"In the last 30 to 40 years, male and female crime rates have converged and the gender gap in offending has narrowed considerably (Heimer, 2000). Some argue that three has been a rise in female crime and violence (Krista, 1994), whereas others caution that increases in official rates of female offending reflect changes in law and criminal justice policy and practice that have disproportionately targeted girls and women (Chesney-Lind, 1997; Daly & Chesney-Lind, 1988). It is unclear, however, whether this convergence is the result of actual differences in male and female offending patterns or an artifact of increased police attention to female offenders and society’s acceptance of the notion that girls and women are just as capable as boys and men of committing crime. Important gains have been made in recent years in research on female aggression and the application of historically male constructs such as psychopathy to female offender populations. This research suggests that females are just as aggressive as males but that behavior manifestations of aggression in females (and males) depend on cultural, situational, and individual-specific factors (Bjorkqvist & Niemela, 1992; Campbell, 1994)."