What do we know about the ethnicity of people involved in sexual offences
against children?
6 September 2017
What was claimed

Nearly 90% of those convicted of wider child abuse offences and on the sex
offenders register are white men.
Our verdict

There isn�t much publicly available information on this. The data we do
have shows a large majority of those convicted of sexual offences (no
matter the age of the victim) are white.

�Yes Pakistani men are disproportionately involved in grooming gangs
and this particular model of abuse. And no that is not a racist statement.
Neither is it racist to say that when it comes to wider child abuse nearly
90 per cent of those convicted and on the sex offenders register are white
men.�

Following the high profile conviction of eighteen people in Newcastle
found guilty of a catalogue of offences including rape and conspiracy to
incite prostitution there has been a lot of discussion in the media about
so-called grooming gangs. In particular there has been a lot of debate
over what role, if any, ethnicity and cultural backgrounds play in both
grooming and child sex offences more widely.

The information we have about this is patchy and has a lot of problems. It
also tends to focus on England and Wales rather than the whole of the UK.
Studies on those involved in grooming children do suggest that a
disproportionate number of offenders are categorised as being of Asian
ethnicity. The proportion of offenders or suspected offenders varies from
study to study, but was anywhere from 27% to 75% in the studies we looked
at. These studies all vary slightly in the way they analyse the offenders
and suspected offenders and the level of response they received from child
protection agencies across the country.

The government told us that it doesn�t routinely publish information on
the ethnicity of people convicted of wider sexual offences. What is
available suggests that the majority of offenders are white.

In the overall population of England and Wales 86% of people were white in
2011 (at the last census), 8% of the population was of Asian ethnicity,
and 3% was black. Of course this will vary from place to place around the
country.

Researchers point out that the disproportionate representation of people
of Asian ethnicity in studies on grooming gangs may be caused by a number
of things including: bias in the collecting of information, the high
profile nature of similar cases, and small sample sizes. This might mean,
for example, that when recording information about offenders or suspected
offenders, the organisations involved are more likely to record ethnicity
if the person is Asian. Or it might mean that, because they had seem
similar cases in the media, child protection organisations look out for
specific types and patterns of grooming and abuse more than others leading
to similar types of groups being caught.

A large proportion of cases in these studies also have the ethnicity of
the offender recorded as unknown, so this could potentially affect the
reliability of the information on ethnicities that we do know. In many of
the cases no more information was known other than that the offender was
described as Asian. This could cover a wide variety of ethnicities and
nationalities like Chinese, Pakistani, Indian as well as a range of
British-Asian ethnicities, depending on the study.

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Problems with the data on grooming gangs

There were over 1,200 cases of sexual grooming recorded by police in
England and Wales in 2016/17. The scale of this, and other sexual offences
against children, is difficult to measure as in many cases it goes
unreported.

Naz Shah�s office pointed us towards research done by the Child
Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and Office of the
Children�s Commissioner as the source of her claim that a disproportionate
number of Pakistani men were involved in grooming gangs.

In 2011 CEOP published an analysis of possible offenders who had been
reported to it for �street grooming and child sexual exploitation�. CEOP
said that offenders in these cases often act in groups.

It analysed over 1,200 of these possible offenders and found the vast
majority were male. Around 30% were white, 28% Asian and 3% black and 38%
were unknown. When CEOP looked only at a group of around 940 offenders
that it had better information for it found around 38% were white, 32%
were unknown, 26% were Asian and 3% were black.

At first glance this would seem to suggest that the group identified as
Asian are overrepresented (compared to the proportion of Asian people in
the general population) but CEOP said that the data was too inconsistent
to draw �national conclusions� from. It said more research was needed to
see whether the results were affected by �unconscious bias� in child
protection agencies, the demographics of local areas or if there were
issues in the community that needed to be addressed.

Another study by CEOP from 2013 looked at data collected from 31 police
forces. It found that of around 300 offenders whose ethnicity was provided
and who were part of groups targeting children based on their
vulnerability (rather than because they had a specific sexual interest in
children), 75% had been categorised as Asian and 17% as white, 5% were
listed as black and 3% as Arab. Of the groups who did target children
based on a sexual interest in them (fewer than 20 people studied) all were
white.

In this case CEOP said that the sample size was too small and more
research needed to be done. The National Crime Agency (which CEOP is part
of) told us that it hadn�t published any research into the specific issue
of gangs and grooming more recently.

High profile grooming cases can mean that professionals involved in child
protection can look out for specific types and patterns of abuse more than
others, according to the Office of the Children�s Commissioner in 2012.

It also said that in some cases organisations were more likely to record
the ethnicity of a suspect if they were a particular ethnicity or
nationality�for example if they were Asian.

The data it had collected was based on the reports of victims. It found
that 36% of perpetrators of child sexual exploitation in gangs or groups
were white, 27% Asian, 16% black and 16% not disclosed.

We�ve looked at this issue in the past following other high profile trials
for child grooming.
Little information is available on the ethnicity of those convicted of
sexual offences against children more widely

Naz Shah�s office pointed us towards several newspaper articles written by
Nazir Afzal, former Chief Crown Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution
Service (CPS), as the source of her statement that nearly 90% of people
convicted of child abuse offences were white men. Mr Afzal had said that
between 80% and 95% of offenders were white males.

We contacted the CPS who provided us with the information they publish on
defendants in child sex abuse cases. 98% of defendants were male in
2015/16, but no information about the ethnicity of the defendants was
published. We then submitted a freedom of information request to the CPS
asking for information on the ethnicity of defendants prosecuted in child
sex abuse cases.

It provided us with data on the number of defendants prosecuted for sex
offences in cases flagged as relating to child abuse in 2015/16. It also
included the ethnicity of those defendants.

Of the 6,200 or so defendants in these prosecutions, 67% were white, 4%
were Asian, 3% were black, 1% were mixed race and 1% were other. For 24%
of defendant�s there was no information on their ethnicity. Of all these
prosecutions, around three quarters resulted in a conviction.

The information on defendant�s ethnicity came from information given by
the defendants to police, the CPS told us that �It follows that there may
be errors or omissions at local levels�.

There are other figures published by the government on those found guilty
of offences against children, but these aren�t as recent. Almost 85% of
offenders found guilty of sexual activity with a minor in England and
Wales in 2011 were white. 3% were black and 4% were Asian and the rest
were either listed as �other� or unknown.

But these figures don�t tell us everything about sexual offences committed
against children. For example, if someone is found guilty of raping a
child under the age of 16, this will appear in the figures under �rape�
rather than �sexual activity with a minor�.

Where offenders� ethnicity was known, 81% of people convicted of sexual
offences in 2014 were white, 7% were black and 9% were Asian in 2014.
These proportions were similar over the previous four years. The
government told us it doesn�t regularly publish information on the
ethnicity of those found guilty of sexual offences so there is no more
recent information.