Studies of prison inmates show that 75% of violent offenders and early records of animal cruelty. A 1983 study of New Jersey families referred to youth and family services for child abuse, reported that 88% of these cases had a least one member of the household who physically abused animals. Studies also show that families reported for animal abuse also had children listed at high risk of abuse and neglect as well.
(This information was compiled by Eleanor Shelburne DVM of the Portland Veterinary Medical Association’s animal welfare committee.
Northeastern University sociologist Arnold Arluke and Carter Luke of the Massachusetts SPCA in August 1997, reported that of 153 violent animal abusers involved in 401 cases, whose behavior they tracked for 10 years, 70% committed other crimes, and 38% committed crimes of violence. Only 15% of the animal abuse cases even got into court and only 8% of the perpetrators drew jail time.
Utah State University psychology professor Frank Ascione and graduate student Claudia Weber interviewed 101 female victims of domestic violence, 73 reported that the abuser either threatened or harmed their pets.
FBI Special Agent Alan Brantley, who works in the bureau’s behavioral science unit, said agents asked 36 multiple murderers in prison if they had abused animals. About a third said they killed and tortured animals as children, and about half said they did it as adolescents. Los Angeles Times Magazine
Animal abuse has been found to be an indication of child abuse… In fact it has been found that animals are abused in 88% of the families where children are abused. Humane Education News, 1997
Abusive men frequently use pets to manipulate women’s emotions, beating, shooting, disemboweling, strangling or drowning an animal if the woman tries to leave. These abusers make women watch as they kill the animal, sometimes even forcing them to have sex with a pet, saying, in effect, "This is what I can do, and there is nothing you can do to stop me. You may be next." On the Issues-The Progressive Woman’s Quarterly.