Abstract Sex bias is found in statistics on violence produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) using the Crime Survey for England and Wales. ONS capping violent offences against the same victim at the 98th percentile reduces violence against women by 39% and men by 26% and serious domestic violence against women by 59% and men by 5%. Without capping, 45% of violent crime and 56% of serious violent crimes are against women. Capping reduces volatility in trends over time, but so do simple moving averages over three or four years. The article challenges the marginalization of violence against women in criminological theory with implications for funding services and argues for mainstreaming violence against women and girls and stopping capping.
Walby et al. (2026) studied this question.