Men responsible for more crime and violent crime than women, anyone researching why and what to do about it, please?

[Italiangreyhound]

Is anyone doing research into why commit more crime and more violent crime than women, and in stopping them doing it?

I am gob smacked after millennium no one is working out what the problem is and solving it.

Read this and apart from the utterly ludicrous comment "It may turn out that there are some acts that men are more likely to commit than women, and vice versa. More men than women commit crimes like homicide and aggravated assault. But women are more likely to commit crimes like prostitution. Whether that's because of human nature or that there's a far more complex explanation is still a mystery."

It just left me wondering why no one is doing anything.
science.howstuffworks.com/life/men-more-violent.htm

Actually a female writer in the Times on Sat 18 Ma or Sunday Times Sun 19 May was asking the same thing but I can't find the link!

Googling around just got me depressed!

www.salon.com/2013/02/20/house_goper_men_can_handle_violence_better_than_women/

www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-poignant-facts-about-women-around-world

So I've stopped looking for now!

Crap isn't it!

MorE testosterone makes men more aggressive, and they have a huge advantage in physical strength over women. But men are also more likely to be victims of violence than women. And far more likely to be murdered. Trying to channel energy into positive things might help. Sport is a good way for men to channel their energy for instance. So few physical challenges in today's world.

Thank you Louise.

Men may be more likely to be murdered than women (I am assuming you mean in this country), not sure, where do you get the statistics from? However whoever is murdered the murderer is more likely to be a man. More sport suggests it is kind of voluntary, a good idea but what is being done nationally to curb violence in men?

Two thirds of homicide victims in 2011/12 were men. Homicides against men were also more likely to be committed by a friend or acquaintance whereas for women it was most likely to be committed by a partner or ex-partner.

Men do not have a 'huge advantage in physical strength' over women, and unless they are deeply warped, this has absolutely no relevance to whether or not they feel a need to get violent. Testosterone also does not force men to be violent.

Some men choose to be violent because they get away with it.

Some men are violent because they've been brought up to think it's acceptable.

Some men are violent because they use bullshit excuses about how testosterone makes them aggressive and they're slaves to their horomes.

There is a lot of research into male violence. I'm going to a conference with a session on it tomorrow, so I'll try to note down some of what I hear there. But don't worry, this definitely is an area lots of people are researching and trying to understand.

As a side note, did you hear Patrick Stewart speaking about his violent father? Stewart discovered his father had untreated PTSD from the war. Someone on here (I believe it was SGM but might have been someone else) said that they've done research on returning soldiers in more recent wars, and found that those who have no acclimatization period/counselling after they get back, are much more likely to commit violent crime. And a lot of US (and UK) soldiers are not getting the counselling they need.

This is not a 'blame the males' problem. I believe that focussing on testosterone and strength makes it into one. This is society failing men, and failing the other men and women and children who are their victims.

OP - the article was by Janice Turner, 18th May, 'Why do men commit almost all the crime?';

www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/profile/Janice-Turner

Just putting together some links - but I bet other people will have better ones and know more, it's just I thought it would be useful to see how much people are at least trying to do. I'm stressing these are things I've come across and either bookmarked, or found from a quick google. They're not necessarily things I recommend or agree with, but they do show how much research is being done. The list is biased towards links to universities and research in the academy, but others will know more about research elsewhere.

• Bristol university has a centre for gender and violence research: www.bris.ac.uk/sps/research/centres/genderviolence/
• Glasgow Caledonian has just has a interdisciplinary event on gender and violence: www.gcu.ac.uk/research/newsevents/events/article.php?id=53639
• I have no idea about how good this link is, but it's interesting in context of this thread: www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/does-on-field-violent-behavior-lead-to-off-field-violence
• This is Jezebel (therefore, it has an explicit agenda so you may not consider it as research), but the article concludes pretty much that we all need to work together, and it summarizes some trends in recent research: jezebel.com/5509717/domestic-violence-are-women-as-abusive-as-men
• This is (apparently) one of the classics but now 13 years old: www.amazon.co.uk/Changing-Violent-Series-Violence-against/dp/0761905359/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370593224&sr=8-1&keywords=changing+violent+men
• This comes with a mahoosive 'hmm' from me: www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_releases_for_journalists/120122.html
• Another article: eprints.hud.ac.uk/391/
• Research interests (I've read a little bit of her stuff and found it interesting, FWIW): www.dur.ac.uk/psychology/staff/?id=572
• Details about a big project looking into this area: www.policy.manchester.ac.uk/highlights/from-boys-to-men-research-goes-from-the-university-of-manchester-to-the-government.htm
• Got sent a link to this a while back: www.cambridge.org/about-us/media/press-releases/largest-global-study-violence-against-women-finds-feminist-m

Someone has just pointed out that the FBI, CDC and NIA websites have links to research on these issues too.

I did as search for 'male violence' on the FBI homepage and here are the results: www.fbi.gov/fbi-search?q=male+violence&siteurl=www.fbi.gov%2F&siteurl=www.fbi.gov%2F#output=xml_no_dtd&client=google-csbe&cx=004748461833896749646%3Ae41lgwqry7w&cof=FORID%3A10%3BNB%3A1&ie=UTF-8&siteurl=www.fbi.gov%2F&q=male+violence

There is a huge amount of research and literature regarding this topic in anthropology, by scholars such as Steven Pinker and Richard Wrangham. Many approach it from an evolutionary perspective, looking at our history as polygamous apes and the effect this has had on our morphology (sexual dimorphism and differing hormone levels etc.) which is interesting.

However, many find this approach too biologically deterministic, and don't think it necessarily applies to today's societies. There is also a large amount be social anthropologists, like Philippe Bourgois into the social factors that contribute to violence, however these are obviously culturally specific.

I think it is important to take biological factors into account because male violence is so clearly a species-wide phenomenon. Men are always and have always (as far as I'm aware) been much much more violent than women, on average, in any given society. I think this means that underlying causes should at least be understood to help tackle the problem.

csi.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/09/12/0011392112456478.abstract

Sylvia Walby is deeply wise imo

People do not say "what about the menz" regarding men crying or talking about their feelings. As you may have been told before.

'People' who say those things are sexist idiots.

No they don't.

I have never heard a feminist saying big boys don't cry.

I've heard men and women who don't identify as feminists say it.

Cross post.

What has feminist analysis of privilege got to do with men crying? Feminists don't do the 'big boys don't cry thing', you're thinking of sexist twits there.

IME, some of the nastiest and most misogynistic parents I've known have been the ones who tell their little boys that sort of utter crap. Along with making out that it's somehow 'manly' to shout down women.

LRD, thanks for those links.

I think that men bottling up their feelings does not excuse violence, but does contexualise it. I can't put that better than Patrick Stewart did in his recent speech.

I know plenty of men and boys who feel able to cry. I have also seen this issue come up in FWR discussions of how to raise feminist-friendly sons, although as I don't have children it's not something I know much about.

I don't 'know' the ridicule a grown man gets for daring to cry, because I'm not a grown man who's ever been ridiculed for crying. Nor, thank goodness, does it seem to be commonplace for the men in my life. It helps that many of my male friends are not from cultures where there has ever been a stigma about men crying. I do think that is much healthier.

I have, however, seen men shout down women for crying. In fact I've been on the receiving end. When I was a student one of my lecturers decided he would demonstrate to me that I was not of a suitable temprament to go on to do a PhD, and he decided the best way to do this would be to keep telling me I was talking nonsense until I broke down in tears, and then he shouted over me while I tried to apologize for crying and explain myself.

Over the course of my PhD, I discovered he had been factually wrong about a couple of the things he mentioned, which isn't relevant but made me a damn sight happier!

doctrine - no worries! They're just a random selection, I don't even agree with all of them, just wanted to get the message out that people are really working hard on this issue, and from lots of angles.