The Connection between animal abuse and violent crimes
The Awful Connection
With our increased awareness, we have also discovered that there is a terribly frightening connection between cruelty toward animals as children and violent crimes toward humans later in life. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has this to say:
Researchers, as well as the FBI and other law enforcement agencies nationwide, have linked animal cruelty to domestic violence, child abuse, serial killings, and to the recent rash of killings by school-age children, according to Dr. Randall Lockwood, vice president of Training Initiatives for The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).
It is no secret to us in this age of enlightenment that the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and David Berkowitz all delighted in torturing animals before moving on to human prey. Sadly, many adult serial killers may have also suffered abuse as children.
In a study of 57 families being treated for incidents of child abuse, 88% also abused animals. In two-thirds of the cases, it was the abusive parent who had killed or injured the animals to control a child. In one-third, the children had abused the animals, using them as scapegoats for their anger. (Quoted from The American Humane Association)
In the case of the Columbine shootings, these boys did not even wait until adulthood. They graduated from animal abuse to killing their classmates as teenagers. The same pattern apparently existed among the killings attributed to Kip Kinkel, 15, of Oregon; Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, of Jonesboro Arkansas; and Luke Woodham, 16, of Pearl, Mississipi.