When obtaining data it is quite challenging in accomplishing full reliability and validity in results, especially when it is a matter of criminology. This is for many reasons. The first is dependent on the severity of a crime. It depends on whether or not it will be reported, for example if a car was stolen it would be reported due to insurance claims. The second reason being, that there could be a number of crimes committed by one person, or one crime committed by a group. Lastly, there are crimes that have been committed and reported but the offenders have not been caught, so when trying to get information on the sex of offenders this is obviously a barricade in progression and results. The majority of statistics found exclude offenders who haven't been caught and also young offenders. This information shows that there is not a true correlation between the number of recorded crimes committed and known offenders as a large extent of data has not been gathered simply because we do not know.
In regards to women and crime, there is a lot to be considered within this topic. One of the most compelling questions are, what is the known ratio of women and crime compared to men and crime and if the difference is substantial enough for criminologists to see a trend. Between the dates of 2007/2008 to 2008/2009 in the United Kingdom, there was a small decrease of 2% in the number of female arrests from 251,910 to 247,127, compared to the number of male arrests which decreased by 1%, from 1,223,356 to 1,215,012. Already this reflects Walklate's statement, that men feature much more as known offenders in relation to women. Men appear to be arrested almost five times more than women. This could be for a number of reasons, depending on the situation the arrests were made in and the arresting officer's view of women. This is because of the role in which females have been given and carry out in society can determine the leniency of male officers.