Fraud blitz nets cheats

A RECORD number of women are behind bars due to a crackdown on fraud.

There are now 3310 female inmates in Australia – up twothirds on a decade ago.

A blitz on welfare cheats is at the heart of the boom.

While female prisoners represent just 8 per cent of the overall prison population, a whopping 28.7 per cent of inmates are serving time for fraud.

The push to catch socialsecurity scammers has seen the government agencies hire private detectives to conduct intense covert surveillance on women, specifically single mothers, according to a report from the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC).

The report found women are twice as likely to be convicted of welfare fraud offences as men.