When former Justice Secretary Jack Straw told Newsnight last Friday that young white girls are seen as “easy meat” for some Pakistani heritage men I sat up straight and listened.

Jack told us:

“…there is a specific problem which involves Pakistani heritage men... who target vulnerable young white girls.

"We need to get the Pakistani community to think much more clearly about why this is going on and to be more open about the problems that are leading to a number of Pakistani heritage men thinking it is OK to target white girls in this way."

This isn’t any old politician talking. This is my old friend Jack Straw, former Justice Secretary and MP for Blackburn for over 30 years, who, presumably, knows what he is talking about. Or does he?

Has Jack done us all a favour by breaking the taboo and speaking out so clearly about sexual predators within the British Pakistani community or is it misjudged?

If I were a British Pakistani man on the streets of Blackburn, I suspect I’d be feeling rather aggrieved. Guilt by association and all that.

And if, as Jack maintains, it is an issue for “the community” how exactly does “the community” go about addressing it?

I like Jack but I have always viewed him as a politician who carefully calculates the odds before he jumps.

Jack knew a storm would break following his remarks.

But I suspect he also knew there was more of the same to come. And so it turns out.

East Lancashire’s regional daily, the Lancashire Telegraph, reports that over a thousand people have responded to its poll on Straw’s remarks, saying they back him.

In its editorial the Telegraph goes on to tell us, as fact, that “gangs of men are grooming white girls on our streets and the perpetrators are largely, but not exclusively, Pakistani men. Hard statistics back this up.”

Really?

I’d like to see those hard statistics.

Figures showing the link between specific crimes and ethnicity are not easy to come by. And, so far as I am aware, those that are available do not record sexual offences by ethnicity.

In any event, do we really want to go down that road?

I don’t think so.

Attachments:

stats-race-and-the-criminal-justice-system-2008-09c1.pdf

[Race and the Criminal Justice System]

945 Kb