Nearly a third of all women’s criminal convictions in 2019 were for not having a TV licence, figures show.
The figures from the Ministry of Justice show women are 10 times more likely to be caught without a licence than men, reports The Mirror.
There were 114,000 successful prosecutions for evading a TV license in 2019 - and 74 per cent of those convicted were women.
Those 84,000 TV licence evasion offences make up 30 per cent of all female convictions in 2019.
For men it was just four per cent.
Kate Paradine, chief executive of Women in Prison, insisted: “Debt-related issues should not be criminalised.
"Even when you get down to all convictions and look at women in prison, the majority are there for very low-level offences.”
Just 1% of the nearly 4,000 women currently behind bars are there for violent offences.
