A new study from Statistics Canada reveals women were accused of committing 21 per cent of crime in 2005, but those violations tended to be theft, bail violations and minor assaults.
Men were accused of committing the remaining 79 per cent of crimes in 2005, with the majority of them considered property crimes or crimes against a person.
"Women have traditionally accounted for a small proportion of people in conflict with the law, however the gap has been narrowing slightly over the last few years," Rebecca Kong of Statistics Canada told CTV's Canada AM.
The most common offences among women were as follows:
- Theft (not including motor vehicles): 291 women per 100,000
- Common assault (the most minor form of assault): 155 women per 100,000
- Bail violations: 98 women per 100,000
- Fraud: 84 women per 100,000
Forty-seven percent of women were accused of committing a property crime, while 28 per cent were alleged to have committed a violation against a person.
Among men, 39 per cent were accused of committing a property offence, and 34 per cent were accused of a violation against a person.
Perhaps most startling, the study found that between 1986 and 2005, the number of 12 to 17 year old females accused of a violent crime increased by 120 per cent.
"What we found is generally overall in terms of all Criminal Code offences the rate actually has gone down since the early 1990s," Kong said. "But when we did take a look at violent crimes what we did see is basically the rates among female adults and female youths did soar upward from 86 to the early 90s and continued to increase a bit more after that."
Kong said the study showed that when the numbers were broken down by specific age group, 15-year-old girls were most likely to commit property-related and violent offences.
The good news, she said, is that crime rates among women have been falling since 2002. Among men, violent crime rates have been on the decline since the mid-1990s.
Debra Pepler, a psychology professor at York University and the Hospital for Sick Children, said she's not surprised by the new statistics. She said both boys and girls tend to reach their highest risk of committing a crime at about age 15.
"There's what's called an age-crime curve where the rate of crime goes up until mid to late adolescence and then as young people start to look at adulthood and move into line with expectations for getting more education or jobs, it decreases," she told Canada AM.
Though some of the numbers are surprising, she said she is "pleased" the study has come to light because it is likely to draw attention to an often-neglected issue.
She said research into aggressive tendencies among girls only began about 15 years ago, so there is still a lot to learn in terms of treatment and deterrence. But there are programs that can be implemented once a problem is identified, she said.
"We have treatments that are specific to girls that meet their needs," Pepler said.
"Aggressive girls tend to have more mental health problems than boys and there are some other differences. And so if we see that there is a problem maybe there will be some action to move in and support these kinds of programs."
