Understanding Animal Abuse and How to Intervene with Children and Young People offers a positive, compassion-based and trauma-informed approach to understanding and intervening in animal abuse. It provides an accessible cross-disciplinary synthesis of current international evidence on animal abuse and a toolkit for professionals working with people and/or animals to help them understand, prevent and intervene in cases of animal abuse. With contributions from experts in the field, this essential text offers ten user-friendly chapters with questions for reflection and key summary points. It offers a definition of animal abuse, synthesises the latest research on children, young people and animal abuse, explores the link between animal abuse and other forms of abuse and outlines legal perspectives on animal abuse. The second half of the book presents a practical toolkit for professionals, offering guidance and strategies for the prevention of and intervention in cases of animal abuse. It provides multidisciplinary perspectives on interventions; from teachers’ and social workers roles in detection and intervention of childhood animal abuse, to the roles of enforcement agencies and veterinarians in legal cases of adult animal abuse. Together with a final chapter proposing new directions for research, policy and practice, this guide is for all who work with children, young people and/or animals, including psychologists, social workers, veterinarians, education professionals and animal welfare educators. It is also a key reading for those involved in legal and policy issues relating to animal welfare.

Animal abuse has been an acknowledged problem for centuries, but only within the past few decades has scientific research provided evidence that the maltreatment of animals often overlaps with violence toward people. The variants of violence, including bullying or assaults in a schoolyard, child abuse in homes, violence between adult intimate partners, community hostility in our streets and neighborhoods, and even the context of war, are now the subject of concerted research efforts. Very often, the association of these forms of violence with cruelty to animals has been found. The perpetrators of such inhumane treatment are often children and adolescents. How common are these incidents? What motivates human maltreatment of animals? Are there cultural, societal, neighborhood, and family contexts that contribute to cruelty to animals? How early in a child's life does cruelty to animals emerge and are these incidents always a sign of future interpersonal violence? Are there ways of preventing such cruelty? Can we intervene effectively with children who already have a history of abuse and violence? Children and Animals: Exploring the Roots of Kindness and Cruelty presents the current scientific and professional wisdom about the relation between the maltreatment of animals and interpersonal violence directed toward other human beings. However, the author, Frank R. Ascione, a noted expert in these areas, writes in a style and presents the findings in a language that will be understandable to parents, teachers, counselors, clergy, animal welfare professionals, foster parents, mental health professionals, youth workers, law enforcement professionals, and anyone else whose work or interest crosses into the lives of children and adolescents.

Evidence is mounting that animal abuse, frequently embedded in families scarred by domestic violence and child abuse and neglect, often predicts the potential for other violent acts. As early intervention is critical in the prevention and reduction of aggression, this book encourages researchers and professionals to recognize animal abuse as a significant problem and a human public-health issue that should be included as a curriculum topic in training. The book is an interdisciplinary source book of original essays that examines the relations between animal maltreatment and human interpersonal violence, expands the scope of research in this growing area, and provides practical assessment and documentation strategies to help professionals confronting violence do their jobs better by attending to these connections. As an outgrowth of the Latham Foundation's 1995 training manual, Breaking the Cycles of Violence, this book is a historic step in helping professionals from these disciplines, as well as the general public, recognize the cyclical and insidious nature of family violence and provides training in recognizing peripheral forms of family violence outside a family's immediate purview. It encourages cross-disciplinary prevention and intervention strategies with an ultimate goal of reducing the levels of violence which is such a great societal and cultural concern today. This book brings together, for the first time, all of the leaders in this emerging field. They examine contemporary research and programmatic issues, encourage cross-disciplinary interactions, and describe innovative programs in the field today. Also included are vivid first-person accounts from survivors whose experiences included animal maltreatment among other forms of family violence. Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, and Animal Abuse provides professional communities of psychologists and child welfare specialists with a deeper, higher, and more encompassing awareness and understanding of the crucial linking of caring for animals and children in human experience. The combination of careful research, documentation, and compelling narrative accounts are blended into a rich resource to help professionals, concerned citizens, and parents understand how the ethics of caring are not bounded by species.

Until the last decade of the twentieth century, the abusive or cruel treatment of animals had received virtually no attention among academicians. Since then, however, empirical studies of animal abuse, and its relation to other forms of violence toward humans, have increased not only in number but in quality and stature. Sociologists, criminologists, social workers, psychologists, legal scholars, feminists, and others have recognized the myriad reasons that animal abuse is worthy of serious scholarly focus. In his overview of contemporary sociological understanding of animal abuse, Clifton Fly.

Animal maltreatment includes physical or sexual abuse, neglect, or hoarding of animals, and all states have laws prohibiting various forms of animal maltreatment. About one-half have statutory provisions mandating or allowing courts to order forensic mental health assessments of individuals convicted of animal maltreatment offenses. Yet there are few resources on this topic for mental health and legal professionals and none that offer guidance for evaluations in animal maltreatment cases. Animal Maltreatment is the first book to provide an overview of animal maltreatment as a legal, clinical, and forensic issue. It offers guidance for mental health and legal professionals involved in the adjudication of animal maltreatment offenses, with a special focus on forensic mental health assessments in such cases. The book reviews the legal and social contexts of animal maltreatment and then describes research-based and clinical knowledge within the area. It offers perspectives on social and clinical responses in animal maltreatment cases and describes prospects for an area of forensic mental health assessment focused specifically on the forensic evaluation in cases of animal maltreatment. This is the first book that brings together descriptions of the characteristics of those who maltreat animals, factors associated with animal maltreatment behaviors, information about the impact on the animals themselves, and evaluations of offenders to assist courts in decisions about their rehabilitation. Animal Maltreatment will be of great benefit and interest to general and forensic psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, as well as lawyers, legal scholars and students, veterinarians, humane law enforcement professionals, and others involved in animal welfare advocacy.

Animal abuse as a predictor of abuse against humans has been documented extensively. Experts have explored alternatives to identify the early signs and stop the cycle. This book offers an up-to-date compendium that covers the historical, legal, research and applied issues related to animal abuse and cruelty.

How can we make sense of acts of cruelty towards animals?