Tia Hoffer - Violence in animal cruelty offenders

The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

Tia Hoffer 1, Holly Hargreaves-Cormany 2, Yvonne Muirhead 3 and J Reid Meloy 4

J Reid Meloy

To further understand animal cruelty offenders, it is important to have a greater understanding of some of the theoretical underpinnings of the literature regarding animal cruelty and other violence. A literature review will provide an overview on the association between animal cruelty and interpersonal violence, including family violence such as child abuse and intimate partner/domestic violence. The conceptual framework for the present study will be presented through Meloys (), can provide a more contextualized and comprehensive view of animal cruelty in relation to other forms of violence.

Literature has explored and integrated the biological, psychological and social factors that impact the onset of violent acts. Understanding how violence is motivated by affective and physiological arousal or predatory/instrumental underpinnings can provide us with information that will impact every aspect of the evaluation, processing and monitoring of a violent offender. In this study, the authors view violence from the perspective of the offender, the offender-victim-dynamics along with aspects related to victimology. Though it is important to obtain victim and offense characteristics, in these cases the frequency, intensity, and type of violent act(s) the offender perpetrates provides equally valuable information leading to a greater picture of the offenders propensity for future violence. Finally, it is hoped that the current studys analysis regarding affective and predatory violence may contribute to the literature regarding effective evaluations and treatment modalities for aggressive offenders and will subsequently assist law enforcement, the courts, mental health and parole/probation in the development of useful strategies to address this problem.

The authors noted that there have been three main contentions from the literature with respect to the association between animal cruelty and human violence, which are as follows: (1) children who abuse animals are more likely to become violent toward humans; (2) adults who abuse animals are more likely to commit interpersonal violence; and (3) animal cruelty in the home typically indicates that there is interpersonal violence within the home.

The Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) III, the unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that focuses on crimes against children, analyzed the criminal histories of offenders who were arrested for active animal cruelty in order to further examine the potential link between animal cruelty and violence against persons. Initial studies and analyses from the AC Project have findings suggesting an association between animal cruelty (AC) and interpersonal violence (IPV) (Hoffer, ).

The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

Tia Hoffer 1, Holly Hargreaves-Cormany 2, Yvonne Muirhead 3 and J Reid Meloy 4

J Reid Meloy

Keywords

The association between animal cruelty and human violence has been referenced throughout history by classical writers such as Pythagoras, Thomas Aquinas and John Locke (Unti, ) noted that cruelty against socially valued animals was, A harbinger of potential predisposition to harm human beings (p. 19).

In 1961, animal cruelty was noted to be a significant factor in children who later exhibit violent behavior. Macdonald proposed this in his theory referred to as the MacDonald triad (Macdonald et al. ).

Violence perpetrated against persons with whom the offender has a relationship exposes additional factors to consider, such as the style of attachment, the degree of empathy, general violence models and interpersonal violence, including domestic violence, stalking and child abuse. A summary of these important factors will help to provide a context within which to more effectively understand the offender and his/her potential for aggression and violence against persons and animals.