Fudging immigration statistics again
This is an example of how right-wing papers feed us all bullshit on immigration. The Telegraph today says:
More than one crime in five in London is now committed by a foreign national, raising fresh fears over the impact of immigration. Around a third of all sex offences and a half of all frauds in the capital are carried out by non-British citizens.
Except that, as Ministry of Truth points out:
So, for violent crimes, the top twenty list above weigh in with a total of 3812 offences, while the Met’s rolling 12 month figures give a total of 172,734 violent offences from March 07 to March 08 (down 5.3% on the previous years. As we’re only dealing a half year’s figures (and ignoring seasonal variations for ease) that gives us 86,387 violent offences of which these top twenty account for under 5%. So its not 1 in 5, its about 1 in 20.
Of course, this doesn’t include crimes committed by foreign national which aren’t solved, but if the Telegraph can compare apples and oranges to make its point, then so can I to show that their figures are a crock of shit.
Sex Offences? Full year is 8766, so a half year is 4383 and our top twenty weighs in with 263, and we have a figure of 6% and not a third as the Telegraph claims.
A crock of shit. Yeah, sounds about right. I think I’m going to complain to the PCC about this one.
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The Telegraph has gone downhill in recent years- it is just turning into a version of the Daily Mail. I am considering switching to the Times.
Nothing new there, then. I am surprised people even take the Telegraph seriously. It’s the Mail with aspirations, ferchrissake.
I think a complaint is necessary, but seriously, for The Mail Lite, I’m not in the least surprised. It’s not far off of Mail readers believing the population was 20% immigrant when the reality was actually 7%.
Hang on, they said ‘More than one in five’, while the actual figure is one in twenty! Jesus Christ Superstar Almighty.
Yep, a complaint is definitely in order!
73% of all statistics are made up
Before you complain to the PCC, Sunny, you need to think about that
“Of course, this doesn’t include crimes committed by foreign national which aren’t solved”
Unity is comparing the figures for “solved”* crimes over a 6 month period with the Met’s rolling 12 months stats for ALL crimes, solved and unsolved. A quick Google will tell you that the Met solved 21% of crimes in 2006. Tony McNumpty slipped the figures out around New Year’s Eve.
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2007/12/31/two-welsh-police-forces-top-the-league-table-for-solving-crime-in-the-uk-91466-20298002/
At that point Unity’s stats start to fall apart and the Telegraph’s stats start to look pretty close.
Let’s take one of Unity’s calcs with the kosher stats instead :
“So, for violent crimes, the top twenty list above weigh in with a total of 3812 offences, while the Met’s rolling 12 month figures give a total of 172,734 violent offences from March 07 to March 08 (down 5.3% on the previous years. As we’re only dealing a half year’s figures (and ignoring seasonal variations for ease), with a 21% solve rate that gives us 86,387 * 0.21 = 18,141 solved violent offences of which these top twenty account for over 21%. So its not 1 in 20, its about 1 in 5. The Telegraph are correct”
It may be that the “solve” rate is higher or lower for different types of crime, in which case one could get more accurate figures. Anyone know them ?
(* “solved” – the process by which some smackhead is persuaded to have another 626 offences taken into consideration in exchange for a nice steer from the police when giving evidence in the magistrates court. Our smackhead gets a lesser sentence, police “detection rates” improve and everyone’s happy except the people being burgled.)
Aren’t you glad I’m telling you this now, before you put the Cif post up ?
73% of all statistics are made up
Remember that the next time you push BBC polls of “What Iraqi People Want – More Invasion”, next time round.
Oh dear
Laban is right – you need to compare solved crimes committed by foreigners with all *solved* crimes.
Not with all *reported* crimes.
Ministry of Truth is completely wrong.
I would put that PCC complaint on hold if I were you.
Sunny, the Telegraph today says what?
That article you’ve quoted is is seven months old.
The important thing is that the telegraph is shown to be wrong. It is not consistent with contemporary Labour thinking.
Laban –
I think that the point is that the Telegraph’s hacks couldn’t care less about crime victims (or indeed their nationality).
They are hate-mongering, simple as that, and making a political point.
Marvin – the Telegraph is not wrong, unfortunately.
It is the Ministry of Truth calculation which is the “crock of shit”.
MaidMarian – that may well be the case, though I know a few Telegraph hacks and they are *human* too!
However, their *numbers* – which is what this post was about – are not that misleading.
cjcjc – Put your hand on your heart.
Is the DT article really a concern for crime or is it dog-whistle for, ‘immigrants in your neighbourhood are to a single one there to violently attack you/steal from you/rape your daughter and it is all Gordon Brown’s personal fault.’
It is an open invitation to hate. I’m not a statistician and I am not questioning the facts. I do however know hateful sentiment when I see it.
The DT may be genteel hatemongers – but hate is still hate.
Sorry to your mates.
cjcjc – Sorry – a correction on my last comment.
Where I said, ‘concern for crime,’ I should have said, ‘disinterested presentation of crime statistics.’
That better reflects what I was getting at.
Submit in haste, repent….
MaidMarian,
‘They are hate-mongering, simple as that, and making a political point.
No it’s not. Crime, like anything else, is a probabilistic affair best described by statistics. Liberals don’t like this, because their favourite verbal abstraction of ‘equality’ is undermined by brute statistical reality.
Coz, you know… if every group is equal, well, that sweeps a lot of unpleasant problems under the rug, dunnit?
Fortunately, one school of liberalism has actually taught us some valuable lessons over the centuries: the anti-abstract British tradition of Roger Bacon, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell with its emphasis on realism, common sense and the analytical method.
Torygraph readers, for all their faults, are a lot less abstract than the irrational, Rousseauian Left.
mainstream media nowadays is simply full of shit end of story. and does anyone feel better if a criminal is british? perhaps next time there is a report of {home grown} criminals and people are bemoaning the crime rate, i shall leap in and say, well at least they’re good solid British criminals! heh heh
Mike – I’ll be honest, I don’t really understand that.
Are you saying (DT style) that being an ‘immigrant’ intrinsically makes someone more likely to be a violent rapist/serial fraud etc and that various other factors in society that affect all individuals to a greater or lesser extent subject to circumstances don’t matter?
Of course every group in society is not equal. But by that token not all immigrants are equal.
Stats can, of course, cut the other way. My immigrant wife helps the 82 year old woman next door out twice a week. She does it because she has the time, likes the neighbour, its convenient etc. The British neighbour on the other side does not help out. Is that a statistical demonstration that immigrants in my street are more 100% more likely to help out pensioners?
Of course not because the wider factors that affect the individuals behind the stats matter.
There is a perfectly good argument that immigration should be reduced somehow and that deportation should be made far easier. Simplistic recitals of stats with the aim of whipping up hate do not do that argument any justice. ‘Equality’ is a straw man here.
“does anyone feel better if a criminal is british?”
Of course not.
Would / does the Telegraph ignore indigenous criminality? Hardly!
But *if* immigration increases crime, that is a legitimate matter for discussion, including by the Telegraph!
Whatever a particular newspaper’s “motives” might or might not be, *pretending* the numbers are not what they are is not the most constructive way to respond.
Sonia,
‘….and does anyone feel better if a criminal is british?’
One of the arguments peddled for a World Without Borders is that immigration is good for immigrants (and, indeed, it is, insofar that a brain drain does not occur in the dustbowl they leave behind).
My problem with this is simple: How can it be good for everyone (i.e. you and me) when some ethnic groups commit more crime than others?
You talk about ‘feelings’ and tit-for-tat statistical battles.
For me, however, it’s about the quality of life… (or do vulgar libertarians not care about that anymore?)
cjcjc –
‘Whatever a particular newspaper’s “motives” might or might not be, *pretending* the numbers are not what they are is not the most constructive way to respond.’
I don’t disagree with that but context is all.
There is a qualitative difference to my mind between the dog-whistle, ‘immigrants in Poland wake up and say, “I’m off to rape DT readers’ daughters,”‘ inference and more generalised, disinterested crime reporting.
They are editorialising stats, and immigrants are a soft target. Would it be OK to say that drivers are more likely to break the law and produce raw figures that do no account for, say, parking offences?
Mike (18) – ‘My problem with this is simple: How can it be good for everyone (i.e. you and me) when some ethnic groups commit more crime than others? ‘
‘Ethnic group’ is not, per se, the same as, ‘immigrant,’ or, ‘foreign national.’
A vital distinction here.
There is no point saying that Poles commit three times as many crimes in London than Bulgarians, while hiding the fact that are three times as many Poles living in London than there are Bulgarians. It’s what you would expect.
Unless some “per capita” figures are shown, the figures are of little worth regardless of whether they have been extrapolated correctly or not.
Sunny,
Not wanting to be one to plug my own blog – but before you complain to the PCC have a look at my post here:
http://tinyurl.com/3fgl63
I got a copy of the original stats from the Met – and they don’t even measure foreign nationals and only cover the numbers of people accused.
The Telegraph story has clearly been churned from an earlier Daily Mail story that used the same figures.
Those damn statistics.
Is this racist?
Apparently for the year of 2005 in the US that while 37460 white women were raped/sexually assaulted by black men, no black women were raped/sexually assaulted by white men.
Or was that racism?
“Apparently”. Says it all, that does. Where are those figures from exactly?
Do they refer to, say, recorded crime which is a fraction of actual crime? Does it refer to, say, convictions, an even smaller percentage?
According to that figure you have not-really-quoted, you could argue that, apparently, the US justice is so inequitable that no white men were convicted of raping/sexually assaulting black women.
I think after this debate only one thing is clear.
If I had a fiver for every time MaidMarian mentions his/her foreign-born wife I’d be quite well off by now.
She turns up on every CiF thread, and I think its time she got to have a go on the computer herself.
Katherine:
US Department of Justice website: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
2005 – Table 42: Percent distribution of single-offender victimizations, race of victims, by type of crime and perceived race of offender (PDF file)
Laban – Thank you for your comment.
Apologies if the allusions are something you find tiresome – but no £5 from me! Curiously before I met her I took practically no interest in immigration questions.
It is simply that going through the various processes and issues with her immigration is something that I have taken a personal interest in.
I make no apologies for speaking from experience, it does just brass me off a bit when hacks come up with their rubbish as though immigrants are all the same and represent some sort of wide ranging risk-cum-whipping-boy of convenience. It’s cobblers and the really sad thing is that the hacks probably know it is.
My wife comments that she does not want to write on these boards as there is too much unpleasantness on them for her tastes, but thanks you for the suggestion.
Regardless – best of luck to you.
Yes, read that. Now where does it say anything about how many black men raped white women or how many white men raped black women? Can you answer my question as to whether this is reported crime or unreported crime?
And since I’m assuming that you are not saying that white men committed no rapes at all – i.e. there are some figures somewhere showing that white men raped a certain number of white women – I’m not actually sure what your point is. That it is worse that black men raped white women than white men raped white women?
@Katherine
I think he linked to the wrong file.
Here are the statistics on rape and the race of victims and offenders:
Percent distribution of single-offender victimizations,
based on race of victims, by type of crime and perceived race of offender:
Rape/Sexual assault:
Number of white victims 111,490
Offenders:
white on white 44.5% (49,613)
black on white 33.6% (37,460)
Number of black victims 36,620
Offenders:
white on black 0% (0)
black on black 100% (36,620)
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus0502.pdf
(page 30 of 38)
This data is from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) so it includes crimes regardless of whether or not they were reported.
Waspy 29, Katherine 28:
The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs has actually produced a whole series of spreadsheets here. They are referenced in article by Laurence Auster in Frontpagemag.com The Truth of Interracial Rape in the United States.
… In the United States in 2005, 37,460 white females were sexually assaulted or raped by a black man, while between zero and ten black females were sexually assaulted or raped by a white man.
What this means is that every day in the United States, over one hundred white women are raped or sexually assaulted by a black man.
The Department of Justice statistics refer, of course, to verified reports. …
The same pattern occurs with male rape. Human Rights Watch reportsMale Rape in US Prisons.
…Past studies have documented the prevalence of black on white sexual aggression in prison.(213) These findings are further confirmed by Human Rights Watch’s own research. Overall, our correspondence and interviews with white, black, and Hispanic inmates convince us that white inmates are disproportionately targeted for abuse.(214)
… African Americans typically face sexual abuse at the hands of other African Americans, and Hispanics at the hands of other Hispanics. Some inmates told Human Rights Watch that this pattern reflected an inmate rule, one that was strictly enforced: “only a black can turn out [rape] a black, and only a chicano can turn out a chicano.”(215) Breaking this rule by sexually abusing someone of another race or ethnicity, with the exception of a white inmate, could lead to racial or ethnic unrest, as other members of the victim’s group would retaliate against the perpetrator’s group. … The causes of black on white sexual abuse in prison have been much analyzed. Some commentators have attributed it to the norms of a violent black subculture, the result of social conditioning that encourages aggressiveness and the use of force.(217) Others have viewed it as a form of revenge for white dominance of blacks in outside society.(218) Viewing rape as a hate crime rather than one primarily motivated by sexual urges, they believe that sexually abused white inmates are essentially convenient surrogates for whites generally. …
I am not aware why this pattern of crime should be markedly different in the UK; it is similar to the comparison of non-sexual violent crime. Such crime patterns are typically attributed to poverty; however I am not aware how rape can be so excused. Is this why it is largely excluded from public discourse?