Dr Paul Ozawa, the director of psychological services at Singapore's Subordinate Court, said the study was based on 155 girls who had committed crimes between 1998 and 1999. He said the majority of the girls had fathers who neglected them and mothers who spoiled them.

``The traditional Asian style of a harsh or absent father and a nurturing though ineffective mother was especially damaging,'' the profile said.

Government leaders in Singapore have often extolled conservative, family-oriented ``Asian values'' while warning against the decadent practices of the West.

Singaporean female offenders usually come from two-parent homes and are well educated, Dr Ozawa said.

Offending girls in Singapore rarely come from broken homes - but often their parents' marriage is a formality, Dr Ozawa said. He said many men have a ``chicken-rice stall in Batam'' - a local statement meaning they keep a mistress or another wife on the nearby Indonesian island of Batam.

Dr Ozawa said fathers should take more interest in their daughters and mothers should toughen up, quit crying and stop covering up for their daughters' crimes.

In 2000, about 35 per cent of juveniles arrested in Singapore were girls, compared with 30 per cent in 1999, Dr Ozawa said.

The four most common crimes committed by girls in the city-state were shoplifting, theft, unlawful assembly and rioting. In tightly-controlled Singapore, rioting can mean ``kicking dustbins and acting violent'', according to the official definition.

More than 70 per cent of the girls in the study said they were driven to crime by greed, while 66 per cent said peer pressure influenced them.

The girls said shopping in Singapore's hundreds of gleaming malls was their favourite social activity, followed by sports, visiting game arcades and going to the movies.

Dr Ozawa said many of the offenders were materialistic and it's ``very likely that their parents are materialistic''. He also thinks kids in Singapore watch too much television.

``I think a lot of young people in Singapore are very bored,'' Dr Ozawa said. ``You have a very significant group of young people who just sit around.''

He said mothers, who usually work full-time in Singapore, felt guilty seeing their daughters in court.

``They're always crying. It really tugs at the heartstrings because they're pitiful,'' he said. ``But they're terrible parents.''

Tired Singapore business executives are falling asleep at the wrong time - both in the boardroom and the bedroom.

A survey by research company ACNielsen has found that 4 per cent of business leaders and professionals admitted to dozing off at some stage while making love.

Another 87 per cent experienced daytime sleepiness and said their office performance was being affected, while 20 per cent said they had fallen asleep while driving.

Nearly 90 per cent of the 150 executives surveyed were classified as sleep-deprived, averaging just over six hours' sleep a night, according to the survey released yesterday.

Most of the sleep-deprived are married men, aged between 30 and 39, in positions of power.

The research company is planning a similar survey for Hong Kong.