EAST LANSING - Recent trends suggest that there may be a war on women after a study was released showing that women have been getting arrested more in the past 20 years than ever before.

A study analyzed FBI data for all crimes from 1993 to 2012 and found that arrest rates for men decreased 12.5 percent while arrest rates for women jumped 26.7 percent during that time. Arrest rates for violent crimes were even more striking. Men rates were down 13.5 percent and up 53.2 percent for women.

And while Michigan State University criminal justice professor, Christina DeJong, says that she is doubtful that women have suddenly become more criminal, she fears that many of the protections that were place for sexual assault victims and domestic violence cases are withering as victims are increasingly being de-legitimized.

“Women's are being more likely to be arrested in domestic violence possibly for defending themselves physically in some cases,” Dejong said. “Also changes in some domestic violence laws which allows for dual arrest which essentially means the police can show up and maybe they're having a hard time figuring out who the offender is in the situation and they arrest both parties and figure we'll have the court figure it out.”

DeJong’s study, co-authored with L. Thomas Winfree Jr., is titled “Police and the war on women: A gender-linked examination behind and in front of the Blue Curtain.” It’s published online in the journal Women and Criminal Justice.