We knew for at least a decade that a strong correlation existed between animal cruelty and violent criminal acts.
Reports, studies, journal pieces and news articles have been written on the topic.
Statistics and numbers have been recorded.
Finally, after a decade of prompting Ontario finally elected a government willing to create stiffer penalties for animal cruelty.
This is not just a moral victory for animal activists, but also for those who lobby for stiffer penalties agains perpetrators of domestic abuse as well as the victims of violence across North America.
To put it bluntly (and factually):
- 61% of surveyed Ontario women who had left their abusive partners stated that their partners had brutalized or killed a pet (results from a 1998 survey conducted by the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).
- By contrast, only 16.7% of households with no history of domestic reported threats or actual harm to a pet.
According to the American Veterinarian Association there are three ways that animal abuse and human violence are linked:
1. Abusers use animals to influence or harm people: demonstrate dominance or control, inflict punishment or to retaliate against the abused (or vice versa - punish the person for the acts of the animal), and through silence, isolation and threats.
2. Abused children show a propensity towards becoming animal abusers
(Multiple studies have shown that children who grow up in an environment of animal abuse are more likely to be involved in animal abuse and human violence as they grow up. Young children growing up in an environment of abuse may become desensitized, and come to see violence as the norm. They may also learn that one way to demonstrate you have power or control is to abuse a creature that is weaker than you. Children in households with emotional or physical abuse between partners may vent or "act out" their resulting emotions, often through cruelty to animals.)
3. Animal abuse may predict adult violence
(People who abused pets as children are far more likely to commit murder or other violent crimes as they become adults. In fact, one of the most reliable predictors of adult violence is committing animal abuse as a child.)
With that in mind, Rick Bartolucci, minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, announcement, to amend the OSPCA act to make it mandatory for veterinarians to report suspected cases of animal abuse (with protection for veterinarians when the report is made in good faith) was widely and openly welcomed by vets across Ontario.
Now, for the disbelievers, I would like to offer the following rather scary facts:
Between October 1997 and May 1998 (seven months) school shootings across America left 12 dead and 44 wounded (in four schools).
Prior to these school shootings:
- Kip Kinkel decapitated cats, dissected live squirrels and blew up cows
- Andrew Golden shot dogs before he turned his guns on his classmates
- Luke Woodham beat and burned his own dog, Sparkle, describing his dog's painful and tortured death as a "thing of true beauty"
- Michael Carneal threw a cat into a bonfire
Youth offenders are not the only ones to display cruelty to animals prior to violent criminal acts. Russell Weston Jr., the man awaiting trial for shooting two Capitol Hill police officers, shot his father's cats before his assault on the Capitol.
And there are many, many more cases like these.
Whether an animal lover or a dispassionate bystander, the correlation between animal violence and disturbed, often brutally violent behaviour is undeniable.
McGuinty's decision to stiffen the penalties for those caught abusing animals is the first step, but more needs be done. That's because animal abuse does not occur in isolation. Often animal abuse takes place in a complex net of disturbed family relations. For example, animal abuse is frequently found in families where there also is child abuse and domestic violence. Children in these disturbed families who witness the abuse of family companion animals are more likely to abuse animals; in addition, children who commit animal cruelty are more likely to engage in criminal behavior as adults.
As such, we, in Ontario, need to applaud McGuinty and his government for finally creating stiffer laws against these offenders...but we also need to press for rehabilitation and help for those that display these behaviours. The reality is that most convicted felons will, eventually, return into society. By identifying candidates -- through their convictions -- we can provide rehabilitation and, hopefully, reintegration.
In the end we want the abuse to stop...and the best way to do that is remove that which disturbs.
