Until the world is vegan, there will be crime and violence.

"But there's too many human problems to worry about (non-human) animals"

Compassion for animals is the root - the foundation - of all compassion. When we have compassion toward nonhuman animals, compassion toward others will fall right into place. We cannot have compassion for humankind if we do not practice, or understand, compassion for ALL living beings. It's like driving a car without tires. It doesn't work. We need the tires to go.

Not acknowledging the rights of nonhuman animals, while respecting the rights of human animals, makes use of a moral hierarchy that suggests certain bodies are more valuable than others, subsequently suggesting that the plight of certain groups are more important or significant than others.  To value human animals as superior to other animals makes one a speciesist; it's no different than being racist, sexist, or ableist.

The reality is this: people of color, women, people with disabilities, the LGBTQIA+ community, etc. have it pretty bad. And animals also have it the worst, especially those assumed to be useful only insofar as they are consumed, whether as flesh or dairy. Want to talk about systemic oppression? No group suffers more from it than that of the nonhuman animal. 

"Racism" still exists today. Even so, if a celebrity tape is released where s/he says something racist, s/he risks the end of his career. One of the worst things to be is an admitted racist: it could destroy one's career and be detrimental to how the public perceives them thenceforth. Yet speciesism, not only does it exist, obviously, it is widely accepted among the masses. 

“I could never give up meat” or “I could never go vegan because I love cheese too much.”

While cheese and hamburgers might taste great to you, this script deflects from the systemic reality that non-human animals are tortured, slaughtered, and raped so that we can eat to satisfy our addictions to taste. Monkey brains and Human flesh would also taste great, if humans had eaten it traditionally for millennia. It's subjective and acquired. No animal was "meant" nor "created" to be eaten by humans. Apathy towards violence should never be fostered.