Whenever protests are made about claims that as much as 90% of sexual exploitation by so-called “grooming gangs” is attributable to Asian men - a claim that all too often is re-framed as being down to “Pakistani [heritage] Muslims” - the inevitable fall-back is to quote research by the Quilliam Foundation. But after recent mis-steps by co-founder Maajid Nawaz, it should surprise no-one that their research is now considered suspect.
Maajid Nawaz
Indeed, Dr Ella Cockbain, who has literally written the book on Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), has now considered the Quilliam material and passed severely adverse comment upon it. Following LBC host Matthew Stadlen’s comment “I challenged Quilliam about their report and they stand by it”, she set out exactly why she had concluded thus.
“Any time @MatthewStadlen (or another journalist) would like, I’d be happy to go on air with @MaajidNawaz or another @QuilliamOrg representative to discuss the merits of this ‘evidence-based’ report. We can talk about science: definitions, sampling, samples, validity & inference”. That means she knows her statistics, too. And there was more.
“If I were marking @QuilliamOrg ‘s ‘research’ as a student assignment, I’d fail it twice if I could. I wouldn’t normally be so harsh but the sheer intellectual dishonesty & irresponsibility of releasing this tripe badged as ‘evidence’ means I’m not holding back”.
Ouch! Why so? Hadn’t she used the “83%” figure herself? Well … “I made the sources & their limitations explicit & specifically underlined that was incomplete picture & not generalisable. The 83% figure was, & still is, true - but as stated there came from five cases only & mustn't be generalised … Yep, that 83% figure (s)he's talking about is where I'm discussing our research: five major cases. Not the basis for generalisation”.
And the victims? “Some key messages from my presentation @ukhomeoffice today about my research on six so-callled ‘grooming gangs’. 1) Crimes horrific but offenders not very sophisticated or organised (opportunism key); 2) No evidence white girls deliberately targeted (& many victims were BME)”. No evidence white girls deliberately targeted.
As to the figures that Quilliam, Nawaz, and many others have been casting around for some months now, Dr Cockbain has yet worse news: “No reliable stats on ‘grooming gangs’ exist - but we need to ask what are we trying to measure & why … Simplistic ‘cultural’ (racial) explanations rarely explain much”. Let’s pick the bones out of that.
1 Quilliam’s claims that 83% of “grooming gang” CSE is done by Asian men is not supported by the available evidence, and is most likely totally false.
2 There is no evidence these gangs deliberately targeted white girls.
3 Quilliam has failed even to grasp basic statistical concepts.
4 This is a very small subset of CSE and to ignore the rest suggests there is an agenda at work here, especially the now disproven “83% Asian men” claim.
Instead of being evasive, Maajid Nawaz should now come forward and discuss the issue with professionals like Dr Cockbain. Ducking such a discussion further leads to the inevitable conclusion that Nawaz does not have confidence in his own research.
Until such time as Maajid Nawaz, or any of his colleagues, bring forward research to stand up their claims, in the light of what Dr Cockbain has told, they should not be relied upon as having any evidential value whatsoever. In other words, they are worthless.
Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at
Newcastle, Telford, Oxford, Huddersfield, Aylesbury, Keighley, Halifax, Oldham, Rochdale, Peterborough, Bristol - how many more Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs do you want until the truth dawns on you. Nawaz sees the problem for what it is, shame others didn't in the past. It is a specific problem amongst Pakistani Muslim men at which their attitude to women and non-muslims is at the core, and this is born out of islam.
ReplyDeleteYour exercises in semntics and statistic are embarrassing, but here you are joined by the MSM. What is the problem calling in it like it is, if this was being done by any other group naming and shaming wouldn't be a problem. Do they think we are all going to take to the streets and abuse any asian person we come across? The result of all this patronizing attitude to the public, the rise and continuing influence of the right. Well done!
Anon 10:55 "Do they think we are all going to take to the streets and abuse any asian person we come across?"
ReplyDeleteNo, not all of what you call "we", just some.
So, what do you want to replace evidence with?
Yes, don't bother reading it, Anon. Stick to your fantasies.
ReplyDeleteSo the 85% figure is from just 5 cases, if I'm reading correctly (and possibly am not)? I don't understand the point of using the figure at all to be honest.
ReplyDeleteThen again, I'm not exactly an expert in statistics...
Nparker, it was used as shorthand in a technical article to indicate that of the five cases that were examined in detail, 85% of the offenders were of Pakistani Muslim heritage.
ReplyDeleteThe difference being that Dr Cockbain explicitly said that no generalisations could be made from this statistically small sampling as to the ethnic background of all grooming gangs in the UK. However, the Quillam report used the same five cases and said without looking at the whole picture, that these five cases were enough to make assumptions about the ethnic backgrounds of all grooming gangs.
An example would be to go to a police station and interview football fans arrested on one day at one match and use those figures to state that 50% of all football hooligans supported one team.
Does that make it clearer for you?