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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The oddest thing about Welby is his mixture of nihilism and atheism.
His true faith is Globalism.
So Catholic Peter Harris wants to replace Welby with a Catholic woman Helen Ann-Hartley, one of many Catholics subverting the Protestant Church of England, to drag everyone back into worshipping the Impostor Goddess of the Fake Virgin Birth and her Stolen Child, instead of Almighty God.
We know from the New Testament what St. Paul’s view of women preachers was, but modern politics easily sweeps that aside.
“Bishop” Helen Ann-Hartley and her fellow Bishop Martyn Snow were criticised by Reverend Dr. Thomas Woolford for promoting the church blessing of Sodomite Marriage, sodomy being the reason God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, for which the practice of sodomy was named. “Sodomy” is a very useful English word for unnatural sexual relations between males with males, females with females, and humans with animals. No need for all the confusing and ridiculous labels like LBGTQ-whatever, when the one English word “Sodomy” suffices for all.
Well I’ve no time for the organised church of any and all persuasion.
They’re nothing but parasites, sucking at the teat of the poor, living in palaces decorated with the greatest works of art and preaching poverty.
Here’s the Marxist Pope praying before his new Vatican Nativity Set, featuring Stolen Baby E-zus lying on a MUSLIM PALESTINIAN SCARF!
Vatican Nativity Scene Features Baby Jesus on Palestinian Scarf
My god what a horror show.
Shame!
What am appalling bell-end he is.
Not called Justin for nothing.
I do think the name ‘Justin Isobel End’ does have a certain refined ring to it.
Let’s hope that whoever becomes his successor understand the following: Past injustices can’t be remedied by committing present-day injustices. The duty of the church is to its congregations and to the cultural heritage which is part of itself. It’s not to people who nowadays demand money for something which never even affected, let alone harmed them. Sins of dead people and what – if anything – is to be done about them belong to realm of God and not man. So, take care of your present-day duties, that is, don’t be so injust to punish, if only indirectly, church members of today for supposed sins of people who died long before their birth. Let God deal with what is rightfully his own and tell the reparation spongers to go pester someone else for spare millions.
The photographer clearly caught up with him at the weekend.
Basically, yet another entitled, out of touch, member of the establishment, blinded by his own vanity but still considers himself to be some form of egalitarian expert.
If Hartley is raised to the Canterbury See,
That will be the end of the CofE!
As a practicing Christian. For some time I’ve thought of Welby as Satan’s acolyte.
I wonder why so many old Etonians – that most Establishment of Establishment educational institutions in the UK – seem to be implementing a mission to destroy the public’s respect for ALL our ancient governmental Institutions?
When you look at the list of those who are responsible for the clusterfcuk the UK has become, it is noticeable how many went to that school.
A loathsome character. He probably feels misunderstood and unfairly treated. Let him crawl under a rock.
Welby is just the current symbol behind the fact that religions and their institutions are the problem. Whoever replaces him, more abuses will occur and we’ll be reading about them in the future & how those in charge chose to protect the organisation’s survival and reputation over the safety and well being of the public.
Just like mosques.
I did say religions.