Rotherham Abuse Scandal and Political Correctness

[Caehlim]

This isn't a one-off or one small town and not happening anywhere else.

So in other words 0.025% of the UK's Pakistani population has been accused in these cases.

In other words these Pakistani gangs you've linked (I've included Rochdale as well, but excluded Bristol as the offenders were Somali not Pakistani) were responsible for 0.89% of successfully prosecuted child grooming offenses [Edit: In the UK] conducted over the four years that range covers. (I'm assuming that 2010-2011 was a typical year, as I have the best statistics for that one).

Edit:

My statistics are from the Home Affairs Committee - Second Report: Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming with calculations of my own (which are hopefully accurate) to count up the number of victims from the cases you've mentioned and then turn the numbers there into percentages of the total numbers reported in the report I've linked.

One More Edit: Sorry... major math fail from me there. It's 0.89% not 0.0089%, I've corrected above and can only plead it being the early morning and me not having enough caffeine for such a ludicrously basic mistake in converting fractions to percentages.

[consortium11]

So in other words 0.025% of the UK's Pakistani population has been accused in these cases.

I'm not sure if this is some attempt to trap me into saying "All Pakistani's do it!" or something along those lines. I've made explicitly clear earlier in the thread that I don't think there's a direct connection between the religion and/or ethnicity of the perpetrators and why they committed these crimes; my view is that it relates more to opportunity with the Pakistani-heritage and/or Islamic community dominating the night time economy (particularly the taxi trade).

The truth is in these circumstances I'm not particularly bothered with why these abusers abused.

I'm interested in why they were able to get away with it for so long... and we've now had two official reports that make clear a need for political correctness and a worldview that thought not appearing racist was more important than stopping children being sexually and physically abused contributed to it. And we can add to that the context of the chief prosecutor who finally brought charges noting (again, as mentioned earlier in this thread) that political correctness had previously led to justice being stalled.

In other words these Pakistani gangs you've linked (I've included Rochdale as well, but excluded Bristol as the offenders were Somali not Pakistani) were responsible for 0.89% of successfully prosecuted child grooming offenses [Edit: In the UK] conducted over the four years that range covers. (I'm assuming that 2010-2011 was a typical year, as I have the best statistics for that one).

1) In the wake of two reports that make abundantly clear that there was a systematic failure to even record accurate statistics, let alone bring prosecutions is it really wise to rely on those same statistics to suggest this isn't an issue?

2) I'm struggling to find your statistics in the report; the August 2010 to October 2011 figure (2,409) doesn't relate to prosecutions but to responses the Children's Commission received from a variety of authorities. It's statistical slight of hand to compare successful prosecutions to agency reports; to give the simplest example the five men convicted in the Rotherham case were only convicted for abuse against three children while the subsequent reports made clear that that there were far more victims (and even the 1,400 conservative estimate lookslikely to woefully understate the issue). If we take the conservative estimate of 1,400 children abused in Rotherham, assume that was divided equally along the 16 years the report covered that gives us 88 children abused a year. 88 is roughly 3.65% of 2,409... far more than the 0.89% you use. And that's for Rotherham alone, using the conservative estimate and not accounting for the fact the 2,409 figure covers more than a single year.

3) I picked out those examples because they had Wikipedia pages. There are far more one can find fairly easily.

4) For reasons set out above accurate statistics are hard to find. But what limited statistics we do have (and I fully accept that these are highly limited) indicate that when it comes to on-street grooming by gangs Pakistani and/or Muslim men are massively overrepresented; the original article is here behind a paywall, a summary of it can be found here and if you plug the title, "Revealed: conspiracy of silence on UK sex gangs", into google you'll find it in full on some rather Islamophobic sites I'd rather not link to. Again, I don't think the offences are necessarily directly related to being of Pakistani-heritage and/or Muslim but rather to what groups dominate the night time economy.

5) I'm not quite sure what the position you're intending to take is. The various reports have listed a number of failings (which I've noted repeatedly). Most have been well known about for some time and while attempts to solve them have frequently failed (the most recent report goes into detail about how the Rotherham council was on the face of it making improvements and attempting to win awards for how well they were doing... while the reality was they were failing utterly) they are at least on the radar. But this report is the first time we have official confirmation that a culture of political correctness and prioritising not appearing racist over preventing children from being abused contributed to that. These were not points made as a casual aside in a single line; both reports explicitly mentioned it in the executive summaries and dedicated a whole section to the issue.

The reports made quite clear that this culture and fear of offence contributed to children being abused. Neither they or I have said it's the sole reason that the abuse either occurred or was allowed to go on for so long; there are far more failings then that. But just as people who mentioned that aspect before the reports came out were accused of racism and told it wasn't a factor I'm now seeing people again trying to pretend that it wasn't a factor. It was.

[Caehlim]

First of all you're right that I misinterpreted some data, I equated "confirmed cases" with "prosecuted cases" in my head there. Obviously these aren't the same things, but I got these two things confused because I was thinking "I'll only use the prosecuted ones because then I can show who the perpetrator is, those ones are therefore confirmed." However I think you may have fallen for a similar mistake at one point in your rebuttal, as 1400 is a projected figure. Potentially an accurate figure, but since the 2,409 number is purely restricted to confirmed cases they wouldn't be equivalent either. (I also mistook 14 months, for a one year period but that error isn't as relevant since as you've pointed out I was comparing unequal figures anyway).

I'm not sure if this is some attempt to trap me into saying "All Pakistani's do it!" or something along those lines.

Firstly, I can't imagine you ever saying that. But also I don't have any interest in trapping you in saying anything, I think you're honestly making a case and I'm just responding with my personal disagreement. I have no desire to make you look bad or trick you.

I'm not quite sure what the position you're intending to take is.

Yes I'm sorry, I haven't explained that very well have I? Let me clarify that now.

Firstly on a personal level, let me say that every one of these offenses is horrible and tragic. Focusing on them one at a time, I can imagine the sort of suffering that people have gone through and have no desire at all to underplay that. These sorts of crimes are terrible both immediately and in their long-term consequences. But in moving on to politics, I need to look at it rationally so I'm going to say some things which might seem dismissive of the victims' suffering here. Rest assured that I don't mean this for any particular person's situation which is unique but rather the combined pattern formed by all of them.

So my stance is the following:

Regarding the view that this is a Pakistani crime.
1) This isn't an extraordinary crime. Unfortunately, people have been sexually abusing children, grooming them for later abuse and attempting to trap them in cycles of exploitation for a long time. There are similar cases all over the world, including here in Australia.
2) Humans are universally bad at interpreting big numbers. Hearing these reports happening again and again, we want to draw a pattern because that's what people do. However I think we're drawing an incorrect pattern because we're ignoring two factors:
2a) British Pakistanis are almost 2% of the population of the UK, mostly concentrated in England which is where these cases have occurred. There are a lot of British Pakistanis, and a certain percentage of the world's population is inclined to commit crimes such as these. It's inevitable that we will see a large number of British Pakistanis committing these crimes.
2b) People are distorting the statistics by focusing on these being gangs and not comparing them to the nation-wide rate. Gang-crime is more common amongst ethnic minorities, partly because of social factors partly because of how we define gangs. This means inevitably when we just look at the gang-crime statistics we see ethnic minorities and unsurprisingly we see the largest ethnic minority in the country under discussion.
3) Some people (not including you) are taking advantage of these common mistakes, to spread fear throughout the population in order to promote particular political or racial ideologies.

Regarding the view that 'Political Correctness' is hampering police.
1) All around the world there are ethnically focused gangs. All around the world police deal with them, in a society in which western cultures embrace politically correct values. Yes criminals will hide behind any obstacle they can find, as they always have. Yes they will play the race card. It's the job of the police to handle these situations, they're going to be doing it every day, they need to figure this out. If they can't handle it, they're not qualified for their jobs.
2) The reports we are seeing are showing old dinosaur organizations, riddled with problems and struggling to overcome various forms of inertia. These people were criticized on every aspect of their job performance and personalities, the fact that this included they were frightened of appearing racist was just one factor and it was highlighted in the report that this was because they were incapable of taking a sensible approach to race.
3) If we really had a problem, these reports wouldn't have been able to be generated or would be under fire themselves. The people doing this investigation were just fine to consider it as a factor. The judge performing sentencing was just fine. The chief prosecutor was fine. We also see many people involved on the site more directly in the cases who dealt with it just fine (social workers, risky business, PACE, etc). With so many people effortlessly dealing with the fact that some people of other races are criminals and may have ties to people from a similar ethnic background, I wonder why other people can not.

I'm not quite sure what the position you're intending to take is.

I'm honestly not sure what the position you're intending to take is either. What should have been done differently? What can be done differently now? Specifically related to political correctness I mean. Obviously there were numerous failures where things could have been done differently.

[Oniya]

I think that the idea of 'what should have been done/what could be done in the future' is quite simply to be accurate in the description of suspects.  If a crime is committed by a white male, police say 'suspect is a white male'.  If a crime is committed by a guy driving a white panel truck, police say 'suspect is driving a white panel truck'.  If a crime is committed by a Pakistani male, police should be able to say 'suspect is a Pakistani male'. 

[consortium11]

I'll have a fuller reply for you in time Caehlim; it's sitting half-written on my computer waiting for me to finish.

But I think this illustrates my point pretty well.

In 2002 a Home Office researcher working in the town did a report into the scale of sexual abuse in the town. Her report noted that a small number of men of Pakistani descent were abusing a significant number of children. The council's response? To send her on race awareness training, bury the report, bully her and try to remove the data she based her research on so she couldn't verify her findings.

Remember, that's 2002. How many children might have escaped horrific abuse if the council's response to being told a group of people were abusing children was to concentrate on that rather than send the person who brought it to light for additional training because they weren't racially aware enough?

[Caehlim]

I'll have a fuller reply for you in time Caehlim; it's sitting half-written on my computer waiting for me to finish.

No worries, I'm happy to read it whenever you get a chance to put it up.

In 2002 a Home Office researcher working in the town did a report into the scale of sexual abuse in the town. Her report noted that a small number of men of Pakistani descent were abusing a significant number of children. The council's response? To send her on race awareness training, bury the report, bully her and try to remove the data she based her research on so she couldn't verify her findings.

That's horrific, especially if the allegations she's made about police intimidation were true.

But what I don't understand about your arguments is the idea that what this council were doing was somehow politically correct. As though these council members were good people, who were competent at their job and led astray by the foul specter of political correctness. This was a crowd of regressive bullies who were far from politically correct, who were described as being "incapable of taking a sensible stance on race" by official examiners. What's politically correct about an office in which women were routinely subjected to harassment and bullying? What's politically correct about going, "This offender is of X race, so other people who share the same race can handle it and we'll segregate them from everyone else?"

Now I'm aware that this comes dangerously close to a no true Scotsman argument. So okay, let's call what's happening here politically correct. I agree that we don't need the brand of political correctness displayed by the Rotherham council which was a corrupt, venal and unbalanced form of it. But this is already being recognized and addressed by legitimate authority, with numerous reports from the institutions of society within the UK confirming and handling this problem.

To have this reflect on the more genuine and honest cases of political correctness where it does prevent racist abuses of power or mandates at least some level of civility between persons is a desperate shame.

[Strident]

There is an aspect to this story which is rarely mentioned.

All these children were in care. Many of them would have been taken, against their parents' wishes into care, because social services, in their wisdom, thought the state could do a better job of looking after them than their own parents could.

That should prove a sobering lesson on understanding the limitations of what a state could and should do.

Some have gone as far as to suggest that there is a systematic plan to remove children in order to supply these rings. I wouldn't go that far, but, I do think we need to look at the abuse of state power. 

[consortium11]

There is an aspect to this story which is rarely mentioned.

All these children were in care. Many of them would have been taken, against their parents' wishes into care, because social services, in their wisdom, thought the state could do a better job of looking after them than their own parents could.

That should prove a sobering lesson on understanding the limitations of what a state could and should do.

Some have gone as far as to suggest that there is a systematic plan to remove children in order to supply these rings. I wouldn't go that far, but, I do think we need to look at the abuse of state power.

No, they weren't. Some were within care and some were taken into care over the period they were abused but it was not all the children. To give a simple example, some of the girls currently suing Rotherham council for failing to protect them were originally groomed before being taken into care; it was frequently a direct result of the grooming that led to them being taken into care.

[Kythia]

Trevor Phillips - the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality - has said that political correctness is causing harm to the country by stifling open and honest debate.  The Daily Mail stands solidly behind him but I pretty uch get all my news from the Daily Mash nowadays which has a far more sensible take.

[Valthazar]

Kythia, what is your take of Trevor Phillips' statement in the Daily Mash?

On one hand, he seems to be saying that it is healthy to have a culture where people are not afraid to talk about race - where they can state honest opinions such as "multiculturalism may have drawbacks."  But on the other hand, he seems to be saying that it is not healthy for these types of sentiments to be used for political action.

If indeed it can be confirmed that there are certain problematic elements with continued rising multiculturalism in the UK, then isn't a political counter-response exactly what is necessary to alter current immigration trends?  For example, asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, scrutiny on those overstaying visas, etc.

[Caehlim]

If indeed it can be confirmed that there are certain problematic elements with continued rising multiculturalism in the UK, then isn't a political counter-response exactly what is necessary to alter current immigration trends?  For example, asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, scrutiny on those overstaying visas, etc.

I'm not sure how that would help in this situation, given that the discussion is centered around British Pakistanis, who are for the most part citizens with 55% of the British Pakistani population born in the UK.

These weren't asylum seekers, illegal immigrants or visa-overstayers. They were commonwealth citizens, brought into the country to resolve a jobs shortage in the 60s and 70s within the steel mills and NHS. They are the largest ethnic minority group in the country.

[Kythia]

Yeah, Caehlim's on the money there.  Immigration, asylum, visas, etc. are all red herrings, this isn't about any of those.  It's a knee jerk reaction that essentially boils down to "this guy committed murder, lets - knowingly and deliberately - punish that guy over there as well because he looks a bit like him".  A common red herring, but a red herring nonetheless.

As to his actual comments...

Well, first the reason I like the Mash's take on it is because his smug self-righteousness is vaguely nauseating.  We have a major political party running on essentially those self same issues, claiming that he's a lone voice of sanity saying the unthinkable is basically another way of saying "I have no idea whats going on and have literally never heard anyone else's opinion."

That aside though...ok.  I have a lasagna warming up in the oven at the moment.  In one way that's "because" mains electricity is passing through the heating element and radiating heat in to the body of the oven which is being reflected inwards by the coating.  In another way its because I'm hungry and quite like Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Lasagnas.

Both those statements are absolutely true, but they lead to different conversations.  I'd talk about the first in my forthcoming non-fiction bestseller "The Physics Of Kythia's Kitchen" and the second in my forthcoming collection of humourous culinary anecdotes "Things Kythia Eats."  Neither is more or less valid as a way of explaining the world, but they lead to different conversations.

At this stage I'll just interject that I don't actually believe both ways of talking about race in this country in fact are equally valid, but thats a story for another post.

Talking about race in political discourse leads to a certain conversation.  Inevitably and inexorably.  And its a conversation that isn't worth having.  Nothing useful can come of it.

Because while statements like "If a person of afro-Caribbean ancestry is murdered, its probably by another person of afro-Caribbean ancestry" are 100% true, there's nothing we can take from that.  Noone - or noone whose opinions we should give a flying fuck about at least - thinks there's some gene unique to afro-Caribbeans (and, in fact, afro-Caribbean males) that sends them in to a beserker rage at the sight of another black face.  Noone thinks Trevor Phillips should be kept away from certain areas of London because the risks of him going on a murderous rampage are too high.

Afro-caribbean, here, is a placeholder for a specific demograph.  One with a number of issues and problems around poverty, enfranchisement, group identity, etc.  Talking about those things in political discussion is worthwhile - those are things politicans can be at least partly responsible for creating and at least partly responsible for changing.  And those are, at the end of the day, the things we actually want to change. 

Saying "Race X does Y" is unhelpful unless there is an actual genetic link there.  "Pakistanis are at greater risk of Type 2 Diabetes" - Helpful statement, the link is actually to race.  "Afro-Caribbeans murder other afro-Caribbeans" - Not helpful, race is in no way causative there.

So while, as touched upon above, I don't actually think discussing this in terms of race actually is as viable as discussing it as a laundry list of socio-economic factors, even if it was I don't think holding that conversation is a useful thing to do.  It focuses the conversation away from areas where we can do something and on to areas where we can't.

Because, finally, if every time I tried to explain to people how my oven worked they said "shut up and tell us more humourous anecdotes from your forthcoming masterpiece [reserve your copy now]" then the media would be correct to focus on that area.  And political debate would be right to focus on that area as well.  Vox populi vox dei.  By consistently holding the debate in terms of race we're making it progressively harder to hold the debate in terms of anything else.

[Valthazar]

The UK has gone through a political shift in its view of diversity over the past 50 years.  Back during the 60s, and arguably into the 80s, the prevailing theme was assimilation.  This was the idea that 1st generation Pakistani-British would be "British" - reflecting the British values and traditions; essentially a "colorblind" approach.  In today's UK (from the early 90s to the present day), the prevailing theme is multiculturalism.  This is the idea that minorities should be encouraged to maintain and propagate the cultures of their homeland in the UK.

Many of the 55% British-born Pakistani-British that Caehlim mentions would arguably associate themselves more with Pakistani culture than existing British culture - which may surprise many Americans.  If as Trevor Phillips mentions, evidence is suggesting that distinct 'ethic sub-cultures' are developing in the UK with attitudes potentially tangential to British values, this may signal the need to question the merits of multiculturalism, in favor of assimilation.   I don't think that is a xenophobic or racist debate to have.

For example, when it comes to political guidelines on education:  Should students be inculcated with British values and ideologies, or should they be taught more about the culture of their heritage?  This is an issue that is currently being debated even in the US.  Scholars are split on the issue - with some suggesting ethnic gang formation may be heavily influenced by multiculturalism, and a lack of pro-assimilation policies.

I realize that immigration is not related to this topic, so we can save that for another thread in the future.

[Kythia]

Hmmm.  British values.

True story, first, though a bit of a digression.  A friend of mine is training to be a teacher and teachers have to make sure their lessons are "not undermining fundamental British values" - this is literally a legal requirement, you can see the full teaching standards here should you for some reason give a fuck.  He's now (jokingly) concerned that his teaching could be so bad as to actually constitute treason.

Anyhoo.

My family is (kind of) of Pakistani descent and when I'm at home I speak Urdu in the house.  My da goes over fairly regularly, the rest of us less so, and the family certainly has strong links to the local Pakistani community.  I'd to some extent agree with you there, the Pakistani identity is, for a given value of important, important.  And I'd certainly agree that in certain Pakistani communities - and lets be careful not to paint with too broad a brush here - cultural identity is "tangential" or even openly at odds with that of the surrounding White British culture.

But...so what?  And?  The teaching standards I mention above give the British Values that are not to be undermined as "democracy, the rule
of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs".  Even leaving aside the obvious fact that they are claiming that British Values are precisely the multiculturalism you claim is opposing British values, does that not strike you as a somewhat cherry-picked list?  Where's football?  And the Empire?  And hating the French?  Is that list genuinely word for word the one you, Valthazar, would think of if someone asked you to name them?  Unlikely.

So British Values are a nebulous phrase, at best.  Further, though, this argument that "multiculturalism is threatening traditional British values" is unfinished.  What needs to be shown - and never is - is "and that is bad because x,y,z".  Britain as a political entity is, depending on how you define it, a millenium or so old.  Our values have changed and will continue to do so.  There was no mythical Golden Age where all day every day people held hands and sung under a rainbow.  We've had wave after wave of invasion and immigration, each time bringing a shift in the values.  We've had dominant religion after dominant religion, political structure after political structure.  And, yanno, England Prevails (and those other guys too).  British values, in so much as any can be pinned down, are nothing more significant than "some stuff happens and we deal with it". 

There's nothing magical about the set of values that people are claiming are under threat, nothing sacred.  If they are to be worthy of defence then they need to be shown to be - "this set of values is under threat and that is bad because x,y,z" not "British values are under threat".  Phrasing it as an attack on the country is both xenophobic and racist, yes.  If the values are important and worth defending it doesn't matter whether they're British or not because we should be talking about why they're important and worth defending.  If they're not, focusing on the fact that they're British is nothing more than a smokescreen.

[Caehlim]

Many of the 55% British-born Pakistani-British that Caehlim mentions would arguably associate themselves more with Pakistani culture than existing British culture - which may surprise many Americans.  If as Trevor Phillips mentions, evidence is suggesting that distinct 'ethic sub-cultures' are developing in the UK with attitudes potentially tangential to British values, this may signal the need to question the merits of multiculturalism, in favor of assimilation.   I don't think that is a xenophobic or racist debate to have.

The figures I have are showing that they identify themselves as Pakistani under the 'race' category of the census. Unfortunately I don't have any data to offer on their cultural affiliation.

Am I the only one finding it ironic though that we're talking about "British Values" and the "Values of the United Kingdom". Somewhere deep inside me from several generations back, my Irish and Scottish blood is rather agitated by the concept.

[Kythia]

The figures I have are showing that they identify themselves as Pakistani under the 'race' category of the census. Unfortunately I don't have any data to offer on their cultural affiliation.

Am I the only one finding it ironic though that we're talking about "British Values" and the "Values of the United Kingdom". Somewhere deep inside me from several generations back, my Irish and Scottish blood is rather agitated by the concept.

Just to be picky, "British" is the correct demonym for "from the UK"

[Valthazar]

True story, first, though a bit of a digression.  A friend of mine is training to be a teacher and teachers have to make sure their lessons are "not undermining fundamental British values" - this is literally a legal requirement, you can see the full teaching standards here should you for some reason give a fuck.  He's now (jokingly) concerned that his teaching could be so bad as to actually constitute treason.

Here in the US also, no one is debating whether or not to teach constitutional values or the rule of law - so called "American values."  I was referring to the modern day ideology of encouraging minority children to firmly hold onto their cultural heritage, rather than setting it as an educational priority to culturally/ideologically assimilate them to the host country. 

Cultural pluralism is "a condition in which minority groups participate fully in the dominant society, yet maintain their cultural differences."  A Google search for "cultural pluralism in education" should bring up some information about this if you are interested.

And I'd certainly agree that in certain Pakistani communities - and lets be careful not to paint with too broad a brush here - cultural identity is "tangential" or even openly at odds with that of the surrounding White British culture.

But...so what?  And?

Perhaps the better question is to ask what benefit comes from having multiple subcultures that aren't culturally unified?  And as a follow up question - though a very politically incorrect one - is this even desirable to the indigenous British demographic?  My guess is that many would not answer the second question honestly due to a fear of seeming racist.

My belief is that most people want to see a cohesive, racially diverse UK where everyone proudly calls themselves a Brit.  This is not what is happening, however.

I understand we have a difference in opinion, and I can respect that.  I think most people in Europe are accepting and tolerant of minorities, so long as they are willing to integrate and truly become part of the overall culture of the nation.  This is not what is happening in the UK, by and large - as many communities have been culturally transformed in a matter of only 20-25 years due to a lack of assimilation.

I never stated that "British values" was some type of gold standard, but as a non-Brit, and certainly as a non-White individual, I think the indigenous British population has every right to ask that those living in their country oblige to their way of life and customs.  Going back to the topic - if Trevor Phillips apparently has evidence that certain minority enclaves exhibit higher rates of certain illegal behaviors, this grounds to reevaluate Britain's multicultural philosophy.

[I'm using the term 'indigenous' loosely to refer to those who have generations upon generations of ancestors who lived in the UK].

[Kythia]

I never stated that "British values" was some type of gold standard, but as a non-Brit, and certainly as a non-White individual, I think the indigenous British population has every right to ask that those living in their country oblige to their way of life and customs.

In certain parts of sub-Saharan Africa, female genital mutilation is common.  Do you think immigrants to those countries should oblige to that way of life and custom?  If not, what is the difference that you see?

My point, which clearly I made badly, is that noone is bothering to specify or state that the "way of life and customs" are actually good things.  Just that they are British things.  And that's pretty much the textbook definition of xenophobia. 

If they are good things, then discussing immigrants to this country not holding to them is irrelevant - we want everybody , worldwide, to hold to them and singling immigrants out is racist.  If they're not good things - bad or neutral things - then who gives a fuck whether they're being held to?  It's either unimportant or good that people aren't following them.

[Karadzic]

I grew up in Quebec, which is pretty moderate politically. I considered myself a little left wing, part of the seperatist movement.
Even when I moved to the United States, I maintained my political stance, considering myself even far left-wing.

Then, for the first time, I went on 4chan's /pol/ board. And at first, I thought all of the far-left news posts were "trolls". But the more I saw, the more I had to accept it.
I've come to realize the problem isn't the left or the right.
It's extremists.

Seriously. Every political problem is mostly due to extremists. Most of the people I know, including hyper-religious people (such as my aunt, a nun), believe that it's fine to teach evolution in school and whatnot. Likewise, even if people don't think global warming is a problem, most of them support some sort of environmental protection.
On the other hand, most of the people I know don't get butthurt over even thinking that someone who isn't a white man could be a criminal. And everyone I know that isn't straight has no problem with heterosexual people.

...There should be a party for the people who hate sides of the spectrum and just want to be in the middle.

[Lustful Bride]

I grew up in Quebec, which is pretty moderate politically. I considered myself a little left wing, part of the seperatist movement.
Even when I moved to the United States, I maintained my political stance, considering myself even far left-wing.

Then, for the first time, I went on 4chan's /pol/ board. And at first, I thought all of the far-left news posts were "trolls". But the more I saw, the more I had to accept it.
I've come to realize the problem isn't the left or the right.
It's extremists.

Seriously. Every political problem is mostly due to extremists. Most of the people I know, including hyper-religious people (such as my aunt, a nun), believe that it's fine to teach evolution in school and whatnot. Likewise, even if people don't think global warming is a problem, most of them support some sort of environmental protection.
On the other hand, most of the people I know don't get butthurt over even thinking that someone who isn't a white man could be a criminal. And everyone I know that isn't straight has no problem with heterosexual people.

...There should be a party for the people who hate sides of the spectrum and just want to be in the middle.

*applauds you* Yes, my thoughts to a T my friend.  ;D

[HannibalBarca]

The problem isn't ethnicities or religions, but cultural artifacts that may encourage, condone, or ignore criminal behavior.

Take as an example the Antebellum South of the United States.  Slavery was a region-wide institution.  Not all Southerners participated in it directly by owning a slave, but tacit acceptance of slavery--by not protesting it, or going along with it out of indifference or fear of their loss of cultural hegemony--was rampant.  If we were to say that it was a white Protestant problem, it might be considered true, but is there correlation and causation?  Most slaves were owned by the wealthy; very few poor whites owned even a single slave.  There were black slave owners as well.  Most slave owners were white.  Most were Protestant.  But was this in any way an ethnic or religious problem?  No, it was the culture of racial superiority, privilege, and entitlement that was the problem.  The wealthy wanted that feudal system so they could live a life of leisure while the underclass did all the work.  So much better for them when they found they could import foreigners and enslave them giving no restitution for their work!  They used race and religion as tools to prop up their beliefs, but it was not genetic to the whites or blacks to end up in the situation.  It was an economic and cultural abomination.

Nowadays we still find significant racism in a percentage of the white population, but it isn't a white problem.  It is a cultural problem of some people of all ethnic varieties, but is larger in the white population than other groups.  This should guide most people to the acceptance that there are some seriously deficient cultural artifacts in what is considered the overarching white culture in the U.S.

If a disproportionate percentage of British citizens of Pakistani descent are committing heinous crimes, and those citizens are from a non-integrating minority, it should come as no surprise that people would initially find correlation between those two factors.  Next should come the hard work of actually investigating and seeing if there is an actual causal link between the two--is there some cultural artifact(s) within the British Pakistani population that encourages, condones, or ignores the criminal behavior, or assists in leading to another cultural artifact that would indirectly lead to the criminal behavior being markedly higher among their population? 

I think it's pretty clear that some cultures, due to various pressures, traditions, or economic conditions, support various distasteful and vile actions.  Child genital mutilation (whether female or male) is one that comes to mind.  While Americans recoil in horror at the female mutilations in Africa, many turn a blind eye to genital mutilations of males in their own country.  They may be unequal in result, but regardless of result, mutilating any child's genitals is reprehensible.

If there is a specific reason why a disproportionate number of British men of Pakistani descent are committing these crimes, it isn't because of their ethnic background.  Segments of their religion may contribute to the cultural acceptance of maltreatment of females, particularly females of a considered alien population.  It isn't genetics that causes these problems--genetics doesn't cause any problem in a social group of humans, it causes problems in individuals.  However, social/cultural problems are very much a group thing, and zeroing in on a particular group or subgroup of a group for following tenets, traditions or creeds that harm the general welfare seems like a very fair action to me.  Find the belief that propagates the disproportionate criminal behavior and discredit/disown/change it, and you will see the criminal acts reduced.

[Caehlim]

The problem isn't ethnicities or religions, but cultural artifacts that may encourage, condone, or ignore criminal behavior.

I agree entirely. I'm quoting this as the key sentence but the whole post really captured my thoughts as well. There's just one thing I think worth addressing.

If a disproportionate percentage of British citizens of Pakistani descent are committing heinous crimes

To quote the Spartans...

"If."