Animal Cruelty: Pathway to Violence Against PeoplePractitioners in the animal welfare field, law enforcement circles, and social services arena have often maintained that childhood cruelty to animals is a forerunner to violence against people. Does this behavior serve as a red flag with respect to extremely violent offenders, such as serial killers? Is it part of the cycle of violence associated with domestic abuse? Perez and Heide provide the first scientific examination of this relationship and examine issues of cruelty across different types of animals (pet, wild, stray, farm). The authors evaluate both qualitative and quantitative data to identify correlations between childhood cruelty and adult violent behavior, utilizing interviews and criminal records of violent and nonviolent inmates in a maximum security prison. Their findings will be of importance to a diverse audience, including researchers and practitioners in the field of juvenile justice, violence and domestic abuse, social welfare, animal welfare and animal rights and developmental psychologists and counselors, as well as law enforcement officers, district attorneys and judges, county and municipal officials, animal control officers, veterinarians, and school administrators, especially those concerned with intervention and prevention strategies. |
Contents
Animal Cruelty Encapsulated | 3 |
A Review of the Related Literature | 19 |
Three Theories of Offenders | 61 |
Method and Study Design | 71 |
Findings | 89 |
Case Studies of Three Theories of Violent Offenders | 129 |
Nonviolent Offenders Investigated | 137 |
Other editions - View all
Animal Cruelty: Pathway to Violence Against People Linda Merz-Perez,Kathleen M. Heide Limited preview - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
acts of animal acts of cruelty adolescent aggressive animal abuse animal cruelty animals and later animals committed Ascione chi-square child abuse childhood cited committed acts committed cruelty conceptual correlation crimes criminal cruelty committed cruelty to animals cultural Dahmer depicted in table dogfighting dogs domestic violence drug elty empathy factors factory farming farm animals father Fisher's Exact Test frequency homicide human violence imals included indicated interpersonal violence interviews jects Jeffrey Dahmer Kellert and Felthous killing later violence Lockwood mother murder nonviolent and violent nonviolent offenders nonviolent subjects reported parents percent pet animals phenomenon of cruelty proportion of nonviolent proportion of violent qualitative recoded relationship of cruelty respect to cruelty result Sadistic score serial killer statistical significance stray animals subject described subjects were compared subjects who reported suggested triad victims violence against humans violent and nonviolent violent behavior violent offenders violent subjects wild animals