Last Updated on September 14, 2025 by Karl Thompson
This article provides a clear breakdown of gender and crime statistics, focusing specifically on how male vs female crime statistics compare across various types of offences
Gender and Crime Statistics a Summary
- Men are more likely to commit more serious crimes than women.
- Men are more likely to be arrested and sent to jail than women.
- Men are more likely to be victims of more serious crimes such as murder and violence against the person.
- Women commit less serious offences and are less likely to go jail.
- Only 5% of the prison population is female.
- Women are more likely to be victims of sexual offences than men.
- There are more males throughout the Criminal Justice System, although in recent years women are catching up to men, especially as more than 40% of judges are now women.
The latest available figures are from Women and the Criminal Justice System 2023, published by the Ministry of Justice in January 2025.
Some of the figures below are from Women and the Criminal Justice System 2021, published by the Ministry of Justice in November 2022. I am currently updating this post with the 2025 figures.
This is an important update for the gender and crime topic which makes up part of the A-level sociology crime and deviance module.
Men are more likely to be arrested, prosecuted and sent to jail
There are approximately equal numbers of men and women in the population as a whole, but
- 84% of people arrested are male
- 78% of those prosecuted are male
- 96% of people who go to prison are male,
- women only make up 4% of the total prison population.
Both the male and female crime rates have been declining over the last five years of statistics, with fewer men and women being dealt with by the criminal justice system.
The proportion of female offenders compared to male offenders has shrunk in the last five years. In 2017 26% of offenders were female. In 2021 only 21% of offenders were female.
Men commit more serious crimes than women
Men commit more crime than women in almost all categories of crime. As a general rule men commit a higher proportion of more serious crimes. We have to back to the 2021 figures for this as there is no visual in the latest publication. In 2021:
- men committed 98% of sexual offences.
- men committed 82% of violence against the person offences.
- men committed 92% of drug offences.
The most equal in terms of gender were fraud offences and summary non-motoring offences. Men committed 74% of fraud offences and 66% of summary non-motoring offences.
Men are more likely to commit indictable offences
‘Indictable offences’ are those more serious offences dealt with by the crown court. You are much more likely to go to jail for an indictable offence. Men are twice as likely to be on trial for an indictable offence compared to women.
In 2023 74% of males were court for summary (less serious offences) compared to 86% of women, and men were more likely to on trial for motoring offences!
Differences in male and female offending, less serious crimes
The biggest differences are as follows:
- men are much more likely to be given penalty notices for possession of cannabis.
- Women are much more likely to be given penalty disorder notices for theft, basically shoplifting.
- Women are three times as likely to be given a notice for wasting police time compared to men, although the figures are small.
- A higher proportion. of women are also prosecuted for being drunk and disorderly, although this is a very large category for both men and women.
Also, and this isn’t shown above, 74% of prosecutions for television licence evasions are against women.
Women are much less likely to go to jail compared to men
in 2021 men were twice as likely than women to be sent straight to jail. 34% of men were sent straight to jail compared to only 17% of women.
Women are more likely to receive community service as a type of punishment than men. In 2023 30% of women convicted for indictable (more serious) offences received community service compared to only 21% of men.
These gender differences in offending relate to the fact that women commit less serious crimes than men, rather than the courts treating women more leniently.
Women receive shorter prison sentences than men
The average custodial prison sentence length more men was 21.8 years in 2023, compared to 12.2 years for women.
It’s worth noting that the length of prison sentences has increased for both men and women over the last for years. The gap between the two has remained relatively stable.
Women only make up 4% of the prison population
The proportion of women compared to men in jail remained stable at 5% for women, 95% for men between 2015 and 2019. In 2021 this changed and today men make up 96% of the prison population and women only 4%.
Women also get shorter sentences than men. In 2024, 46% of women in prison were serving sentences of less than four years. This is compared to only 27% of male prisoners.
Female prisoners are twice as likely to self-harm compared to men
13% of male prisoners self-harmed in 2021 compared to 35% of female prisoners.
This suggests that women find the experience of going to jail more stressful than men.
It’s also worth noting that 35% is is a HUGE proportion of female prisoners.
Gender and victimisation
Patterns of victimisation also vary by gender.
- Women are more likely than men be victims of any type of crime. In 2023 10.1% of women were victims of all personal crime compared to 9.4% of men.
- 1.8% of men were victims of violent crime compared to only 1.1% of women.
- Men are 3 times more likely to victims of robbery compared to men.
- Women are more likely to be victims of fraud compared to men.
Homicide statistics and gender
Men are more than twice as likely to be murdered compared to women.
Women are much more likely to be murdered by a partner or ex partner compared to men. In 2022/23 32% of women were murdered by a partner or ex partner. Men were most likely to be murdered by a friend or an acquaintance (25% of male murder victims).
78% of female victims were murdered in a domestic setting compared to only 37% of men, which shows the link between domestic violence and female murder victims.
Women are more likely to be victims of sexual offences
Again we need to go back to the last publication due to lack of visuals in the 2025 publication. In 2022 women were six times more likely to be referred to victim support for sexual offences compared to men.
Source: Office for National Statistics.
Criminal Justice Professionals by Gender
Finally, it’s worth taking a quick look at how many judges and police are male and female….
- 35% of police officers are female
- 43% of all judges are female.
The proportions of both female police officers and judges have increased over the past four years.
Signposting
This post summarises the stats on gender and offending. There are competing theories for why these differences exist.
Sex Role Theory suggests that women commit less crime because they are socialised into being more passive than men.
Freda Adler’s Liberationist Perspective suggests women have become more frequent offenders as they become more liberated in society.