| Recent studies have offered compelling evidence supporting a relationship between childhood cruelty to animals and later violence against humans. This study was designed to further explore whether violent offenders were significantly more likely than nonviolent offenders to abuse animals of various types. Two groups of adult prisoners were interviewed. The experimental group consisted of 45 inmates incarcerated for a violent crime and the control group consisted of 45 inmates incarcerated for a nonviolent crime. Two data collection instruments were used in the study. The first was used to extract demographic and personal background information about the subjects. The second was used to extract data with respect to cruelty to animals and categorized animals into four types: wild, farm, pet and stray. Previous studies have often suggested that cruelty to good animals such as pet animals is the most significant type of cruelty to animals relevant to the relationship. The results of the study supported the proposed hypothesis and demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between cruelty to animals and later violence against humans. Furthermore, the study found that cruelty to pet animals was the most statistically significant cruelty committed when the violent and nonviolent offenders were co |
Updated 05/20/2006