News coverage of young people and crime can sometimes focus on young girls and women. Girl gangs become popular in the media after the actress Elizabeth Hurley was robbed with a broken bottle allegedly by a gang of four teenage girls in 1994 (Knowsley, 1994). About a decade later there was another surge of interest in young women's alcohol consumption leading to the female equivalent of men behaving badly, the 'Ladette' (Turton, Jackie, 2007). This has since then been reproduced and has occurred more frequently, recently taking the following forms: 'Menace of the violent girls' (Daily Mail 31.07.08), 'The ladette louts' (Daily Mail 21.07.08), "The Feral Sex: The terrifying rise of violent girl gangs' (Bracchi, 2008), and in May and June of 2009 Tom Whitehead writing in the Daily telegraph drew our attention to teenage girls and the growth of the 'ladette' culture in a series of articles; 'Rise of ladette' culture as 241 women were arrested each day for violence', (Whitehead 01.05.09), 'Number of 'ladette women' fined for drunk and disorderly behaviour rises by a third', (Whitehead 14.06.09). These articles and other similar articles describe these very young girls' physique as threatening and unbecoming, of them becoming a menacing gang or 'crew' members who speak and act violently and sadistically (Trottier Daniel; Fuchs Daniel, 2015). .
Such headlines are made sense of by reference to a unique combination of news values where the gender bias is played upon to make girls' activities more interesting and spectacular, unpredictable, odd and quirky. These young people are those whom we don't expect to be uncivilised, threatening and undisciplined. In a similar vein, gendered headlines in relation to sex crimes, paedophile and murderous women have always been newsworthy. According to Hale (2011) "Almost all research will conclude that the media representation of crime exaggerate both the levels of serious interpersonal crime in society and the risk of becoming a crime victim all media forms focus overwhelmingly on violent or sexual offences" (Belmas, Genelle; Overbeck, Wayne, 2013).
