- By Kerry A. Barnes
- Around Town
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Because of the link between animal cruelty and violence in general – especially child abuse – the SPCA sees this training as one step toward becoming a partner in a larger nexus of service providers that counters abuse and strives to make the Tompkins community more humane for people and animals. Because the SPCA’s ACOs investigate animal cruelty cases, they are potentially in proximity to other crimes statistically related to animal abuse.
Alarming patterns indicate a strong connection between animal abuse and many of our society’s most costly and most harmful ills:
- Children are 10 times more likely to abuse animals if they witness abuse
- 50 % of “school shooters” are animal abusers
- 46 % of sexual homicide perpetrators abused animals
- 48 % of convicted rapists abused animals
- 88 % of child abusers abuse animals
- 70 – 80 % of situations involving spousal abuse also involved animal cruelty
- 30 % of child molesters previously abused animals
- 60 % of those convicted of aggravated assault previously abused animals
- 100 % of serial killers previously abused animals
In addition to the mandated reporter training, the TC SPCA has implemented the Safe Pet Partnership. This is a collaborative effort with the Advocacy Center, which provides emergency shelter for youth and adult victims of domestic violence. Through the Partnership, the SPCA provides a safe haven for pets belonging to victims – at no cost. Too often, victims are reluctant to leave a dangerous situation because concern for their pets’ fate prevents them from seeking refuge in an emergency shelter that can’t take animals. And often in an abusive relationship, threats against a victim’s pet become a lever of control, preventing victims from leaving. The SPCA has eliminated that dangerous lever.
In view of the alarming statistics listed above and the patterns to which the SPCA is responding, it’s unfortunate that there are few if any consequences for most animal abusers – in spite of how often animal abuse is either a complement to or a prelude to violent crime. Animal abuse typically takes a back seat to other social and criminal problems that appear to have a more direct impact upon citizens. That is the problem; these are not separate issues.
“By including the animal factor in the equation, rather than relegating issues of animal cruelty to the periphery as an essentially unrelated set of problems, we complete the puzzle of preventative social medicine,” says SPCA Executive Director Jeff Lydon. The SPCA intends to foster a complementary, reciprocal partnership with DSS, so that CPS agents investigating child abuse alert the SPCA should they come upon animal abuse. And the SPCA hopes that increasing the level of awareness of the animal-human connection will make law enforcement agents, and especially the District Attorney, prosecute animal cruelty cases with more vigor and integrity.
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