Can future serial killers be tracked? New York Post just reported that the FBI, along with its annual count of homicides, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults, added a new category it will track — animal cruelty.
The disturbing reason is not just the abuse itself, but the fact that animal abusers are five times more likely to commit acts of human violence. Criminologists have recognized this link between animal abuse and human violence for a long time, and describe it as a graduation effect, where troubled youngsters rehearse by torturing the family pet or other animals before subsequently hurting humans. On top of that, animal abusers are four times more likely to commit property offenses (such as burglary and vandalism) and three times more likely to commit drug offenses. According to Psychology Today, reversing the facts and looking at the criminals supports this too; nearly all violent crime perpetrators have a history of animal cruelty in their profiles.
New York Post gives a few examples, like how “Boston Strangler” Albert DeSalvo trapped dogs and cats in wooden crates and shot them with a bow and arrow. John Wayne Gacy, who murdered 33 men and boys in his suburban Chicago home, tortured turkeys by throwing balloons filled with gasoline and then igniting the birds. Ted Bundy, who took the lives of female students on several college campuses around the country, had mutilated dogs and cats as a child.
The correlation is deepened by the fact that sadistic killers often employ a version of the same methods on humans as they did on animals.
Lee Malvo, one of the two DC snipers, started off by using a slingshot and marbles to kill stray cats. Jeffrey Dahmer, who strangled and dismembered 17 men, then kept their decomposing bodies in a barrel of acid, would reportedly kill animals to skin and soak their bones in acid before mounting their heads on stakes in the back yard as a child.
This makes the FBI’s inclusion a welcome addition, which will call attention to the severity of a much-neglected crime. Reporting crimes against animals is sure to encourage law enforcement and the public to acknowledge the importance of efforts to reduce animal cruelty. Repeated acts of sadistic animal abuse — especially of the family pet — can serve as a warning sign, to be used to identify children who are crying out for help, and to intervene in their lives before things get worse.
The addition is fantastic news for animal lovers! It will help save the lives of precious living beings and protect them from the unnecessary suffering, since they can’t protect themselves.
One can only hope protection will eventually include animals suffering unnecessary from the conditions in some of the large scale food production facilities, where severe mistreatment is being reported over and over again, yet there are still no sufficient laws to protect the animals.
Not that those factories are necessarily run by future serial killers or violent crime perpetrators, but the comparison of the different groups of animals is worth a thought, when we decide which groups of animals are worthy of protection and which are not.
And as far as the humans involved, future serial killers or not, one might ponder animal activist Ricky Gervais’ famous tweet;
“If you don’t have empathy with animals, you don’t have empathy.”
Featured image by gomagoti via Flickr, available under a Creative Commons license.
