Men commiting more violent crime is something I've heard a lot from feminists. It's a common comeback if you raise concerns about male victims, that it's just men attacking other men.

There's a pinned thread over on /r/MensRights about a similar topic, but that take the position that it's all down to testosterone levels, which doesn't seem to be correct. The link between testosterone and violence seems to be questionable at best, and at the very least there are other factors we can look at.

There's some useful evidence from the people who investigate why black people commit more crime, and they very rarely attribute it to biological factors. Mainly they blame poverty. The British government also put together this report, listing causal factors for violent crime: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-report-of-the-commission-on-race-and-ethnic-disparities-supporting-research/understanding-ethnic-disparities-in-involvement-in-crime-a-limited-scope-rapid-evidence-review-by-professor-clifford-stott-et-al

The risk factors are basically as follows:

  • Poverty, in itself.
  • Previous victimisation, including violent crime and physical abuse as both adult and child.
  • Previous offending, including bullying, petty violence and gang membership.
  • Low level of educational attainment, along with exclusion from school.
  • Coming from high crime areas, families and peer groups.

None of these are biological matters, but some of these have disproportionate impacts on men and boys.

In terms of previous victimisation, men and boys are far more likely to be victims of violence and of child abuse, from the first week of life onwards, in the home and out of it, by strangers and by family members.

I'm not convinced that previous offending is strictly relevant, as those previous offences must also have a cause, but it certainly effects men and boys more, partly because of a higher rate of offending, but also because male offenders are far more likely to be detected by the system. Whether previous offending is relevant or not, interactions with the justice system are certainly relevant, and that is overwhelmingly something effecting young men rather than young women.

Educational attainment, of course, is heavily biased against men and boys, at all ages and at all levels. This leads to higher levels of unemployment amongst young men, and lower incomes.

Poverty is sometimes claimed to effect women more. The "feminisation of poverty" narrative, but that seems to be untrue. The feminisation of poverty seems to be a statistical artefact, men are more likely to be in poor groups that don't get counted - homeless, imprisoned, and dead - and child support is often counted as part of the income of the man paying rather than the woman receiving. What we know for certain is that poverty has a much more severe effect on men. The effect on life expectancy is twice what it is for women. Similarly for the effect on health. Things like criminal victimisation and homelessness are vastly more likely to effect men. The effect of poverty on loneliness only effects men. And so on. The "Feminization of poverty" wiki page is a remarkable mess.

So I don't think there are causes for men committing violent crime, there are just causes for violent crime, and those causes happen to effect men much more than women. Violent crime isn't a sign of power, but of deprivation and disadvantage.