Is Jack Straw saying marrying in Pakistan is to blame?

My feeling on hearing Jack Straw's comments today - about Pakistani men committing sexual offences against white girls - was how remarkably unconstructive they were. Basically he seemed to be telling brown people to sort out their folk without even suggesting how they were any more able to root out criminals who happen share their skin colour than white people are with theirs:

"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.

What made Straw's comments objectionable today were his attempts to pin this on all Pakistanis. With the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election campaign in full swing, the seat vacated because of the race-baiting of a disgraced former Labour MP, it would appear the main difference between Phil Woolas and Jack Straw is that the latter doesn't need to spend money on leaflets.

Straw went on to say this in his BBC interview:

"These young men are in a western society, in any event, they act like any other young men, they're fizzing and popping with testosterone, they want some outlet for that, but Pakistani heritage girls are off-limits and they are expected to marry a Pakistani girl from Pakistan, typically.

"So they then seek other avenues and they see these young women, white girls who are vulnerable, some of them in care... who they think are easy meat."

Straw acknowledges that these crimes happen across the board in this country rather than being something unique to Pakistanis. However, the rest of his comments can be taken two ways. Firstly, his objection now can be construed that Pakistani men are not being equal opportunities in their sexual offences - that somehow it would be better if there were brown as well as white girls being targeted (by the way the researchers whose study sparked this off reject the notion that white girls are especially sought - in fact BME girls are overrepresented amongst victims).

But let's say we put that down to careless phrasing. What Straw appears to be doing is citing natural testosterone levels within Pakistani men not having an outlet because of family expectations that they will have to marry girls from Pakistan. If this is indeed what he's getting at, he would do well to explain why it is that rather than just having normal relationships with women in this country instead, some are engaging in criminality.

These are serious crimes that need to be dealt with in an evidence led manner. Jack Straw instead gives us another bumbling intervention in a subject he really should have left to the police.

Comments

[Tom Harris]

You might want to do some research on the phenomenon of groups of Pakistani Muslim men abusing vulnerable children. They are not the only groups engaged in this bestial activity but do form the vast majority of perpetrators.
The North of England has vast levels of gangs seeking out vulnerable children. This is an indisputable fact. The only issue is how this phenomenon is to be addressed.
Pretending it doesn't exist is idiotic.

Authoritative and independent sources place the number of children abused by groups of Muslim men of Pakistani origin at about 5,000. That is a lot of court cases coming to the publics attention - dripping out over the next few years. Will the words Pakistani and Muslim become synonymous in most peoples ears with pedophile?

You complain that Jack Straw is bumbling, Perhaps.
What is your response? Sticking your head in the sand?

[joe kane]

I don't know if this is the same Tom Harris who is a Westminster MP and a member of a political party that has carried out a vast campaign of abuse against vulnerable Muslim girls and women in places such as Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here is the parliamentary voting record of Mr Harris MP which catalogues his involvement in decades old campaign of terror, violence and international war crimes againt innocent defenceless Muslim girls and women -
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/tom_harris/glasgow_south

Mr Tom Harris MP is also prone to abusing young Scottish mothers and their babies, screaming abuse at them from the safety of his blog -
http://www.tomharris.org.uk/2009/03/04/the-return-of-morality/

Mr Harris MP, have you made any more parliamentary expenses claims for baby food, baby equipment etc - or is it just young Scottish working class mums you abuse as spongers being unfairly subsidised by the taxpayer?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8039273.stm#harris_tom

Tom Harris MP doesn't like his behaviour being scrutinised too closely as he -
- Voted moderately against a transparent Parliament
- Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war.

ps
"There’s a real problem with a small number of men, who see young girls as easy meat…" -

'Jack Straw’s brother found guilty of indecent assault on girl, 16'
Independent
09 Sept 2000
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/jack-straws-brother-found-guilty-of-indecent-assault-on-girl-16-698881.html

[joe kane]

Famously, Jack Straw was Foreign Secretary when Craig Murray was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan.
Craig tried to inform Straw of the on-going crimes of sex-abuse and mass rape of Uzbek girls and women by Uzbeki state police and security services. For his troubles, was victimised and hounded from his job by Straw.

For more info, see Craig's excellent blog here -http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/index.html

Craig has a whole archive on the subject of Straw, here -http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/8_the_strawman/

Or read Craig's book 'Murder in Samarkand' which has much info on Jack Straw's attitudes to women who were being abused and preyed on by gangs of abusive Asian men employed by the Uzbek Government.

At the time I think Tom Harris MP was also a member of the same gang of abusers as Straw, the New Labour Party British Government. As far as I can recall, Harris never lifted a finger to help or protect the female population of Uzbekistan from being preyed on and sexually abused by Jack Straw's pals in the Uzbek Government.

[Osama]

Hi Tom, what do you suggest is done? Are brown people more able to control brown criminals than the white community is white criminals? Will you be suggesting white people get together to sort out "their own" when they are the predominant perpetrators of specific crimes?

What does the authoritative research you cite say about this?

[douglas clark]

Tom Harris (MP?)

I somehow doubt that.

However, taking you at face value:

You do what all politicians do, you speak without evidence.

You say:

Authoritative and independent sources place the number of children abused by groups of Muslim men of Pakistani origin at about 5,000.

Share with us why don't you? Name your sources Mr Harris.

I really would expect better from my MP if indeed you are Tom Harris MP. As it stands it's just an allegation.

[Akay]

This is pretty pathetic from long-standing (Labour) MP, im actually quite disappointed.

J.K - was that a daisy-cutter / napalm or nuclear? Whatever it was, it totally obliterated this man's credibilty (or whatever that was left of it)!

Nice!

ps. I hope atleast my (Labour) MP does better (on this matter).

[Akay]

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2011/01/sex-crime-white-muslims

Straw gives us no statistics to justify his claim.
Those that do exist seem to undermine his claim.
Table 5.4b of this pdf shows that, in the latest year for which we have data, Lancashire police arrested 627 people for sexual offences. 0.3% of these were Pakistanis. That's two people. 85.5% were white British. In Lancashire, there are 1,296,900 white Brits and 45,000 Pakistanis. This means that 4.163 per 10,000 white Brits were arrested for a sex crime, compared to 0.44 Pakistanis. If you're a journalist, you might say that the chances of being arrested for a sex crime are nine times greater if you're white than Pakistani. If you're a statistician, you might say they are 0.037 percentage points greater.

Final nail in the coffin for me (on this issue).

[Andy Pratt]

Jack Straw has been a hypocrate since he joined politics in the Northwest area. One of my relatives had close proffessional relations with him and put it this way, his nearest people, especially his family are criminals. This is yet another blow on his political career as he has yet again tried to blame the people, who voted him in in the first place. This is nothing but vendata that he is having to pick on Vulnerable Pakistani community in order to gain probable votes from the other communities. This tactic is called "Divide and Rule". But sorry Jack, the public is not that stupid.