The county has bucked the national trend in the number of women and girls getting arrested.

In a report published this week by the Ministry of Justice, nationally there has been a 1.5 per cent increase in the number of women arrested for all crime from 2005 to 2007.

But in Kent the situation is a lot calmer, with the number of female arrests dropping by 5.4 per cent for the same period.

Marion Fitzgerald, a criminologist from the University of Kent, believes it is down to the “moderate approach” of Kent Police towards dealing with young people.

She argues that, unlike other police forces, Kent Police are not succumbing to pressure from central government to push up arrest detection rates.

She said: “They are not going for broke and indiscriminately going out and arresting people to get their detection rates up.

“This has got to speak well of Kent Police that they are being fairly restrained in the light of the crimes they are actually facing, which local people are concerned about, compared to the pressure on them from the Government to get their detection rates up at any cost.

“I think if they are resisting those pressures from central government and taking a moderate approach to young people, they are then investing in the future.”