Kill your dog, beat your wife, screw your neighbor’s kids, rob a bank?: A cursory look at an individual’s vat of social chaos resulting from deviance

Abstract

The results of this qualitative research project offer evidence suggesting that forms of animal cruelty may  co-exist with other types of criminal offenses. Using archival data describing police incidents in Charlotte/ Mecklenburg, 1000 cases of animal cruelty were cross-referenced with criminally-involved cases. Based upon our results, we conclude several needs: 1) children learn both the role of victim and victimizer in human and non-human criminal cases; 2)adults who engage in human and non- human crime may be subject to the same environmental turmoil; and 3) aside from the similarities across human and non-human victims of crime, there are very important differences, such as the voicelessness of non-human victims.