| Women in focus : Crime and justice The police returned details on 26,000 incidents of domestic abuse recorded between April and December 1999 . However , the majority of incidents recorded ( 57 % ) comprised behaviour that did not lead to the recording of a crime or offence . If an incidence of domestic abuse did lead to a crime or offence being recorded , the most common occurrence was a recording of an offence of petty assault ( 21 % of all incidents ) or breach of the peace ( 18 % of all incidents ) . Crimes which are generally regarded as more serious than offences , were only recorded in respect of 5 % of all incidents . Where a crime was recorded , it was likely to be vandalism ( 1.6 % of all incidents ) or , a non-sexual crime of violence ( 1.5 % of all incidents ) . Males accounted for 87 % of all convictions in 1999 : more males than females were convicted for almost all crime and offence categories . The main exception to this was " other " crimes of indecency , where females accounted for 82 % of what are mainly offences related to prostitution . The other categories where females formed a higher than average proportion of those convicted included shoplifting ( 28 % ) , " other theft " ( 21 % ) , and the " other " miscellaneous offences category ( 15 % ) . The latter category mainly relates to non-payment of a television licence . These three categories accounted for 13 % , 7 % and 7 % respectively of all ; convictions for females : the corresponding proportions for males were 5 % , 4 % and 6 % . |