If one was to walk into any Crown or Magistrates Court on any given day in a city or town in which there is a sizeable Asian community, one would witness a very sad and demoralizing fact.

Casting an eye over the Court list will reveal the names of a significant number of Asian defendants. Sometimes as many as one third of the names are Asian. It is right to observe however, that the overwhelming majority of the names will be Pakistani. The Gujrati community remains, thankfully, under represented in the Criminal Justice System.

Now if one compares this current situation to the one that existed, say thirty or even twenty years ago it makes for sad reading.

Back in those days usually you might have had the odd person from the Asian community picked up for being drunk and disorderly and have to sober up in the cells overnight. I suppose we all suffer from some degree of historical amnesia and there will have been other occasional crimes, but they were very limited in their number. The crimes for which Asians appear at courts now however are wide-ranging, varied and manifold. They range from the most petty (e.g. shoplifting), to the most serious (e.g. firearms offences, murder, rape and serious fraud).

What then are reasons for this huge decay in the Asian community. There probably is no single prominent factor but instead a number of contributory factors. It also depends on the type of crime being considered.

For example the reasons for serious fraud will not be the same as drug related and violent crime. Concentrating on these two latter crimes (which are increasingly prevalent in our Asian youth), whilst its difficult to put a finger on the precise reasons, it is possible to hazard a few educated guesses.

Firstly there is an unfortunate desire to emulate Black America as depicted in the music and films.

Some say there is an economic depression in these inner city areas and hence the turn to crime. I for one do not accept that.

It's all too convenient and excuse based to say that.

Another reason is that, whilst twenty or thirty years ago our fathers had a sense of purpose, (namely to work and feed the family back home and here), there appears to be no sense of purpose in much of today's youth. A prime example of this is how certain individuals can spend their whole day driving around in their cars for no apparent reason whilst at the same time blasting their stereo systems.

Another reason is perhaps this. The Asian community has now settled. It has integrated in all sorts of ways.

It has taken huge strides in education and commerce and other positive ways. In other words certain individuals have progressed in ways that they would have done had they still been residing in the Subcontinent. The Subcontinent of course has its many problems. These include high crimes rates.

In other words the Asian community here has probably found its natural balance in that it is very reflective of what the situation back home is.

For my part I think that is a crying shame. This country offers fantastic opportunities to better oneself in terms of education, commerce, religion and many other ways. To fail to grasp these opportunities really is truly criminal.