For several decades historians have been criticising stereotyped depictions of female convicts as whores. Moving beyond such images, these historians have demonstrated that female transportees were active and resourceful in the colony. However, crumbling images and dynamic colonial roles have not yet been teamed with a thorough reassessment of the types of criminals the women were before being transported. Influential 19th century views regarding women offenders and female transportees dissuaded important historians from applying to women convicts the same analytic tools that they had used to study male convicts. Crimes took a back-seat to accusations of depravity. Studying the crimes for which the women were transported reveals, however, that most female convicts were not reprobates, but first-time offenders guilty of small-scale property crimes.
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