Criminal Behavior And Animal Abuse Essay

There is a strong link between violent criminal behavior and animal abuse. According to Childhood Animal Abuse and Violent Criminal Behavior: A Brief Review of the Literature, “The connection between cruelty to animals in childhood/early adolescence and adult violent criminal behavior has been a topic of interest for decades. Formal research on this matter began as early as the 1960s with Mead’s 1964 bulletin article including her theory “that childhood animal cruelty was symptomatic of a violent personality that, if not diagnosed and targeted, could lead to ‘a long career of episodic violence and murder’.”... Although there are opposing studies out there, a growing body of research does indicate people who commit acts of cruelty towards animals rarely stop there… “child protection and social service agencies, mental health professionals, and educators regard animal abuse as a significant form of aggressive and antisocial behavior to the point that it is considered an important red flag in the identification of

“There is a further correlation: the most aggressive criminals had committed the most severe acts of animal cruelty in childhood.” The following statistics from various studies demonstrate the link between animal abuse and violence towards human beings: 70% of all animal abusers have committed at least one other criminal offense and almost 40% have committed violent crimes against people. A survey of 117 male inmates incarcerated in a South African prison, found that 63.3% (58) of men who had committed crimes of aggression admitted to cruelty to animals while only 10.5% (59) of the nonaggressive inmates admitted to