CHILDREN, ANIMAL ABUSE, AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE[1]

Frank R. Ascione, Ph.D.

Introduction.

        Child maltreatment, domestic violence, and animal abuse intersect in fiction (Brennan, 2001; Saunders, 1893/1920) and in reality (Artley, 1993; Sereny, 1998).  In some cases, children are perpetrators of violence to animals, in other cases, they are unwilling and unfortunate observers of animal abuse perpetrated by adults.  As the landscape of our study of maltreatment expands to include child, adult, and elderly victims (Boat and Knight, 2000), it is clear that we need to include, more formally, nonhuman animals among these other victim groups.

          Attention to and research on the association of the victimization of children and youth with the victimization of nonhuman animals has a rich but uneven history.  One of the archetypal child maltreatment cases in the United States was the late 19^th century rescue of Mary Ellen Wilson, an intervention facilitated by Henry Bergh, the president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Costin, 1991; Shelman and Lazoritz, 2000).  Many of the newly formed humane societies in the United States during the late 1800s and early 1900s included, in their casework, the protection of children, women, and animals (Ascione, 2004).  In more recent history, however, compartmentalization of services has resulted in different agencies focusing on distinct victim groups - there are humane societies or animal control agencies, child

welfare organizations, and domestic violence programs.  American Humane, in Englewood, Colorado, remains the only national organization including both child and animal welfare in its purview.  As we begin to acknowledge more fully that victimization affects many groups - children, adolescents, adults, the elderly, animals - and that victims may experience multiple forms of maltreatment (Saunders, 2003), greater attention is being paid to the overlap between the maltreatment of humans and the maltreatment of animals (Ascione and Arkow, 1999).

          The association of the victimization of children and youth with the victimization of nonhuman animals can take many forms, as will be elaborated below.  In some cases, young people who have been maltreated may act out by abusing animals.  In other cases, children are exposed to animal abuse perpetrated by siblings, parents, or parent figures.  Animals may be abused by peers or acquaintances in neighborhoods and local community settings and children may be witnesses to the abuse.  Animals may represent a danger to children, especially in cases of poor parental supervision (Omalu, Dominick, Uhrich, and Wecht, 2003).  Adults may use animals as a weapon to abuse family members (DeVoe and Smith, 2002).  Animals may also be maltreated to increase their aggressiveness and thereby protect their owner from assaults by peers (Katz, 2003, Chapter 7).  In one rare case report, an animal was used to “dispose” of the body of a fatally abused neonate (Boglioli, Taff, Turkel, Taylor, and Peterson, 2000).

          Animals may also play a positive role in the lives of children who experience various forms of adverse life events, especially direct maltreatment or exposure to violence.  Pets have been shown to be a source of solace and comfort for survivors of emotional abuse (Doyle, 2001) and sexual abuse (Barker, Barker, Dawson, and Knisely, 1997) reinforcing research on the positive role of companionship with pets in the lives of most children (Blue, 1986; Levinson, 1972).

          Animal abuse and cruelty to animals have been associated with harsh parental discipline (Rigdon and Tapia, 1977; Tapia, 1971) and domestic violence (Ascione, 1998, 2000; Baldry, 2003a).  It has emerged as a co-morbid symptom in studies of bullying (Baldry, 2003b), Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (Sverd, Sheth, Fuss, and Levine, 1995), juvenile fire setting (Slavkin, 2001), Antisocial Personality Disorder (Gleyzer, Felthous, and Holzer III, 2002), adult criminal offending (Merz-Perez, Heide, and Silverman, 2001), sex offending by children (Duffield, Hassiotis, and Vizard, 1998) and adults (English, Jones, Patrick, and Paini-Hill, 2003; Salter, McMillan, Richards, Talbot, Hodges, Bentovim, Hastings, Stevenson, and Skuse, 2003), sexual homicide (Langevin, 2003), and serial murder (Wright and Hensley, 2003).

The resurgence of interest in the relation between cruelty to animals, or animal abuse, and serious violent behavior, especially among youthful offenders, is illustrated by a recent study by Verlinden  (2000: see also Verlinden, Hersen, and Thomas, 2000) of nine school shootings in the United States (from Moses Lake, Washington in 1996 to Conyers, Georgia in 1999).  She reported that five (45%) of the eleven perpetrators had alleged histories of animal abuse.  The most well documented example was the case of Luke Woodham who, in the April before his October 1997 murder of his mother and two schoolmates, tortured and killed his own pet dog (Ascione, 1999).  Further evidence of renewed interest in the general topic of animal abuse is the recent appearance of numerous reviews of the literature (e.g., Ascione, 2004; Ascione and Lockwood, 2001; Dadds, Turner, and McAloon, 2002; Duncan and Miller, 2002; Faver and Strand, 2003; Merz-Perez and Heide, 2004; Miller, 2001; Wright and Hensley, 2003).

          This review reports on the psychiatric, psychological, and criminological research linking animal abuse to child maltreatment, family violence, and juvenile- and adult-perpetrated violence.  It addresses the challenge of defining animal abuse and examines the difficulty of deriving accurate incidence and prevalence data. The importance of including information about animal abuse in assessments of youth “at-risk” of committing interpersonal violence is emphasized throughout.  The review explores the relation between animal abuse and Conduct Disorder (CD), analyzes the motives of perpetrators of animal abuse, and considers the contexts that may lead animal abuse to emerge as a symptom of psychological disorder.  The review concludes with policy implications and a listing of national organizations with programmatic efforts and resources related to the links among animal abuse, maltreatment, and violent behavior. Although there are a few studies examining the neurobiological correlates of cruelty to animals (see Lockwood and Ascione, 1998, p.151), this topic is beyond the scope of this review (see Chapter ?? by Ellerson, this volume).

          This review does not suggest that attending to animal abuse is a panacea for dealing with the challenges of identifying and addressing child maltreatment, youth violence, and family violence.  Violent behavior is multidimensional, multi-determined, and its developmental course is still the subject of concerted research investigation (Moffitt, 1997).  However, it is argued here that animal abuse has received insufficient attention - in fact, is sometimes explicitly excluded (e.g., Stone and Kelner, 2000) - as one of a number of “red flags”, warning signs, or sentinel behaviors that could facilitate identification of youth at risk for perpetrating interpersonal violence (a relation first noted in the psychiatric literature by Pinel in 1809) and youth who have themselves been victimized.

Defining animal abuse.

 All 50 States have legislation related to animal abuse.  Most States categorize it as a misdemeanor offense and 41 states and the District of Columbia also have instituted felony-level statutes for certain forms of cruelty to animals (“Animal cruelty legislation”, 2003).  However, legal definitions of animal abuse and even the types of animals that are covered by these statutes differ from State to State (Ascione and Lockwood, 2001; Frasch, Otto, Olsen, and Ernest, 1999; Lacroix, 1998)).  The research literature also fails to yield a consistent definition of animal abuse or cruelty to animals; however, the following definition captures features common to most attempts to define this behavior: “socially unacceptable behavior that intentionally causes unnecessary pain, suffering, or distress to and/or death of an animal” (Ascione, 1993, p. 228). 

This definition excludes practices that may cause harm to animals yet are socially condoned (e.g., legal hunting, certain agricultural and veterinary practices).  Because the status of a particular animal may vary from one culture to another, the definition takes into account the social contexts that help determine what is considered animal abuse.  For the purposes of this review, the animals that are victims of abuse are most often vertebrates because this is the category of animals to which are attributed the greatest capacity for experiencing and displaying pain and distress. 

          The forms of abuse to which animals may be subjected are parallel to the forms of child maltreatment.  Animals may be physically or sexually abused, may be seriously neglected, and, some might argue, may be psychologically abused (Mehta, 2001; Munro, 1996; Munro and Thrusfield 2001a, 2001b, 2001c, and 2001d). 

Prevalence of cruelty to animals in childhood and adolescence.

Because cruelty to animals is not monitored systematically in national crime reporting systems (Howard Snyder, personal communication, January 22, 2001), researchers must rely on data from studies in developmental psychology and psychopathology and family violence to estimate the prevalence of this problem behavior in samples of youth and adults.  A number of assessment instruments that address child behavior problems include a question about cruelty to animals.  However, the reader should keep in mind that “cruelty” is not always explicitly defined for the respondent, so it is difficult to determine the exact behaviors that are being reported.  It is also clear that children hold diverse views on what constitutes animal abuse or cruelty (Piper, Johnson, Myers, and Pritchard, 2003), a factor that should be considered when interpreting children’s self-reports about harming animals.

Using the Achenbach-Conners-Quay (ACQ) Behavior Checklist, Achenbach, Howell, Quay, and Conners (1991) collected parent or guardian reports of problem behaviors for 2,600 boys and girls 4 to 16 years of age who had been referred to mental health clinics and a control group of 2,600 boys and girls of the same age.  The nonreferred (control) children comprised a representative sample of the U. S. population, based on ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and place of residence (urban/suburban/rural and national region [e.g., Northeast, West]).  These children had been screened for the absence of mental health referrals in the past year.  The referred children were drawn from 18 mental health clinics across the U. S.  Most of the referred children were being evaluated for outpatient mental health services.  Potential candidates for inclusion in the nonreferred and referred groups were excluded if they were mentally retarded, had a serious physical illness, or had a handicap.

 One item (#39) on the ACQ asks the respondent whether their child or adolescent has been “cruel to animals” in the past two months.  Respondents can answer using the following 4-point scale: 0= Never or not at all true (as far as you know), 1= Once in a while or just a little, 2= Quite often or quite a lot, or 3= Very often or very much.

          Figure 1 shows the percentage of caregivers, for each age group, child gender, and referral status, that reported the presence of cruelty to animals (Dr. David Jacobowitz, Statistician Programmer, Achenbach System for Empirical Behavioral Assessment, College of Medicine, University of Vermont,personal communication, July 17, 1992).  In their statistical analysis of individual ACQ items, Achenbach and colleagues note that cruelty to animals was significantly (p<.01) higher for referred youth, boys, and younger children.

Figure 1

The data in Figure 1 illustrate the relatively low frequency of cruelty to animals in the nonreferred sample (0-13%) in comparison with the referred sample (7-34%).  Between the ages of 6 and 16 years, 18% - 25% of referred boys were reported to have been cruel to animals and the data suggest this item’s incidence has greater stability through childhood and adolescence for boys than for girls.

          Data on the prevalence of cruelty to animals are also provided in the manuals for the Child Behavior Checklist (CBC), perhaps the most widely used checklist for child behavior problems, which is available in separate versions for 2-3 year olds (Achenbach, 1992) and 4-16 year olds (Achenbach, 1991).  The cruelty to animals item on the CBC (which uses a “past 2 months” timeframe for 2-3 year olds and  a “past 6 months” timeframe for 4-18 year olds) is scored on a 3-point scale: 0= Not true (as far as you know), 1= Somewhat or sometimes true, 2= Very true or often true.  Referred and nonreferred boys and girls can be compared for each of three age groups. These data are presented in Figure 2.  In this figure, data on acts of vandalism, for the two older age groups, are included for comparison.

Figure 2

Again, cruelty to animals is more often reported for younger children and for boys, especially those referred for mental health services. Figure 2 also suggests that reported rates of cruelty to animals (for youth ages 4 and older) are higher than or similar to reported rates of vandalism, a problem behavior about which more systematic juvenile crime data are available (in 1997, there were 136,000 arrests of persons under age 18 for vandalism [Snyder and Sickmund, 1999]; over the 1990-1999 reporting period, juvenile arrests for vandalism decreased for boys but increased for girls [Snyder, 2000]).

Animal abuse may emerge at even earlier developmental stages. For a normative sample of children less than 2 years of age being examined at pediatric clinics, 4-5% of parents report the presence of infant/toddler cruelty to animals, during the past month, using the Toddler Behavior Checklist (Larzelere, Martin, and Amberson, 1989).   In contrast, Clark (1999) reported data derived from chart reviews of 117 children, 3, 4, and 5 years of age, residing in a psychiatric hospital.  A significant proportion of these children, at each age, had a history of cruelty to animals (55.2%, 67.7%, and 50.9%, respectively).

Limitations of adult reports on children’s cruelty to animals.

Both the ACQ and CBC rely on caregivers’ reports and comparable information from youths’ self-reports of cruelty to animals is not available.  The reliance on caregivers’ reports, however, could be problematic because animal abuse may be performed covertly (a characteristic shared with youth vandalism and fire setting) and caregivers may be unaware of the presence of this behavior in their children.  Offord, Boyle, and Racine ( 1991)  surveyed a non-clinical sample of 1,232 Canadian parents/guardians and their 12-16 year old boys and girls.  (A similar methodology, limited to youth self reports, was also used in a study in Germany by Essau, Petermann, and Ernst-Goergens [1995].)  They asked respondents (both parents/guardians and adolescents) to report on a number of CD symptoms based on a 3-point scale identical to the one used with the CBC (the link between CD and animal abuse is examined in more detail in a later section). Figure 3 (derived from Table 2.3, p. 39 from Offord, et al., 1991) compares parent/guardian reports of cruelty to animals and with youth self reports.

Figure 3

These data suggest that parents and guardians may seriously underestimate cruelty to animals, with boys self-reporting this behavior at 3.8 times the rate of  parents/guardians and girls at 7.6 times the parent/guardian rate.  Similar underestimates appear for two other CD symptoms, vandalism and fire setting, that may often be covert and, therefore, unknown to or undetected by parents or guardians (see Figure 4).

Figure 4

A recent study of a non-clinical sample of youth (1,333 boys and 837 girls; mean age = 14.6 years) in Alexandria, Egypt (Youssef, Attia, and Kamel, 1999) also provides data on self-reported cruelty to animals.  Dividing their sample into two groups, one reporting that they had engaged in violent behavior (acts of “…physical force that tended to inflict harm or cause bodily injury.” p. 284) and the other reporting that they had not, Youssef, et al. asked youth whether they were often cruel to animals.  Of the violent youth, 9.6% reported being cruel; of the nonviolent youth, 2.05% reported being cruel.  The cruelty to animals variable significantly (p<.003) determined membership in the violent or nonviolent group.

It should be noted that instruments used to assess teacher reports of children’s problem behaviors rarely include an item on animal abuse (e.g., Reynolds and Kamphaus, 1992).  Although teachers are unlikely to observe their pupils being cruel to animals, teachers may hear about such acts or read about them in students’ written work.  These indirect observations should be taken seriously and serve as a signal for further assessment (Dwyer, Osher, and Warger, 1998).

Animal abuse and violent offending.

 Animal abuse and interpersonal violence toward humans share common characteristics: both types of victims are living creatures, have a capacity for experiencing pain and distress, can display physical signs of their pain and distress (with which humans could empathize), and may die as a result of inflicted injuries.  Given these commonalities, it is not surprising that early research in this area, much of it using retrospective assessment, examined the relation between childhood histories of animal abuse and later violent offending. 

Kellert and Felthous (1985) found that violent, incarcerated men reported higher rates of “substantial cruelty to animals” in childhood (25%) than a comparison group of non-incarcerated men (0%).  A similar difference emerged in a study of assaultive and non-assaultive women offenders (Felthous and Yudowitz, 1977): 36% of the former group reported cruelty to animals compared with 0% of the latter. 

Miller and Knutson (1997) examined self-reports of animal abuse by 299 inmates (16% were female; 11.9% were 15 to 19 years of age with the remaining inmates older than 19) incarcerated for various felony offenses and 308 introductory psychology class undergraduates (57.1% female).  The percentage of inmates and  undergraduates, respectively, reporting the following types of animal abuse was as  follows: “Hurt an animal?” 16.4% vs. 9.7%, “Killed a stray?” 32.8% vs. 14.3%, and “Killed a pet?” 12% vs. 3.2%. 

More recently, Schiff, Louw, and Ascione (1999) surveyed 117 men incarcerated in a South African prison about their childhood animal abuse.  Of the 58 men who had committed crimes of aggression, 63.3% admitted to cruelty to animals; of the 59 non-aggressive inmates, the percentage was 10.5%. 

In a study of 28 convicted, incarcerated sexual homicide perpetrators (all men), Ressler, Burgess, and Douglas (1988) assessed the men’s self-reports of cruelty to animals in childhood and adolescence.  Childhood animal abuse was reported by 36% of the perpetrators and 46% admitted to abusing animals as adolescents.  Thirty-six percent of these men said they had also abused animals in adulthood. Significantly lower rates of cruelty to animals in adolescence and adulthood were reported for a sample of adult non-offenders in a study by Gray, Watt, Hassan, and MacCulloch (2003). 

Beyer and Beasley (2003) reported on a sample of 25 incarcerated offenders who had abducted and murdered their child victims, victim to whom they were unrelated.  Twenty percent of these men admitted to animal abuse or torture.  In a study by Tingle, Barnard, Robbins, Newman, and Hutchinson (1986) of 64 male convicted sex offenders, animal abuse in childhood or adolescence was reported by 48% of the rapists and 30% of the child molesters.  Similar findings for incarcerated samples of men have been described by Merz-Perez, Heide, and Silverman (2001).  Langevin (2003) studied 33 incarcerated sex offenders who had killed or attempted to kill their victims.  Thirty percent of these men admitted to a history of animal cruelty

Taken together, these studies suggest that animal abuse may be characteristic of the developmental histories of between one in four to nearly two in three violent adult offenders.

Animal abuse and Conduct Disorder. 

The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (DSM-IV) (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) defines Conduct Disorder (CD) as, “…a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated…” (p. 90) and requires that at least three of 15 separate symptoms be present in the past year for a diagnosis of CD.  Among the symptoms listed are those categorized under “deceitfulness or theft”, “destruction of property” (which encompasses fire setting and vandalism), and “aggression to people and animals” (which includes cruelty to people or to animals, stealing with confrontation of the victim, and forced sexual activity).  There is a great deal of overlap between the symptoms of CD and behaviors used to characterize serious violent juvenile offenders (see Loeber, Farrington, and Waschbusch, 1998, pp. 14-15).  Despite historical attention to animal cruelty and youth antisocial behavior (Burt, 1925), cruelty to animals has only recently been included in the symptom list for CD, appearing for the first time in DSM-III-R (American Psychiatric Association, 1987).  Cruelty to animals, however, does not specifically appear in any of the categories (i.e., person, property, drug, and public order offenses) under which juvenile offenders are categorized in national crime reporting systems (see Snyder and Sickmund, 1999) despite law enforcement acknowledgement of the link between animal abuse and human violence (Lockwood and Church, 1996; Ponder and Lockwood, 2000; Schleuter, 1999; Turner, 2000).

          Animal abuse may vary in frequency, severity, and chronicity and range from the developmentally immature teasing of animals (e.g., a toddler pulling a kitten along by the tail) to serious animal torture (e.g., stealing neighborhood pets and setting them on fire).  Unfortunately, most assessments of cruelty to animals lack a scaling of these important differences.  One exception is the Interview for Antisocial Behavior (IAB) developed by Kazdin and Esveldt-Dawson (1986).  Although it was created before the 1987 revision of the DSM, this instrument assesses 30 forms of antisocial behavior, a number of which reflect the current (1994) CD symptom listings.  The IAB has a number of positive features including both parent- and self-report forms and ratings of problem severity and chronicity.  Kazdin and Esveldt-Dawson report that responses to the cruelty to animals item correlated .46 (p<.001) with the IAB Total score.  Cruelty to animals scores were higher for CD-diagnosed than for non-CD-diagnosed boys and girls, ages 6-13, who were all inpatients at a psychiatric facility (F [1,256] = 8.44, p<.01).

As illustrated in a study of psychiatric outpatient referrals by Loeber, Keenan, Lahey, Green, and Thomas (1993), patterns of chronic behavior may be more significant than isolated incidents.  Three yearly assessments were completed with 177 boys, ages 7-12 years, some of whom (40.1%) were diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and others with CD (38.4%). Each assessment included a question about cruelty to animals.  Single-year assessment of cruelty to animals did not differentiate boys with ODD from those with CD diagnoses, but a significant differentiation emerged when scores on this item were aggregated over a three-year period: cruelty to animals was present for 13.3 percent of boys with ODD and 29.4 percent of boys with CD.  A more recent study by Burns, Landsverk, Kelleher, Faw, Hazen, and Keeler (2001) of 93 youths with CD found cruelty to animals in 29% of their sample. 
           Some proposals have been offered to examine subcategories of Conduct Disorder and related disruptive disorders (like ODD).  Loeber, Farrington, Stouthamer-Loeber, Moffitt, Caspi, and Lynam (2001) presented an analysis suggesting the inclusion of cruelty to animals among the symptoms of a modified Oppositional Defiant Disorder classification.  However, they did not present data on the prevalence of cruelty to animals for children fitting this classification.  Frick and his colleagues (Frick and Ellis, 1999; Frick and Hare, 2001) propose a “callous-unemotional” subtype of CD which includes a lack of concern about the feelings of others.  This characteristic could apply to “others” who are animals, but no specific reference to animal abuse has emerged in these analyses.  Since a pre-existing CD diagnosis is required for an adult diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD), it is appropriate to mention here a study by Gleyzer, Felthous, and Holzer III (2002).  They assessed 96 criminal defendants, half of whom had a history of substantial animal cruelty.  The defendants with a history animal abuse were significantly more likely to receive an APD diagnosis (37.5%) than the defendants without such a history (8.3%).

        Because of the interest in the early identification of children at risk for later violent offending, it should be noted that cruelty to animals may be one of the first CD symptoms to appear in young children.  Parental reports on the emergence of CD symptoms in their children mark 6.5 years as the median age of onset for “hurting animals” -  earlier than bullying, cruelty to people, vandalism, or setting fires [Frick, Van Horn, Lahey, Christ, Loeber, Hart, Tannenbaum, and Hanson (1993)].  This study reinforces the importance of considering animal abuse a significant early warning sign for identifying youth with potential for receiving a CD diagnosis.  The diagnostic value of this symptom is also supported in a report by Spitzer, Davies, and Barkley (1990), which was based on national field trials for developing DSM-III-R.  Randolf (1999) also suggests that cruelty to animals may be one of the core symptoms of attachment disorders (see also Magid and McKelvey, 1987).

          Recently, Luk, Staiger, Wong, and Mathai (1999) reported a reanalysis of case data for a sample of children (N=141) referred to mental health services for “symptoms suggestive of oppositional defiant/conduct disorder” (p. 30) and control data for a sample of community children (N=37).  The clinic-referred children were subdivided into two groups based on CBC assessments: cruelty to animals present (N=40) and absent (N=101).   Therefore, 28.4% of the clinic-referred children displayed animal abuse.  The community children were selected only if cruelty to animals was absent in their CBC assessments.  Luk, et al. demonstrated that differentiating the clinic-referred subgroups on the basis of cruelty to animals was related to scores on a measure of childhood behavior problems that, unlike the CBC, does not assess cruelty to animals – the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (Eyberg and Ross, 1978).  The authors found that clinic children assessed as being cruel to animals had significantly (p<.001) higher mean problem and problem severity scores on the Eyberg than the means for either clinic children who were not cruel to animals or community children.   Similar findings have been reported by Guymer, Mellor, Luk, and Pearse (2001).

          Thus, there is substantial evidence for the value of assessing cruelty to animals as a specific symptom of CD and as a correlate of other forms of antisocial behavior in both childhood and adulthood.  One additional study will be described to illustrate this conclusion.

          Arluke, Levin, Luke, and Ascione (1999) reviewed the files of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and located the records of 153 individuals (146 males and 7 females, age range 11-76 years) who had been prosecuted for intentional physical cruelty to animals (not passive forms of cruelty such as neglect).  A comparison group of 153 individuals (matched on age, gender, and socioeconomic status but with no record of any cruelty to animal complaints) was selected from the same neighborhoods in which those who had been prosecuted resided.  The State’s criminal records were reviewed for each individual in both groups. Any adult arrests for violent, property, drug, or public order offenses were noted.  As shown in Figure 5, individuals prosecuted for animal abuse were more likely to have an adult arrest in each of the four crime categories than the comparison group members.  The differences between percentages for abusers and non-abusers were highly significant (p<.0001) for all four types of offenses.  These results make it clear that animal abusers are not only dangerous to their animal victims but that they may jeopardize human welfare as well.

Figure 5

Motivations that may underlie animal abuse.

Whenever high-profile cases of animal abuse (or child maltreatment) are reported in the media, a common public reaction is to ask, “why would someone do that?”  Burying puppies alive, shooting wild mustangs, setting a dog on fire, beating a petting zoo donkey - these and countless other examples offend the public by their seemingly senseless cruelty.  In an effort to better understand this phenomenon, Kellert and Felthous (1985) interviewed animal abusers and discovered a number of motivations that may characterize adult cruelty to animals.  After listing these motivations, some of which may also be applicable to animal abuse perpetrated by juveniles, a more specific focus on child/adolescent motivations will be presented.  Kellert and Felthous (pp. 1122-1124) noted the following motivations:

• “To control an animal” (i.e., animal abuse as discipline or “training”)
• “To retaliate against an animal” (i.e., punishing or taking revenge against an animal).  A recent case study suggests this motivation may, in some instances, also underlie child maltreatment.  Boglioli, Taff, Turkel, Taylor, and Peterson (2000) report on a 6-day-old baby who urinated on his father during a diaper change.  The father killed the infant, dismembered him, and fed his remains to the family’s German shepherd, later claiming that the infant was a victim of a fatal dog attack.  An 11-month-old sibling also resided in this home.  The father was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
• “To satisfy a prejudice against a species or breed” (e.g., hatred of cats)
• “To express aggression through an animal” (i.e., training an animal to attack, using inflicted pain to create a “mean” dog)
• “To enhance one’s own aggressiveness” (e.g., using an animal victim for target practice)
• “To shock people for amusement” (e.g., to entertain the perpetrator or his/her associates)
• “To retaliate against another person” (by hurting their pets or abusing animals in their presence)
• “Displacement of hostility from a person to an animal” (i.e., attacking a vulnerable animal when assaulting the real human target is judged too risky)
• “Nonspecific sadism” (i.e., enjoying the suffering experienced by the animal victim, in and of itself)

Child and adolescent motivations for animal abuse have not been studied as extensively.  However, case reports and a youth interview study (using the Cruelty to Animals Assessment Instrument) conducted by Ascione, Thompson, and Black (1997) suggest a number of developmentally-related motivations:

• Curiosity or exploration (i.e., the animal is injured or killed in the process of being examined, usually by a young or developmentally delayed child)
• Peer reinforcement (e.g., peers may encourage animal abuse or require it as part of an initiation rite)
• Mood enhancement (e.g., animal abuse used to relieve boredom or depression)
• Sexual gratification (i.e., bestiality which may result in the injury or death of an animal)
• Forced abuse (i.e., the child is coerced into animal abuse by a more powerful individual)
• Attachment to an animal (e.g., the child kills an animal to prevent its torture by another human)
• Animal phobias (that cause a pre-emptive attack on a feared animal)
• Identification with the child’s abuser (e.g., a victimized child may try to regain a sense of power by victimizing a more vulnerable animal)
• Imitation (i.e., copying a parent’s or other adult’s abusive “discipline” of animals)
• Posttraumatic play (i.e., reenacting violent episodes with an animal victim)
• Self-injury (i.e., using an animal to inflict injuries on the child’s own body)
• Rehearsal for interpersonal violence (i.e., “practicing” violence on stray animals or  pets before engaging in violent acts against other people)
• Vehicle for emotional abuse (e.g., injuring a sibling’s pet to frighten the sibling)

Conduct Disorder assessments are not usually designed to address the underlying reasons for a child’s or adolescent’s cruelty to animals, but as with juvenile fire setting (discussed below), understanding motivations may be critical for designing effective intervention strategies.  A recent review by Agnew (1998) provides a more extensive treatment of the social-psychological causes of animal abuse.

          As noted by Ascione and Lockwood (2001), one model that could be used to develop an animal abuse assessment instrument is the approach that has been taken to assess juvenile fire setting (Kolko, 2002).  Fire setting shares many features with animal abuse: both are CD symptoms, may reflect developmental changes, may share etiological factors, may be often performed covertly, and may be early sentinels for later psychological problems. 

Some children may manifest both problem behaviors.  Wooden and Berkey (1984) note the co-occurrence of cruelty to animals in a sample of 69 fire setters ages 4-17: cruelty to animals was reported for 46% of 4-8 year olds, 9% of 9-12 year olds, and 12% of 13-17 year olds.  The authors caution that the lower rates for older children and adolescents may be related to the covert nature of this behavior as children experience greater independence and venture farther from home for more prolonged periods.  Sakheim and Osborne (1994) report similar results with samples of children who set fires (N=100) and those who did not (N=55).  Their assessment included a question about “cruelty to children or animals.”  This item was endorsed for 50% of fire setters but for only 9% of children not setting fires (p<.01).

Animal abuse in the context of fire setting may also have predictive value.  Rice and Harris (1996) reported on a sample of 243 fire setters who had resided in a maximum-security psychiatric facility and were later released.  In a follow up of 208 of these men, Rice and Harris found that a childhood history of cruelty to animals (coded from patient records) predicted violent offense recidivism (p<.001) and non-violent offense recidivism (p<.05) but not fire setting recidivism.  It is interesting to note that enuresis (bed-wetting) was not significantly related to any of the three forms of recidivism.  Bedwetting has been included in the so-called “triad” of symptoms (with cruelty to animals and fire setting) as a possible predictor of serious violence.  Research has been inconclusive about the triad’s predictive value ( Barnett and Spitzer, 1994;Lockwood and Ascione, 1998, pp.245-246). 

In a similar vein, Slavkin (2001and personal communication, August 27, 2003) studied 888 fire setters 3-18 years of age.  Overall, 18.2% of this sample were reported sometimes or frequently to have been cruel to animals.  Data on fire setting recidivism was available for a subsample of 315 of these children and adolescents.  Recidivism was 20.8% for those with a history of animal abuse and 0% for those without such a history.

The Salt Lake City Area Juvenile Firesetter/Arson Control and Prevention Program (1992), funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, is based on a typology of juvenile fire setters that may be relevant for developing a typology of children who abuse animals (Marcel Chappuis, personal communication, March 23, 1998).  The typology of juvenile fire setters categorizes children into the following groups:

• Normal Curiosity Fire Setters (age range 3-7 years), who often share the characteristics of poor parental supervision, a lack of fire education, and no fear of fire.
• “Plea-for-Help” Fire Setters (age range 7-13 years), whose fire setting is often symptomatic of more deep-seated psychological disturbance; these individuals usually have had adequate fire education.
• Delinquent Fire Setters (age range 13 years to adulthood), whose fire setting may be one of a host of adolescent-onset antisocial behaviors including gang-related activities.

The Salt Lake City program developed a series of assessment scales geared to each age group of fire setters that can be administered to the child and to the child’s parent/guardian.  In addition to questions about fire education and the fire setting incident(s), this series has questions about general behavior problems (similar to those on the CBC) one item about cruelty to animals. (There is also a direct question about whether the fire setting incident involved the burning of an animal.)  Responses to these assessments are used to select an intervention strategy.  Children who fall into the Normal Curiosity group are often enrolled in a fire education program and attempts may be made to educate parents about fire safety and the need for supervising young children.  Children who fall into the other two groups are referred to mental health services because fire departments are not prepared to deal with the psychological problems these young people may present.   

It might be possible to develop a similar typology for children who abuse animals.  Although there is not a great deal of empirical information on which to rely, the study by Ascione, Thompson, and Black (1997) suggests the varied motivations that may underlie child and adolescent animal abuse.  Using the extensive experience of animal control and animal welfare professionals, one could develop a typology mirroring that for juvenile fire setters.  A sketch of such a typology might approximate the following:

• Exploratory/Curious Animal Abuse. Children in this category would likely be of preschool or early elementary school age, poorly supervised, and lacking training on the physical care and humane treatment of a variety of animals, especially family pets and/or stray animals and neighborhood wildlife.  Humane education interventions (teaching children to be kind, caring, and nurturing toward animals) by parents, childcare providers, and teachers are likely to be sufficient to encourage desistence of animal abuse in these children.  Age alone should not be the determining factor in including children in this category.  For example, CD symptoms may have an early developmental onset and, as noted earlier, cruelty to animals is one of the earliest CD symptoms to be noted by caregivers.  Older children who are developmentally delayed may also fall into this category.
• Pathological Animal Abuse.  Children in this category are more likely to be older (though not necessarily) than children in the Exploratory/Curious group.  Rather than indicating a lack of education about the humane treatment of animals, animal abuse by these children may be symptomatic of psychological disturbances varying in severity.  For example, a number of studies have tied childhood animal abuse to childhood histories of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and exposure to domestic violence (see below for sections on these issues).  In these cases, professional, clinical intervention is warranted.
• Delinquent Animal Abuse.  Youth in this category are most likely to be adolescents whose animal abuse may be but one of a number of antisocial activities.  In some cases, the animal abuse may be a component of gang/cult-related activities (e.g., initiation rites) or less formal group violence and destructiveness.  The use of alcohol and other substances may be associated with animal abuse for these youth and they may require both judicial and clinical interventions.

The etiology of animal abuse. 

Although “bad seed” interpretations of youth violence have waxed and waned throughout history (Garbarino, 1999; Kellerman, 1999), it is clear that attention to the family, social, and community contexts of children’s lives is critical for understanding violent behavior.  This holds true for the special case of animal abuse.  As Widom (1989) demonstrated, a history of child abuse and neglect places individuals at risk for later delinquency, adult criminal offending, and violent criminal activity. Similarly, research with adults conducted by Whitfield, Anda, Dube, and Felitti (2003) and Dong, Anda, Dube, Giles, and Felitti (2003) and with adolescents by Luster, Small, and Lower (2002) confirm the association between various forms of child maltreatment and other adverse life experiences (e.g., intimate partner violence perpetration or victimization, binge drinking, depression).  The deleterious effects on children of exposure to domestic violence have been examined by Kernic, Wolf, Holt, McKnight, Huebner, and Rivara (2003), McCloskey and Lichter (2003), and McFarlane, Groff, O’Brien, and Watson (2003)

This section addresses factors in children’s lives that have been associated with increased levels of animal abuse.  The factors range from negative but relatively normative experiences (e.g., corporal punishment) to potentially more devastating circumstances (e.g., child maltreatment, domestic violence).  

          Corporal Punishment.  Evidence continues to mount on the ineffectiveness and deleterious sequelae of corporal punishment as a child rearing technique (Straus, 1991). Two recent studies tie this evidence to animal abuse.  In a survey of 267 undergraduates, 68.4% of whom were women, Flynn (1999a) asked participants about their history of abusing animals (e.g., hurting, torturing, or killing pets or stray animals, sex acts with animals).  Students also responded to items assessing attitudes toward spanking and husband-on-wife abuse.  Thirty-four point five percent of the men and 9.3% of the women reported at least one childhood incident of animal abuse.  Participants (both men and women) admitting to animal abuse were significantly more likely to endorse the use of corporal punishment and to approve of a husband slapping his wife. 

In a follow-up report with this same sample of undergraduates, Flynn (1999b) found that, for men, perpetrating animal abuse was positively correlated with the frequency of their fathers’ use of corporal punishment (spanking, slapping, or hitting) in adolescence.  Self-reports of animal abuse by men experiencing paternal corporal punishment in adolescence were 2.4 times higher than for men not physically disciplined (57.1% vs. 23.1%, respectively, p<.005).

          Physical abuse.  Research specifically designed to assess the relation between animal abuse and child maltreatment is meager yet compelling in its implications.  For  example, a 1983 study by DeViney, Dickert, and Lockwood of 53 New Jersey families that met state criteria for substantiated child abuse and neglect and who had pets in their homes revealed that in 60% of these families, pets were also abused or neglected.  Animal abuse was significantly higher (88%) in families where child physical abuse was present than in families where other forms of child maltreatment occurred (34%).  One or both parents and their children were responsible for abusing the families’ pets.

          Sexual abuse.  Friedrich, Grambsch, Damon, Hewitt, Koverola, Lang, Wolfe, and Broughton (1992) compared a normative sample of 880 2-12 year olds with 276 2-12 year olds who had been sexual abused in the past 12 months.  Based on a re-examination of data from this study, Friedrich (personal communication, April 1992) provided information on cruelty to animals derived from the non-perpetrating caregivers’ CBC reports on children. As shown in Figure 6,

Figure 6

children with a history of sexual abuse were significantly (p<.001) more likely to have been cruel to animals than children in the nonabused normative group.  A study of 499 seriously mentally ill 5-18 year olds hospitalized at a tertiary care psychiatric facility (McClellan, Adams, Douglas, McCurry, and Storck, 1995) also found cruelty to animals to be more prevalent among patients who had been sexually abused than among those who had not been sexually abused (p=.004).

          Salter, McMillan, Richards, Talbot, Hodges, Bentovim, Hastings, Stevenson, and Skuse (2003) studied the records of 224 men who had been sexually abused as children.  Twenty-six (12%) of these men themselves sexually abused children in adulthood.  For 21 of the 26, data were available on childhood history of cruelty to animals.  This symptom was present for 29% of the child abusers; the comparable figure for men with no evidence of child abuse was 5%.

          One form of cruelty to animals that has received scant attention in the literature is the sexual abuse of animals, or bestiality (Munro and Thrusfield, 2001c).  Bestiality may be a preferential paraphilia (Earls and Lalumière, 2002) or it may accompany child sexual abuse (Hill, 2000).  Bestiality may range from touching or fondling the genitals of animals to sexual intercourse and violent sexual abuse and should be differentiated from normative curiosity about animal sexual characteristics and behavior (Sandnabba, Santtila, Wannäs, and Krook, 2003).  Some species of animal may be seriously injured or die as a result of the abuse inflicted (e.g., penetration that damages internal organs) (Kattolinsky, 1937).  Beetz (2002), Beirne (1997), and Miletski (2002) provide excellent theoretical overviews of this issue but empirical studies, especially with children, are rare (e.g., see case study by Wiegand, Schmidt, and Kleiber, 1999).

Lane (1997) noted that juvenile sex offending may include bestiality, sometimes combined with other violent behavior toward animal victims. Adolescent sexual offenders may also use threats of harm to pets as a way of gaining compliance from their human victims (Kaufman, Hilliker, and Daleiden, 1996).  In the study, cited earlier (Ressler, et al., 1988), with sexual homicide perpetrators, 40% of the men who said they had been sexually abused in childhood or adolescence reported having sexual contact with animals.  Itzin (1998) reported anecdotal evidence of bestiality being forced on children who were also sexually abused and involved in the production of child pornography.

          A recent study by Sandnabba, Santtila, Nordling, Beetz, and Alison (2002) included a  sample of 12 sadomasochistically-oriented men who admitted to sexual intercourse with animals in the past 12 months.  Seven of these men had a “steady human partner” and seven had children.  No data were provided on whether any of these children were exposed to (or involved in) episodes of bestiality.  (We also know little about the prevalence of children’s exposure to Internet depictions of bestiality [Mehta, 2001].)

          Although it is challenging to obtain information about sexual behavior in children and adolescence, especially sexual behavior with animals, Friedrich (1997) provided some information on this issue with data from his Child Sexual Behavior Inventory (CSBI).  Caregivers of 1,114 nonabused (normative group) and 512 sexually abused children reported on a variety of sexual or sexualized behaviors in their 2 to 12 year old children, including one item asking about whether the child “touches animal’’ sex parts.”  Caregivers’ (who were not the perpetrators for the sexually abused group) responses to this item are shown in Figure 7.  Although this behavior

Figure 7

is relatively infrequent, it is clear that, for the two older age groupings, sexually abused children are more likely to display this behavior than nonabused children,  Although it appears that the prevalence of “touches animal’s sex parts” declines for sexually abused 10-12 year olds, one might speculate that the decrease is accounted for, in part, by a greater secretiveness in older children in acting out sexually with animals.  The decrease may also be related to older children’s transferring their inappropriate sexual activity from animal to human victims.

           Further evidence for the relation between sexual abuse victimization and bestiality is provided by Wherry, Jolly, Feldman, Adam, and Manjanatha (1995). They administered the CSBI to caregivers of 24 6-12 year old boys who were psychiatric inpatients.  Eight of these boys had been sexually abused.  “Touches animal’s sex parts” was reported for 50% of abused boys but none of nonabused boys (p<.01).  Duffield, Hassiotis, and Vizard (1998) present details from seven clinical case studies involving bestiality perpetrated by youth being evaluated for sexually abusing humans.

          Fleming, Jory, and Burton (2002) studied 381 institutionalized, juvenile male offenders whose mean age was 16.9 years.  Using self-reports, the authors found that 6% of the juvenile admitted to bestiality, 42% committed sex offenses against human but not animals, and 51% reported neither type of offending.  For the 24 juveniles admitting to bestiality, 23 also reported sex offending against humans. 

          One final study on this topic will be described since it relates to the accuracy of self-reports of bestiality.  English, Jones, Patrick, and Paini-Hill (2003) interviewed 180  adult sex offenders most of whom had been convicted of crimes against children.  Information derived from case records was compared with information provided by the men after treatment programs that included the use of polygraphs.  Case records revealed that 4.4% of the men had engaged in bestiality but 36.1% admitted to bestiality when polygraphs were used.  Twenty-seven percent of men who committed offenses only against family members or relatives admitted to bestiality; 56.7% of men whose victims included both family and non-family members reported engaging in bestiality.

          Domestic violence.  Animals may also be abused in the context of family violence between intimate adult partners and it is becoming more common for studies of battering to include an item related to animal abuse in assessments of intimate violence (Graham-Kevan and Archer, 2003; McCloskey, 2001; McCloskey and Lichter, 2003). Only recently, however, has a literature emerged in which the abuse of animals is one of the major variables studied.  Ascione (1998) reported an interview study of 38 women who were battered and had sought shelter.  Fifty-eight percent of the women had children and 74% had pets.  When they were asked whether their adult partner had ever threatened or actually hurt of killed one or more of their pets, 71% of women with pets responded “yes”.  Thirty-two percent of women with children reported that their children had hurt or killed one or more family pets.  In a replication study of 100 women who were battered and had entered a shelter (SHELTER) and a comparison group of 117 non-battered women (NONSHELTER), all of whom had pets, Ascione (2000b) found that 54% of SHELTER women in comparison with 5% of NONSHELTER women reported that their partner had hurt or killed pets (see Figure 8). 

Figure 8

Children’s exposure to this animal abuse was reported by 62% of SHELTER women.  Nearly one in four women reported that concern for their pets’ welfare had prevented them from seeking shelter sooner.  Faver and Strand (2003b), in a survey of 41 pet- owning women using domestic violence services, found that 26.8% reported that their pets’ welfare affected their decision making about leaving or staying with their partner; actual hurting or killing of pets was present in 46.3% of this sample. Thus, some domestic violence victims and their children may remain with a batterer because they have no one to care for their pets if the victim and children enter a domestic violence shelter.  Programs to remove this obstacle (by sheltering pets of domestic violence victims) have been and continue to be established across the United States and Canada (Ascione, 2000a).  And helping mothers achieve safety may be one of the best ways to insure the safety of their children (Jacobsen, 2000).

          Flynn (2000) reported similar findings in a study of 43 women with pets who had entered a South Carolina domestic violence shelter (28 were accompanied by children).  For these women, 46.5% reported threats to (N=9) or harm (N=11) of their pets.  Although only 7% of children were reported to be cruel to animals, 33.3% of women whose pets were abused reported that their children had also been abused.  For women whose pets were not abused, 15.8% reported child abuse (the figure was 10.5% for women with no pets).

          Similar results have been reported for shelter samples of Canadian women who were battered.  Earle (2001) found that 44% of 111 Ontario women reported that their partner had hurt or killed pets; 47% of a sample of 65 women in Calgary reported partner-perpetrated animal abuse (Thomas and McIntosh, 2001).

          Ascione and Blakelock (2003) interviewed 42 incarcerated men in Utah.  The men had been convicted of a domestic-violence related crime or had been incarcerated for other crimes but also admitted to committing domestic violence.  For the 38 men reporting having pets while living with an adult partner, 55.3% admitted to hurting or killing pets.  Men who had hurt or killed pets were more likely to have been diagnosed with APD (60.9%) than men who did not abuse pets (35%), echoing the findings reported by Gleyzer, Felthous, and Holzer III (2002).

          These studies make it clear that in families challenged by child maltreatment and domestic violence, there is increased opportunity for children to be exposed to the abuse of animals.  Half of the sample of children surveyed in Ascione’s (2000b) research reported trying to intervene to protect family pets when violence erupted in their homes; similar interventions on behalf of their mothers were reported for child in Edleson, Mbilinyi, Beeman, and Hagemeister (2003).  Even if adult family members do not abuse animals, some children may express the pain of their own victimization by abusing vulnerable family pets.  Just as researchers are beginning to understand the overlap between child abuse and neglect and violence between intimate adult partners (Ross, 1996), they must now consider the overlap of these forms of abuse with animal maltreatment (see Figure 9).

Figure 9

        Saunders (2003) has called attention to the critical need to examine multiple forms of victimization, direct and vicarious, in studies of child maltreatment and family violence.  In one of the first attempts to conduct such research and to include both physical and sexual animal abuse, Ascione, Friedrich, Heath, and Hayashi (2003) examined the reports of maternal caregivers of 1,433 6- to 12-year-old children.  Caregivers completed the CBC and the CSBI and also provided information on co-morbid physical abuse and domestic violence.  The children were categorized into a normative group screened for the absence of sexual abuse (N=540), a sexually abused group (N=481), and a psychiatric comparison group without a history of sexual abuse (N=412).  The prevalence of cruelty to animals for these three groups was 3.1%, 17.9%, and 15.6%, respectively.  The prevalence of “touching animal’s sex parts” was 0.4%, 0.9%, and 6.3%, respectively.  For the sexually abused group, higher rates of sexual involvement with animals emerged when physical abuse was also present (for girls) and when both physical abuse and domestic violence were present (for boys).  Cruelty to animals was highest for boys when both physical abuse and domestic violence were present (36.8% in the sexually abused group and 60% in the psychiatric group) illustrating once again the need to attend to multiple forms of adverse life events (Dong, Anda, Dube, Giles, and Felitti, 2003).

Policy implications and recommendations.

        This section addresses issues relating to the reporting, assessment, and treatment of children involved in animal abuse.  It presents recommendations associated with these issues and highlights the need for enhanced professional training.

        Reporting.  Cruelty to animals is all too often a part of the landscape of violence in which youth participate and to which they are exposed.  The number of animals who are victims of such abuse is, at present, difficult to estimate as is the number of young people who perpetrate such abuse.  In an ideal world, national data would be available on the yearly incidence of animal abuse, data that could be used to track trends and serve as a baseline against which the effectiveness of interventions could be assessed.  The existing national data collection systems in the area of child abuse and neglect illustrate the value of such archival records (Sedlak and Broadhurst, 1996). However, it is not clear how animal abuse offenses could be incorporated into the existing categorization (person, property, drug, public order) of juvenile arrests.

Only two states (Minnesota and West Virginia) mandate that veterinarians report suspected cases of animal abuse (Frasch, Otto, Olsen, and Ernest, 1999). Only a handful of States formally protect veterinarians from lawsuits for good faith reporting of animal abuse; California and Colorado include veterinarians among other mandated reporters of child (but not animal) abuse (Lawrie, 2002).  Until a national system of monitoring and reporting animal abuse incidents is instituted, the following approaches to recording cases of animal abuse are recommended.

• Local humane societies, societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and animal control agencies should routinely refer cases of serious, juvenile-perpetrated and adult-perpetrated animal abuse to social welfare and law enforcement agencies and should maintain systematic records that could be available for archival review (Ascione and Barnard, 1998; Ascione, Kaufmann, and Brooks, 2000).
• Parents, childcare providers, teachers, others who play care giving roles for children (e.g., clergy, coaches), and young people themselves should be informed that animal abuse may be a significant sign of a tendency to violence and psychological disturbance and should not be ignored.  Efforts in this area are already emerging and include the U. S. Department of Education’s Early warning, timely response: A guide to safe schools ( Dwyer, Osher, and Warger, 1998), the Warning Signs guide developed by MTV-Music Televisionä and the American Psychological Association (1999) and disseminated as part of their “Fight for your rights: Take a stand against violence” campaign, and Seifert’s (2003) CARE, Child and Adolescent Risk Evaluation - A measure of the risk for violent behavior (manual).  .  The American Humane Association’s (1996), Growing up humane in a violent world: A parent’s guide, provides developmentally-sensitive information about children and animals and the significance of animal abuse.  The guide also includes educational strategies appropriate for preschoolers and some designed for elementary and secondary school students.
• Youth should be surveyed about their treatment of animals.  Because animals may often be abused covertly, parents and other adults may not be the best informants about this behavior problem. To obtain a better estimate of animal abuse incidence, youth surveys of violent behavior should include self-report items such as “Have you hurt an animal on purpose?”, “Have you made an animal suffer for no reason?”  Also, witnessing animal abuse is a form of exposure to violence that should be routinely assessed because it may have significant effects on young people (Baldry, 2003a;Boat, 1999).  Often, children are deeply attached to their pets and witnessing their violent abuse or death at the hands of others may be emotionally devastating.  Promising approaches to this issue include a parent-report questionnaire about cruelty to animals, based on Ascione, Thompson, and Black’s CAAI (1997) that could be adapted to a self-report format (Guymer, Mellor, Luk, and Pearse, 2001) and a self-report assessment of children’s positive behavior toward pets (Thompson and Gullone, 2003).

Assessment and treatment.  As part of the search for effective youth violence prevention and intervention programs, animal welfare organizations have been developing educational and therapeutic efforts that incorporate “animal-assisted” or “animal-facilitated” components (Duel, 2000).  The underlying theme for many of these programs is that teaching young people to train, care for, and interact in a nurturing manner with creatures who are also vulnerable will reduce young people’s propensity for aggression and violence.  These programs also assume that animal abuse is enabled when children’s capacity for empathy has been undermined or compromised (for example, by years of neglect or maltreatment - see Bavolek, 2000).  Developing a sense of empathy for animals is assumed to be a bridge to greater empathy for fellow human beings, making violence toward them less likely (Hastings, Zahn-Waxler, Robinson, Usher, and Bridges, 2002; Pagani, 2000).  The development of animal abuse assessment and intervention programs is accompanied by a number of issues related to evaluation and accountability:

·        Although formal protocols for the clinical assessment (Lewchanin and Zimmerman, 2000) and treatment (Jory and Randour, 1999; Zimmerman and Lewchanin, 2000) of animal abuse are beginning to emerge, they are still at a formative stage of development and their effectiveness is difficult to evaluate.  Interventions for juvenile fire setters (Kolko, 2002) and bullying (Olweus and Limber, 1999) could serve as models.

·        Mental health professionals need to be more consistent in querying clients about their current and past history of animal abuse.  In a survey of 203 licensed psychologists, Nelson (2001) found that 94% believed that animal abuse could be related to other disturbances but only 14% routinely asked clients about cruelty to animals.  Bell (2001) reported similar results in a survey of 164 child welfare and mental health agencies in the U.K.

·        Attempts to create typologies of animal abuse, similar to typologies for fire setters, have intuitive appeal but their utility has not been empirically assessed.  We need to determine if using the purported categories of animal abusers can facilitate the selection of appropriate therapeutic interventions.  

·        Given the challenges of incorporating animals in the therapeutic process (Fine, 2000), evaluation of animal-facilitated therapy programs must move beyond anecdotal evidence.  Katcher and Wilkins (2000) provide a model of such evaluation in a study of animal-facilitated therapy for children with attention disorders.  The model should be expanded to programs for youth with CD (Gullone, 2003). 

·        Evaluation of intervention effectiveness will continue to grow in importance because courts, in some jurisdictions (e.g., California, Colorado), may recommend or mandate assessment and treatment of individuals convicted of certain forms of animal abuse (Frasch, et al., 1999).  The effects of such programs on recidivism have not been examined.

Training.  Professional training on the issue of animal abuse and its overlap with other forms of family and community violence needs greater emphasis at both pre-professional and in-service education levels.  These efforts have already emerged in veterinary education (Ascione and Barnard, 1998), the legal profession (Davidson, 1998), and law enforcement (Lockwood, 1989) and should be expanded to include mental health and other human health professions (e.g., psychology, psychiatry, social work, child welfare, and pediatrics) and elementary and secondary education.  The following are recommendations for improving and expanding professional training concerning animal abuse:

·        Professional cross training should be expanded (Ascione, Kaufmann, and Brooks, 2000) where, for example, animal control officers are trained to identify signs of child maltreatment and child protection workers are trained to identify animal abuse, should be expanded.  The underlying theme of such training should be that animal abuse is a significant form of violence that not only harms animals but may be a warning sign of a child who is psychologically disturbed or in danger of maltreatment (Arkow, 2003).  March, 2003 marked the beginning of a national cross-training and cross-reporting program in England involving collaboration between the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 2003).

·        Training and continuing education for judges should include current information on the associations among animal abuse, domestic violence, and child maltreatment.  Decisions about child custody and foster placements should be informed by research showing that adults who abuse animals are potentially dangerous to humans.

·        Cross training could also enhance the success of foster placements for maltreated children who may be physically or sexually abusing animals.  Foster care providers, especially those with family pets, should be alerted to the potential for animal abuse to occur.

Conclusion.

Although vandalism may represent costly and psychologically significant destructiveness (Goldstein, 1996), smashed windshields and graffitied walls do not weep or cry out in pain when they are damaged.  Animals, however, do express their distress when they have been abused and their distress calls out for our attention.  This chapter has provided an overview of the underreported and understudied phenomenon of animal abuse in childhood and adolescence and animal abuse perpetrated by adults.  Addressing cruelty to animals as a significant form of aggressive and antisocial behavior may add one more piece to the puzzle of understanding and preventing youth victimization and violence.

Resources

American Humane

63 Inverness Drive East

Englewood, CO  80112-5117

Voice [303] 792-9900  FAX [303] 792-5333

www.americanhumane.org

The National Resource Center on the Link between Violence to People and Animals

63 Inverness Drive East

Englewood, CO  80112-5117

Toll free  1-877-LINK-222 (1-877-546-5222)

Email: Link@americanhumane.org

American Humane (AH), established in 1877, includes both child protection and animal protection divisions. AH operates the National Resource Center on the Link between Violence to People and Animals, provides training to professional groups across the country, and has available brochures, fact sheets, and special issues of Protecting Children, devoted to the link.

The Humane Society of the United States

First Strike Campaign

2100 L Street, NW

Washington, DC  20037

Voice [202] 452-1100   Toll free 1-888-213-0956

www.hsus.org/firststrike/

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) launched the First Strikeä Campaign in 1997 to raise public and professional awareness about the connection between animal abuse and human violence.  The Campaign provides training for law enforcement officers, prosecutors, social service workers, veterinarians, mental health professionals, educators, and the general public on the importance of treating animal abuse as a serious crime and an indicator of other forms of violence.  A complete list of resources available through the HSUS First Strikeä Campaign is available at the website listed above and can also be obtained by calling the toll free number also listed above.  Resources include a free campaign kit, with brochures and fact sheets in English and Spanish for law enforcement, social workers, and educators, the First Strike Campaign video and PSAs, articles addressing the animal abuse/human violence connection, and Violence prevention and intervention: A directory of animal-related programs (Duel, 2000), an 82-page listing of prevention and intervention programs.

The Latham Foundation for the Promotion of Humane Education

1826 Clement Avenue

Alameda, CA  94501

Voice [510] 521-0920  FAX [510] 521-9861

www.Latham.org

Established in 1918, the Latham Foundation was founded to promote respect for all life through education and publishes a quarterly periodical, The Latham Letter.  The Latham Foundation maintains a number of print and video resources related to animal abuse, child maltreatment, and humane education.  These include:

• Breaking the cycles of violence: A video and training manual (Set) – Authored by Phil Arkow, the video and 64-page are ideal for cross training professionals on animal and human abuse issues.
• Teaching compassion: A guide for humane educators.  Written by Pamela Raphael with Libby Coleman, Ph.D. and Lynn Loar, Ph.D., this 130-page guide includes a teacher’s narrative and lesson plans to encourage respect, responsibility, compassion, and empathy.
• Child abuse, domestic violence, and animal abuse: Linking the circles of compassion for prevention and intervention.  Produced with the assistance of the Latham Foundation, this book, edited by Frank R. Ascione, Ph.D. and Phil Arkow, includes original chapters written by authorities from each of these three areas of professional focus.

Ascione, F. R. (2000).Safe havens for pets: Guidelines for programs sheltering pets for women who are battered.  Logan, UT: Author.  Based on in-depth interviews with 41 domestic violence and animal welfare agencies, this book describes the development and operation of programs that shelter pets for women and their children who are escaping violent homes.  This project was funded by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

A pdf version of this book is available at the HSUS website.

Ascione, F. R. (2004).  Children and animals, kindness and cruelty.  West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.  A book providing an overview of the animal abuse issue for parents, teachers, clergy, and other interested laypersons.  Publication of this book was facilitated by a grant from the Kenneth A. Scott Charitable Trust and American Humane.  Forthcoming in late 2004.

Frank R. Ascione, Ph.D.

Dept. Psychology – USU

2810 Old Main Hill

Logan, UT  84322-2810

Voice [435] 797-1464  FAX  [435] 797-1448

Email: Frank.Ascione@USU.EDU

References

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Achenbach, T. M. (1992).  Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist/2-3 and 1992 Profile.  Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry.

Achenbach, T. M., Howell, C. T., Quay, H. C., and Conners, C. K. (1991).  National survey of problems and competencies among four- to sixteen-year-olds.  Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 56, Serial No. 255.

Agnew, R. (1998).  The causes of animal abuse: A social-psychological analysis.

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American Humane Association. (1996).  Growing up humane in a violent world: A

parent’s guide.  Englewood, CO: American Humane Association.

American Psychiatric Association (1987). Diagnostic and statistical manual of

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