Home Secretary Suella Braverman made several comments about the ethnicity of some high-profile gangs.
The prime minister says victims of grooming gangs have been ignored because of political correctness., the government pledged more data on the make-up of grooming gangs, including ethnicity, to help ensure suspects "cannot hide behind cultural sensitivities as a way to evade justice".
The Home Office clarified that she was talking about three of the most notorious grooming gang cases, from Rochdale, Rotherham, and Telford. These reviews also mention concerns among police and social services teams that if they pursued groups of non-white offenders they might be accused of racism.That string of cases, including the three quoted by Ms Braverman, involving non-white offenders has received widespread attention - especially from campaigners on social media.
But the suggestion that the ethnic background of the perpetrators plays an important part in abuse by gangs is hard to support, at least based on the current evidence."The academic literature highlights significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and this form of offending.""Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations.
The problem is that the data is from only 19 out of more than 40 police forces and nearly a decade old. It found evidence that gang-based abuse was happening, and of widespread failures by the police to record the ethnicity of perpetrators.