Animal abuse

Definition: Socially unacceptable behavior that inflicts pain and suffering on animals

Significance: Animal abuse is a common crime that causes its victims much suffering and death. Many offenders are at risk to commit violent acts against human beings. The crime of animal abuse presents a unique set of problems for criminal justice practitioners. Consequently, most animal abuse is not reported, investigated, prosecuted, or punished.

Defining animal abuse, or cruelty to animals, is a challenge. Because laws protecting animals vary from state to state, no single legal definition of animal abuse exists. Generally, animal abuse is seen as acts or omissions that inflict unnecessary pain and suffering on animals and that occur outside the realm of socially acceptable behavior. Although animal research, certain animal agriculture practices, hunting, fishing, trapping, pest control, and the use of animals in rodeos, zoos, and circuses may cause animals to suffer, because these behaviors are generally socially condoned, they are not usually considered animal abuse. However, not all observers agree that these latter behaviors should be socially condoned.

Intentional abuse occurs when a person knowingly tortures, maims, or kills an animal, or knowingly deprives an animal of food, water, shelter, socialization, or veterinary care. Neglect—acts of omission—occurs when people who do not intend to cause harm fail to provide animals with proper food, water, shelter, attention, or veterinary care. Unique forms of animal abuse include animal fighting and “hoarding.” The latter practice is the accumulation of tens, or even hundreds, of animals within places such as human residences and usually failing to provide adequate standards of nutrition, sanitation, and veterinary care.

Attempts to Control Animal Abuse

The first American law protecting animals was passed in 1641 by the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. However, the first postcolonial anticruelty law was not enacted until 1821, when Maine’s state legislature made it illegal to beat horses or cattle cruelly. By 1913, every state and the District of Columbia had enacted anticruelty statutes. However, these laws were rarely enforced until the formation of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Such societies were often granted powers to enforce the anticruelty laws. The first such organization was the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, formed in New York in 1866 by Henry Bergh.

The late twentieth century saw a new trend to strengthen laws making animal abuse a crime. In 1998, only twenty states had felony animal-cruelty laws. By 2004, that number had doubled. In March 2014, the Humane Society reported that South Dakota became the fiftieth state to enact a law assigning felony penalties to acts of animal cruelty.

Prevalence

Unlike other violent crimes, animal abuse historically has not been tracked in centralized national crime reporting systems. It has thus been impossible to accurately estimate the number of animals who are victims of abuse or the number of people who inflict such abuse. Estimates of the prevalence of animal cruelty have usually been obtained from the data derived from studies done by researchers. In addition, several nonprofit organizations maintain databases of animal-abuse cases and compile statistics based on cases known to them. These sources have suggested that animal abuse is an often occurring and widespread problem. Consequently, in late 2014, it was announced that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would begin reporting animal cruelty as a Group A felony in the Uniform Crime Report in its own category, making the incidents easier to track, the comprehensive data easier to analyze, and the perpetrators—including young offenders—easier to identify and monitor to possibly prevent further crimes. While it is known that the perpetrators of most types of animal abuse are more likely to be male than female, women appear to be more likely than men to commit hoarding-type abuses.

At the same time, the effort to increase the reporting of animal abuse and cruelty suffered a setback in early 2017 following the beginning of Donald Trump's presidency. In January of that year, it was revealed that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had deleted all of the records from its online animal welfare database that had been available to the public for many years. Journalists and activists had relied on the database, which included information regarding inspections and abuse violations committed by institutions such as zoos, circuses, and research laboratories, to bring attention to such issues using concrete evidence. The USDA argued that the records were taken down in an attempt to protect personal privacy. While the government organization did eventually launch a stripped down version of the database later in the year, animal rights activists deemed the new site inadequate as it left out much of the information that had originally been available.

Animal Abuse and Violence Against People

Since the mid-1970s, numerous studies in psychology, sociology, and criminology have demonstrated that persons who abuse animals are often—although not always—also dangerous to other people. Serial killers, mass murderers, sexual homicide perpetrators, serial rapists, and arsonists often have childhood histories of animal abuse. Perpetrators of more common forms of violence, such as child abuse, spouse abuse, and elder abuse, also tend to be abusive toward animals.

Animal abuse has also been identified as a “red flag” that may help identify youthful offenders at risk for perpetrating violence against people. For example, in 1997, a sixteen-year-old boy in Mississippi killed his mother and then went on a shooting spree at his high school, where he killed two fellow students and wounded seven others. Several months earlier, a neighbor had witnessed the boy torture and kill his own pet dog.

Animal abuse, like any other form of violence, may be prompted by a number of motives. One person may abuse an animal in the process of disciplining or training it. Other motives may include shocking or offending others; retaliating against animals or their owners for real or imagined offenses; expressing power through animals, such as by training them to be aggressive; and simply enjoying the suffering that the abused animals experience. Children who abuse animals may be succumbing to peer pressure, satisfying their curiosity, imitating cruelty they have seen others commit, or reacting to their own experiences of being abused.

Investigation

Investigating animal abuse can be difficult. Because the animal victims cannot speak for themselves, most animal abuse is not reported. To investigate animal-abuse crimes more efficiently, Florida’s Broward County Sheriff’s Office formed an Animal Cruelty Investigation Unit in 1982—the first such unit of its kind in a law-enforcement agency in the United States.

In some states, investigation of animal abuse is the responsibility of regular law-enforcement agencies. In others, animal control agencies and humane societies may also investigate claims of abuse; they may also have the power to intervene, take custody of abused animals, make arrests, and even carry weapons.

Historically, the investigation, prosecution, and punishment of animal abuse were regarded as low priorities in the US criminal justice system. Laws penalizing animal abuse were often ambiguous or only misdemeanor-level offenses. Moreover, law-enforcement agencies may have limited resources to enforce animal-protection laws, and some law-enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges may not regard animal abuse as a serious crime.

Prosecutors may be reluctant to charge offenders with the commission of animal-abuse crimes, especially if the offenses are merely misdemeanors. For example, in 1996, prosecutors in one state filed criminal charges in only 2 percent of cases in which animal abuse was alleged. However, this situation has changed as all states have enacted felony cruelty laws and more criminal justice practitioners have become aware of connections between cruelty to animals and violence against people.

Most anticruelty laws make animal abuse misdemeanor offenses, and most offenders who are convicted receive only light sentences. However, as of 2014, all fifty states and the District of Columbia have enacted statutes making certain forms of more serious animal abuse felony-level crimes with increased punishment. A notable example of changing state attitudes toward animal abuse occurred in Wisconsin in 1998, when a state court sentenced a convicted pedophile and prior animal abuser to ten years in prison for the torture and killing of five cats. This was the longest animal-cruelty sentence ever awarded in US history. In 2012, a Montana malamute breeder was sentenced to thirty years in prison with twenty-five years suspended after he was convicted of more than ninety counts of animal cruelty.

Eight individuals were also arrested and given strong prison sentences following the second-largest raid for dog fighting in US history in 2013. The following year, then president Barack Obama signed the Farm Bill into law, which included a provision that made knowingly attending an organized animal fight a federal misdemeanor.

Like most crimes, animal abuse is often punished by periods of probation, restitution, community service, fines, and imprisonment. In addition, convicted offenders may be required to forfeit their own animals or reimburse expenses for the care of seized animals. They may also be prohibited from keeping animals in the future. In some jurisdictions, offenders may also be required to undergo counseling or other forms of intervention.

Bibliography

Animals and Their Legal Rights: A Survey of American Laws from 1641 to 1990. 4th ed., Animal Welfare Inst., 1990.

Ascione, Frank R. Animal Abuse and Youth Violence. US Dept. of Justice, 2001.

Ascione, Frank R., and Phil Arkow, editors. Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, and Animal Abuse: Linking the Circles of Compassion for Prevention and Intervention. Purdue UP, 1999.

Ascione, Frank R., and Randall Lockwood. “Cruelty to Animals: Changing Psychological, Social, and Legislative Perspectives.” In State of the Animals 2001, edited by D. J. Salem and A. N. Rowan, Humane Society, 2001.

Brewster, Mary P., and Cassandra L. Reyes, editors. Animal Cruelty: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding. Carolina Academic, 2013.

Daly, Natasha. "U.S. Animal Abuse Records Deleted—What We Stand to Lose." National Geographic, 6 Feb. 2017, news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/wildlife-watch-usda-animal-welfare-trump-records/. Accessed 29 Feb. 2018.

Flynn, Clifton P. Understanding Animal Abuse: A Sociological Analysis. Lantern, 2012.

Lockwood, Randall, and Frank R. Ascione, editors. Cruelty to Animals and Interpersonal Violence: Readings in Research and Application. Purdue UP, 1998.

Merz-Perez, Linda, and Kathleen M. Heide. Animal Cruelty: Pathway to Violence Against People. AltaMira, 2004.

Mitchell, Angela. Animal FAQs: An Encyclopedia of Animal Abuse. Troubadour, 2003.

Tiplady, Catherine. Animal Abuse: Helping Animals and People. CABI, 2013.