masters in the WEF wouldn’t allow it.
I wonder if Scottish Police will be attending, mob-handed, ready to arrest 60,000 football fans when Rangers and Celtic play a derby? Or won’t their faiths be “protected” by the law ….. only the Religion of Peace?
I wonder if there is anyone with time on their hands (and a high pain threshold) who can listen to the ramblings of the MSP’s in Holyrood and report every instance they hear?
I wonder how long it would take for Humza Yousaf to get dobbed in?