Since 2000, annual Garda statistics have provided an age and gender breakdown of convicted offenders. Homicide statistics (which include murder, threats of murder and manslaughter) show that between 2000 and 2003, and across all age ranges, only one female was convicted (for a threat of murder). She was in the 14-16 age bracket. A total of 68 males were convicted.

Gender and Violence: Statistics

Since 2000, annual Garda statistics have provided an age and gender breakdown of convicted offenders. Homicide statistics (which include murder, threats of murder and manslaughter) show that between 2000 and 2003, and across all age ranges, only one female was convicted (for a threat of murder). She was in the 14-16 age bracket. A total of 68 males were convicted.

Assault figures (which include assault causing harm, harassment, abduction and false imprisonment) for the period 2000-2003 show no convictions for males and females under 14.

In the 14-16 age bracket, male convictions stand at 83 and female convictions at 11.

The difference between male and female convictions widens with age, with 580 males and 50 females convicted in the 17-20 age range, and 2,285 males and 135 females convicted in the 21+ category.

During the period 2000-2003, male assaults fell from 215 to 83 in the 17-20 category, and from 502 to 230 in the 21-plus bracket.

Although substantially lower to start with, female convictions for assault have also dropped in the same period: in the 17-20 age range, they have fallen from 23 in 2000 to 7 in 2003 and, in the 21+ range, from 45 in 2000 to 18 in 2003.