Abstract The life-course career pattern of female criminals is still a neglected dimension in criminology. In the present study we re-analyzed the Project Metropolitan data for 7719 boys and 7398 girls up to age 30 with respect to antisocial career patterns, guided by the Moffitt model of life-course persistent and adolescence-limited crime careers. Females were much less predisposed to offend than males, but when they did they tended to follow a similar set of trajectories as men in the development of crime over time. Six career patterns were identified, which had meaningful and different associations with crime characteristics as well as a set of non-criminal indices of deviant behaviour (school and abuse problems). A new finding was that the recruitment of females into criminal careers, in contrast to males, showed two peaks, one at age 13 and one at age 26 which corresponds to Moffitt’s third career pattern (adult onset – chronic pattern). Key words: Crime career pattern, sex differences, criminal versatility, school problems, drug abuse.