There are 84,731 people in prison in Britain and according to the latest figures, 80,915 of them are men. Less than five per cent of this country’s prison population is female, and the trend is similar elsewhere in the western world. In France, it’s about three per cent; in Germany, just under six. The global median is 4.3 per cent, according to figures from the International Centre for Prison Studies. You can find all sorts of trends by analysing the demographics of the prison population that might tell us something about the groups most likely to offend, at least at a level warranting incarceration, but perhaps the most striking and persistent is that serious crime is still overwhelmingly committed by men.

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