Pets Are Victims in an Inhumane Society
By Steven Zak
Originally published in The San Francisco Examiner, November 7, 1999
DATELINE: Sunland, Los Angeles County
Philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote, "We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." One can only wonder what he might have made of a culture that spawns a craze like "crush videos," video tapes, selling for upward of $ 300 each on the Internet, showing women in bare feet or wearing spiked heels stomping puppies, kittens, baby mice or birds.
In response to a burgeoning multimillion-dollar crush video industry, the House of Representatives recently approved a bill that would criminalize profiting from such videos. The bill now awaits action in the Senate.
In Andrew Vachss' 1991 novel "Sacrifice," an abused child is forced to watch the mutilation of animals. He later vents his own violence against an infant. But the association between violence against animals and against human beings is hardly fiction.
Well-known is that serial killers Albert DeSalvo, Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer were all early animal tormentors. DeSalvo, for instance, trapped dogs and cats in crates, then shot arrows through the boxes.
Jason Massey of Texas began his violent career by killing dogs and cats. In 1993, at age 20, he beheaded a 13-year-old girl.
More recently, after the 1998 arrest of 16-year-old Luke Woodham in Pearl, Miss., for killing his mother and several classmates, police found a diary in which he described his first killing, his dog Sparkle.
The correlation suggested by such anecdotal evidence is supported by numerous studies.
A 1983 report by New Jersey's state Division of Youth and Family Services found that in 88 percent of homes in which children were physically abused, animals were also abused by at least one family member.
A 1985 study of prison inmates found that 25 percent of aggressive criminals had abused animals five or more times in childhood, compared with 5.8 percent of the nonaggressive criminals, and zero percent in a group of noncriminals.
In a 1996 study, researchers surveyed a group of battered women who owned pets. Seventy-one percent of the women reported that their batterer had threatened their pets or had actually hurt or killed them.
The FBI, as far back as the 1970s, has recognized an association between killing and torturing animals and violence toward human beings.
This correlation is hardly surprising: Violence is violence. Only the victims differ.
Americans generally support tough prosecution of animal abusers. A 1996 poll sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States found that 71 percent of those surveyed agreed that some forms of animal abuse should be a felony.
And the perceived link between violence against animals and against people was not the only reason given. The second most common reason was that "defenseless animals should not be subjected to extreme cruelty."
Americans, in other words, recognize that animal abuse is simply wrong.
One might think, then, that the measure now in the Senate would be without controversy. Think again.
Opponents like Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., argue that all states already have anticruelty statutes.
True. But these statutes, historically designed to protect "property" rights, are notoriously weak. If enforced at all, most of these laws provide for only misdemeanor offenses.
In a case that garnered national attention in 1998, at Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary in Fairfield, Iowa, three young men entered the shelter after midnight and bludgeoned to death 23 cats. One of the men was given probation, the other two got 23 days in jail, one day for each cat.
State laws have other shortcomings. In California recently, a prosecutor pursuing a case against a crush video maker ran up against a three-year statute of limitations because the tape had been made in 1992. The federal law would make it a crime to even possess such a tape for commercial purposes, regardless of when it was made.
Critics have also argued that the bill could limit films on subjects like hunting. It's sad commentary when we hesitate to crack down on even the most vicious forms of animal abuse because some of our "legitimate" ones aren't that much different.
