250 'ladettes' are arrested every day for violent crimes

Annual criminal justice statistics showed 88,139 women were arrested for violent offences in 2007/8 – or nearly 250 every day.

That is an increase of almost 1,000 on the previous year. At the same time, the number of men arrested for violent crimes fell by 10,000.

The rise in arrests means that for the second consecutive year, women were more likely to be held for violent offences than for any other.

Since 2002, the number of women arrested for violent crimes has more than doubled. At the turn of the century the figure was 37,100.

It overtook shoplifting for the first time in 2005/6 and the new figures, published by the Ministry of Justice, showed arrests of women for theft continued to fall, by nearly 3,000 to 77,425.

Violence against the person – a category which includes manslaughter, assault and grievous bodily harm – accounted for 35 per cent of all female crime.

For all offences, a quarter of arrests were of girls aged between 10 and 17, while a fifth of all arrested men were also in that age group.

More than 250,000 women were arrested for all crimes in 2007/8, compared with more than 1.2m men.

Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve said the figures were "deeply disturbing".

"That an increasing number of women are resorting to crime, including fraud, drugs and violence, is a damning indictment on this Government's failure to get to grips with a range of social problems – from drug abuse to family breakdown."

Separate figures published yesterday showed around one in four of the most serious crimes reported to the police are solved.

A total of 4,702,500 so-called 'notifiable offences' – which can lead to a Crown Court trial – were reported in England and Wales in 2008. Of those, police marked 1,335,800 as detected or solved. But of those, only half resulted in criminal charges. A quarter, or 319,300 led to police cautions, while 108,400 – 8 per cent – led to penalty notices.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "It is an indication of how common violence is on our streets that more and more women are involved. It is worrying evidence of a growing ladette culture.

"Labour has failed to tackle binge drinking and the resultant violence."

Police minister David Hanson said: "Women commit less than a quarter of all violent crimes, but we know it has a devastating effect on communities. We are not complacent about any serious crime which is why we have invested heavily in tackling violence of all kinds through responsive policing, tough powers, and funding for prevention projects."