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The conference analysed evidence for the link, what meaning it might have, its ethical significance and the implications for future social and legal policy.

Evidence of the link is ‘indisputable’

‘Since 1987 the psychiatric profession has acknowledged animal abuse as a significant symptom of current and, potentially, future antisocial behaviour,’ explains Frank Ascione, Utah State University’s Professor of Psychology, the leading pioneer of the link between harm to animals and interpersonal violence. Ascione, who acclaimed the conference as a `landmark in assessing our current knowledge about this issues’, opened the event by summarising thirty years of research into the link. 

He told delegates that research shows animal abuse is particularly prevalent in homes where children are maltreated or women harmed by their intimate partners.

This view was supported by Professor Eleonora Gullone, Associate Professor of Psychology at Monash University, Australia, another leading authority. It is ‘indisputable that aggression directed at animals and aggression directed at humans are not two separate behaviours - the two are predictably linked,’ she said. `Indeed, animal abuse can be used as a marker of other types of violence with considerable accuracy be it family violence, violent crime or child abuse.’

A world in which cruelty to animals goes unchecked is bound to be an unsafe world for human beings

The FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime takes the link between animal cruelty and human violence with utmost seriousness. Retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Alan C. Brantley outlined to conference a checklist he has developed for law enforcement agents conducting assessments of persons suspected or known to be dangerous. Tellingly, half the 16 traits and characteristics of violent offenders he has identified include animal abuse.

In an address entitled “The link between animal abuse and sadistic serial murder” Professor Jack Levin, Brudnick Professor of Sociology and Criminology, Northeast University, Boston, said most criminologists accepted that violence against animals was a predictor of future violence against  animals and people. But he said millions of “normal” people committed animal cruelty as children and only a small number became seriously violent adults.

To reach this sub-group, he called on policy makers and educators to reach out to all children who harm animals. ‘We might be giving a few children our assistance when it isn’t needed,’ he said. `But in the process we will also be reducing animal cruelty.’

Collaboration between animal welfare and domestic violence and child protection agencies

The conference heard that policies are changing across the world in the light of the evidence of the link, with vets, animal welfare inspectors and child protection agencies now collaborating and practical programmes emerging.

Some US states now require vets and other animal welfare workers to report suspected child abuse, in the same way as doctors and police officers. In the UK the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children have adopted protocols for cross-reporting.

Other speakers described how animal welfare and domestic violence agencies are working together to establish pet fostering programmes to help human and animal victims of violence. These programmes are needed because many refuges for domestic violence victims don’t take pets, which results in many women at risk choosing to remain with violent partners.

Action needed around the world

Given the importance of animal abuse as an indicator for other types of violence, an integrated and collaborative response to animal abuse is essential. Eleonora Gullone called for such a response to ‘involve members of the police force, departments of health, community services and animal welfare organisations.’ She concluded that ‘it is also important that legislators and the judiciary become sufficiently educated about the co-occurrence to ensure the institution of more serious sentencing of animal abuse crimes.’