Why Should Child Protection Care About Animal Welfare?

By Phil Arkow, Chair

Animal Abuse & Family Violence Prevention Project
The Latham Foundation

The National Research Council has reported that family violence seriously threatens the stability of families and the health and emotional well-being of children. In recent years, researchers have
addressed the indirect victims of spousal abuse - children who witness their mothers being physically abused by a partner. Less well understood, but as potentially significant, is the impact of animal abuse in households prone to violence.

Pets are members of the family; acts of aggression against them serve to coerce, control, and intimidate vulnerable human family members and place them in jeopardy for additional risk factors. A growing body of research links children who witness animal abuse, or who perpetrate animal abuse, with child abuse and with developmental psychopathology. Children who witness family violence may evidence clinical levels of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. When animals are abused, people are at risk - and vice versa.

Animals in the Lives of Abused Children
CPS workers will likely encounter children who are extremely attached to their pets, who have witnessed animal abuse, or who have perpetrated animal abuse. The majority of pet owners are parents with children. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association:

1. 64.11% of households with children under age 6, and 74.8% of households with children over age 6, also have pets.

2. Abused children are more likely than non-abused children to use their pets as transitional objects in times of loneliness or stress, and to see pets as their sole love object. Yet abused children are three times more likely than non-abused children to have had their pets die, and twice as likely for those deaths to have been intentional. 38% of abused youths reported their pets had been mistreated.

3. 86% of incarcerated violent offenders had had pets as children; 60% of these offenders saw those pets taken away or experience traumatic deaths.

Animal Abuse: Part of the Cycle of Violence
Acts of violence directed against animals by children are among the earliest sentinel indicators of conduct disorder and manifestations of the intergenerational cycle of violence that researchers are just now coming to understand. "Cruelty to animals is a predictor of violent behavior, and as good a predictor as I have seen," says William Ritter, District Attorney for Denver, Colo. Anthropologist Margaret Mead has written that the worst thing that can happen to a child is to harm an animal - and get away with it.

Virtually all of the mass murderers and schoolyard killers of recent years had committed prior acts of animal abuse. When asked how many serial killers had a history of abusing animals, the FBI responded, "The real question should be, how many have not?"

Aggressive acts against any member of the family endanger all members, and put others in the community at risk as well. In households where there is animal abuse, there likely are other forms of abuse. Inter-agency collaboration may help reduce levels of violence.

What Do CPS Workers Need to Know About Animal Abuse?

1. Animal abuse is an early indicator of a chaotic household where the safety of children is compromised.


2. Threatening a pet's welfare is an effective and common way to buy a child's silence. Threats or acts of violence against children's pets coerce and control children to maintain silence or acquiescence in sexual assault.

3. Studying children's cruelty to animals is a revealing source of information and a "red-flag" warning of future antisocial behaviors. Psychologists and caseworkers can discern critical information and assess risk factors by inquiring about the status of family pets. Children who are reluctant to talk about themselves or their elders may be expansive about their pets. Observations of animal-related experiences and of the roles of animals as victims or emotional supports should become systematic parts ofthe assessment of a child's welfare.

4. A significant number of battered women and their children are denied access to, or defer going to safehouses because no one will care for their animals. Many batterers control women by harming or killing family pets or threatening to do so; sometimes the animals simply disappear or die mysteriously.

5. Many boys in abusive households are at risk of becoming abusers; even more girls inthese homes are at risk of becoming victims. If there are several children in these households, the cycle of violence will increase exponentially. Pets are a common denominator in many of these children's lives.

Cross-Training and Cross-Reporting May Mitigate Risk Factors
1. We can broaden coverage for children. Animal protection personnel are often the first public agency to intervene. Society often has a lower tolerance for animal abuse than for child abuse. Animal maltreatment may be observed more readily and reported more frequently by neighbors. Cross-reporting of various forms of abuse:
a. Expands limited personnel resources, bringing cases of maltreatment to public attention that might otherwise go unreported. This helps prevent cases "falling through the cracks."
b. Builds public support for violence prevention.
c. Deploys additional philanthropic and human resources.

2. Studies have reported significant overlaps in which families were under investigation for multiple forms of family violence but were not cross-reported for coordinated interventions.

3. Federal funds are available (through Community Oriented Policing Services and the Violence Against Women Act) for innovative violence-prevention programs that include animal protection agencies.

4. Our current compartmentalization is clearly not working. Between 1986 - 1993, reports of child abuse and neglect increased 98% while the percentage of cases investigated decreased from 44% to 28%. Let's consider an integrated approach.

Legal Precedents for Interdisciplinary Response

1. A "battered pet" syndrome has been reported and is being defined, similar to the battered child syndrome in 1962 and the battered woman syndrome in 1979.

2. Animal protection personnel are mandated reporters in a growing number of U.S. states and Canadian provinces. Veterinarians are being encouraged in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and New Zealand to report their suspicions of family violence to apprporiate agencies if they cannot resolve their concerns through educational interventions.

Practical Reasons for Collaboration
1. All child and animal protection personnel:

a. will encounter other forms of abuse during their careers.

b. already recognize suspicious forms of abuse and neglect in their fields, and
need only minor training to become more cognizant of other forms.

c. are in a position to break the cycles of abuse, and may be morally, ethically or legally bound to do so.

d. are part of a broader community of helping professionals.

2. Child protection, animal protection, and domestic violence prevention share many commonalities:

a. Common perpetrators and victims.

b. Inadequate fiscal and human resources.

c. Common case management techniques.

d. Common history and parallel paths of development.

d. Volatile backlashes and misconceptions by the public.

Finally...

1. It's the right thing to do.