Statistics - Clarity Required

A well researched piece from a Rangers site, who don't often stray in to this territory

Sectarian Statistics - Clarity Required

Written by Opportunity Knox

Friday, 20 May 2011 14:28

Today, I will join the Roman Catholic Church in asking that the Scottish Government provide a detailed breakdown of Sectarian Crime statistics for the period 2010 to 2011. The Church has expressed anger at the rise in Sectarian Crime in Scotland over the last 18 months. http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Catholic-anger-at-growth-in.6770700.jp This comes just weeks after the figures were released by the Government as referred to here. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/bomb-threats-vile-websites-songs-of-bloodlust-and-hate-1.1097708 Quite clearly, both reports are slanted to imply that the highest ratio of sectarian crime is by Protestants on Catholics, despite there being absolutely no evidence within the figures released to justify this. Indeed, the accompanying photograph in the Herald shows the Rangers support, but carries no picture of any other grouping of people. The message is clear. Indeed, the very appearance of an “angry” Catholic church in yesterday’s Scotsman at the recent rise in sectarian crime paints a picture. It sows the seed in your brain that the anger is due to the fact that the rise is in Anti Catholic crime. This is a great shame, as the finger pointing on sectarianism so prevalent in Scotland in recent decades has done nothing to eradicate the problem. Firstly, we should always put Sectarian Crime and associated offences in to perspective. In 2010/2011 there were 693 incidents of religiously motivated crimes/offences, which is 693 too many. In Context to the overall crime figures in Scotland though it is a miniscule problem, that is disproportionately reported in Scotland’s Media. Scotland’s total volume of reported crime and offences for the most recently reported period of 2009/2010 is 901,763 (source Scottish Government Crime Trends report). The percentage of sectarian crime of all crime in Scotland sits at 0.077% I’ll let that sink in. Then repeat it. The percentage of sectarian crime of all crime in Scotland sits at 0.077% Right, now the picture is starting to become clearer I’ll move on. There were more firearms offences in Scotland in 2009-2010 than Sectarian Crime (839) There were ten times more crimes of indecency than Sectarian Crime in the period (6548) There were six times more racially motivated crimes in Scotland than Sectarian (4513) The reportage of sectarian crime itself is an issue. As there has been no detailed breakdown of Sectarian Crime since the 2004-2005 period , the spin put on that set of statistics, which was misleading at the time, is becoming accepted as evidence that sectarian crime is a Protestant Problem. Perhaps those statistics should be revisited. Then, as now, the media allowed the RC Church to misrepresent the data, spin it, and effectively lie about the content of it. Lets recap. In that period, there were 726 cases. Of that 726, 64% were “Anti-catholic”, and 31% were “Anti-Protestant”. The reports that followed included the headlines “Catholics bear brunt of Sectarianism”, and “Catholics 5 times more likely than Protestants to be victims of Sectarianism” Given that no-one bothered to add context such as religious profiling within the Population these statements were wildly inaccurate, as were counter claims that 15.9 % of the Population (Catholics) could be responsible for 31% of all sectarian crime therefore twice as likely to commit sectarian crime than Protestants. The reality is that the vast majority of the sectarian offences and crimes took place in the West of Scotland. The population split in Glasgow and surrounding areas is closer to a 60/30/10 split, with 60% being nominally Protestant, 30% being nominally Catholic, and 10% being other, which almost exactly matches the ratio of Sectarian crime, ie that both sides are equally culpable. What this tells you is that Sectarianism is most certainly a two way street, but that there are agendas at work both from the Catholic Church in Scotland, and from the Media to present it as an Anti Catholic agenda. One can only wonder as to the motivation to do it. What do they have to gain by a) talking up sectarianism, and b) distorting the picture on it? The real shame is that the authorities’ reluctance to go in to detail allows the church and various talking heads to perpetuate an untruth, and keep the sectarianism gravy train running. It also allows Non Catholics to be demonised, which in itself is an act of bigotry It also allows Rangers Football club and their support to suffer as their club becomes “tarnished” by a taint that it does not deserve. The “fight” against “Sectarianism” has upped a gear in the last month once again with familiar faces from Jack McConnell to Jim Murphy to George Galloway to Peter Kearney to assembled agenda led activists at BBC Scotland all on the attack. If they were genuine in intent, they would recognise publicly the true ratio of sectarianism to Scottish Crime, the ratio of Anti Protestant and Anti Catholic crime, and recognise the real presence of sectarianism within the Celtic support, in the presence of support for the Sectarian Provisional IRA. Only Alex Salmond can wade in to this, and offer a real picture, although the funding of the SNP may well hinder the chances of that. Welcome to Scotland. One Country, Many Cultures. As long as the culture isn’t Protestant. OpportunityKnox