Thursday, March 1, 2007

Connection seen between animal abuse, human violence

More than 90 percent of serial killers in the U.S. admitted to having abused animals at some point in their lives. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has been compiling data on the connection between animal cruelty and human violence for the past 20 years. Among the most infamous serial killers who admitted to abusing animals were the Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, the Boston Strangler and Jeffrey Dahmer, according to Arnold Baer, HSUS director of field services. Baer told The Sun that the Animal Defenders of Yuma brought him to speak at Arizona Western College Tuesday night to reach audiences of different professionals to stress the importance of paying attention to animal abuse and pooling resources to ensure kids hurting animals are given counseling, so they do not grow up to commit criminal violence against people. "A much higher percentage of violent criminals have had animal abuse in their backgrounds than those that don't," said Baer of studies done on incarcerated criminals.

2 comments:

Kat said...

Sadly, even though this is a viable fact, many parents of kids who do abuse animals will hide under the denial of 'he's just a boy, he doesn't know better'...

Jan said...

I agree with Carrie. I wish people would start taking it seriously when children abuse pets because it is not a natural way for children to behave and is a harbinger of a psychotic person.

Jan from Poodles and dogs