Perpetrators of Violence

That men commit the most violence is one of the most robust findings across both the psychological and criminological literatures. However, it would be erroneous to assume that women commit negligible amounts of violent crime and inaccurate to assume that their motives for, pathways to, and targets of violence are the same as men’s. The literature on female-perpetrated violence is still largely underdeveloped compared with the body of literature on male-perpetrated violence. This is likely due to the significant discrepancy in the rates of violence. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, males were responsible for 79.9% of all violent crimes committed in 2013, a base rate that remained generally consistent over the preceding decade. Nevertheless, females were responsible for approximately one fifth of the ...