Crimes mostly committed by men, except shoplifting

Men are far more often suspected of a crime in the Netherlands than women. With the exception of shoplifting, female suspects are seriously underrepresented in all types of crime, according to figures released by Statistics Netherlands on Tuesday. Last year over 41 thousand women were registered as a suspect in a crime by the police. That is equal to about 50 per 10 thousand women living in the Netherlands. With men it was 201 per 10 thousand, four times as high. In both men and women, the proportion of suspects is very much dependent on age. Proportionally, most female suspects are between the ages of 15 and 18 years - 113 per 10 thousand residents. Most male suspects are between the ages of 18 and 21 years - 500 per 10 thousand residents. The only crime for which there are more female suspects than male suspects is shoplifting in the age group 18 to 25 year-olds. Among women in this age group, 26 per 10 thousand are suspected of shoplifting, among men it is 20 per 10 thousand. For all other crimes, women are very underrepresented. Men are more than six times as often suspected in violent crimes than women. In crimes against property, such as theft, men are three times more often suspected. Women of Antillean and Aruban descent are more often registered as suspects in a crime than women of other ethnic groups. To a lesser extent this is also true for women with a Surinamese or Moroccan background, and even less for women of Turkish descent.