Protect animals = protect children and others

Forrest. It’s the story of a dog chained, shot and left to bleed to death by a man whose rap sheet includes raping a child and a young girl. It’s unfathomable how someone can do these things, and with pleasure.

But here’s the disturbing reality: sick behavior like this isn’t uncommon when it comes to those who abuse and neglect. Robin Stone, who adopted Forrest, summed it up in an interview for a previous article: “People have to realize that the same people who are abusing animals are abusing the elderly, children and others.”

In a previous life, I worked for a local animal shelter. There, I learned about The Link®, an aptly named initiative that “recognizes the correlation between animal abuse, family violence and other forms of community violence. According to the American Humane Association (AHA), “professionals are beginning to engage in cross-training and cross-reporting through inter-agency partnerships. Humane societies are also teaming with domestic violence shelters to provide emergency shelter for pets of domestic violence victims.” Some sobering facts from the AHA:

• 71% of pet-owning women entering women’s shelters reported that their batterer had injured, maimed, killed or threatened family pets for revenge or to psychologically control victims; 32% reported their children had hurt or killed animals (children who witness animal abuse are at a greater risk of becoming abusers themselves).

• 68% of battered women reported violence towards their animals. 87% of these incidents occurred in the presence of the women, and 75% in the presence of the children, to psychologically control and coerce them. 

• Between 25% and 40% of battered women are unable to escape abusive situations because they worry about what will happen to their pets or livestock should they leave. 

• One study showed that violent offenders incarcerated in a maximum-security prison were significantly more likely than nonviolent offenders to have committed childhood acts of cruelty toward pets (Merz-Perez, Heide, & Silverman, 2001).

• There are now felony-level penalties for animal cruelty in nearly all states.

More details at http://www.americanhumane.org/interaction/support-the-bond/fact-sheets/understanding-the-link.html

Raymone Clements’ illegal weapons possession charge is crime enough, and it will rack up more prison years if he is found guilty. But human and animal abuse and neglect are crimes with shattering consequences for victims, and they stand on their own.

We’re all in this world together and every living thing is connected by a deep-weaving thread. This isn’t just about a poster-dog and stricter animal cruelty laws. It’s about breaking the chain of fear, anger, guilt and shame that results from abuse, neglect and domestic violence−something that’s rooted in power and control of the sickest kind.

Those on the receiving end frequently remain silent, often because they can’t speak for themselves and/or it simply isn’t safe to seek help. Abuse and neglect run rampant in our society, across racial and socioeconomic borders, right into living rooms nationwide−of even the most “respectable” families’ pristine homes.

When justice takes down a perpetrator and an abused animal is saved or spared from pain, somewhere abused or neglected children, parents, grandparents, the disabled, and the cognitively and medically fragile know what it means to feel safe.

What could be more worthy of twenty-first century legislation? That’s what I call upholding family values, Ohio.

-Kerri Whitehouse, Cleveland Heights