Introduction

This Bulletin reports on the psychiatric, psychological, and criminological research linking animal abuse to juvenile- and adult-perpetrated violence. It addresses the challenge of defining animal abuse and examines the difficulty of deriving accurate incidence and prevalence data for this behavior. It also explores the relationships between animal abuse and conduct disorder (CD), analyzes the motives of child and adolescent animal abusers, and considers the contexts that may lead to the emergence of animal abuse as a symptom of psychological disorder. (Although a few studies examine the neurobiological correlates of cruelty to animals—see Lockwood and Ascione, 1998—that topic is beyond the scope of this review.) The importance of including information about animal abuse in assessments of youth at risk of committing interpersonal violence is emphasized throughout, and a list of national organizations with programs related to the link between animal abuse and other violent behavior is also provided.

This Bulletin does not suggest that attending to animal abuse is a panacea for dealing with the challenges of identifying and addressing youth violence. Violent behavior is multidimensional and multidetermined, and its developmental course is still the subject of concerted research investigation (Moffitt, 1997). However, it is argued here that animal abuse has received insufficient attention—in fact, is sometimes explicitly excluded (e.g., Stone and Kelner, 2000)—as one of a number of “red flags,” warning signs, or sentinel behaviors that could help identify youth at risk for perpetrating interpersonal violence (a relation first noted in the psychiatric literature by Pinel in 1809) and youth who have themselves been victimized.