The Link Between Animal Cruelty and Domestic Violence August 2014 Voiceover: Beat Intro 00:00 This is the Beat—a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest community policing topics facing our nation. Kimberly Brummett 00:08 Hello and welcome. My name is Kimberly Brummett, and on behalf of the COPS office, I would like to introduce Dr. Randall Lockwood, senior vice president for Forensic Sciences and Anti-Cruelty Projects for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or A.S.P.C.A. Dr. Lockwood is here today with me to discuss the link between animal cruelty and domestic violence. Welcome, Dr. Lockwood. Dr. Randall Lockwood 00:32 Thank you. Kimberly 00:33 Please tell us a little bit about the links between domestic violence and animal cruelty. Randall 00:38 Well, we first started really learning of these connections with interviews of women seeking protection in domestic violence shelters almost 15 to 20 years ago. What we consistently had been hearing is that about three-fourths of the women seeking protection had pets at home, which is not unusual for families with school-age children—usually two-thirds to three-fourths of those families. The disturbing statistic was that 71% of those women who had pets at home and were seeking protection in a domestic violence shelter were reporting that their batterer had threatened, injured, or killed their pet. In about half of the cases, the pet has been injured or killed, [which] really pointed out that this is a widespread phenomenon given the prevalence of pets among this population and the high frequency of animal cruelty within the context of domestic violence. What that translated into is that just about every other woman seeking protection in a domestic violence shelter had a pet that had also been a victim of animal cruelty. Kimberly 01:50 So, as a response to this linkage between violence against people and violence against animals, the National Link Coalition was created and, in partnership with the A.S.P.C.A., has put out a toolkit for use at the community level. Tell us a little bit about the National Link Coalition’s partnership and the toolkit that has been developed. Randall 02:07 The National Link Coalition started about eight years ago as an informal group that was brought together first at a meeting in Portland, Maine, and representing initially about 20 to 25 groups. It has been distilled down to a dozen groups. It’s not an incorporated nonprofit. It’s a loose organization but has representatives from the A.S.P.C.A., the American Veterinary Medical Association to the American Psychological Association and several domestic violence groups and child protection groups and others. It’s a collection of professionals who are interested in sharing resources and information about the interconnection between animal cruelty and other forms of family violence, particularly highlighting community responses. What we’re seeing around the country and now around the world is the formation of local link groups or task forces that do try to bring together people from all these different disciplines. What we had found was, in the past, responding to community violence really was something that was really siloed. You had groups really concentrating on specific victims. So you had child protection groups who were focusing on the children. You had domestic violence responders who were focusing on those victims. You had regular law enforcement looking at criminal activity. You had animal care and control or the humane society dealing with those. These groups were not talking to one another. What we began to realize was often we were dealing with the same perpetrators. Community response, and community response to violence in general, was something that was best shared and best coordinated across these various groups. Kimberly 04:00 What would you suggest to local police departments wanting to learn more about this linkage between animal violence and domestic violence, and how they can implement the toolkit in their own communities? Randall 04:10 What we’re seeing now is, first of all, all police departments have training on domestic violence as part of the core standards of police training. Increasingly, we’re providing training that also talks about the importance of recognizing the role of animals in this, partly just being alert to that connection. Ask questions of just not domestic violence victims but child abuse victims. Ask questions or open your eyes to see what’s perhaps happening with the animals in that kind of situation. What we see quite often is that there has been a pet that’s been injured or killed in the context of domestic violence. Yet no questions have been asked. In some cases, that particular crime hasn’t been reported. That actually might prove to be the most significant thing to respond to in terms of moving forward with a case. We might have a domestic violence victim, a human victim, who later recants or does not want to press charges, but we still have an injured or killed animal. Moving forward in the prosecution of the animal cruelty case might actually result in the same kind of outcome with the perpetrator facing some consequences for his or her actions, perhaps being placed into a better treatment program just as they would have been had they been convicted of the domestic abuse. Paying attention to that gives you an extra tool, an extra piece of information, that might lead to an important outcome. Kimberly 05:45 The creation of the Link Coalition really supports this philosophy of community policing, building relationships to create safer communities. Can you share some other examples of where law enforcement, animal welfare, and social services have successfully partnered together and increased the community’s capacity to respond to and prevent domestic violence and animal abuse? Randall 06:02 One the best recent example that we’ve seen was the somewhat controversial handing over of animal cruelty investigations to the New York Police Department after A.S.P.C.A. had had that responsibility since 1866. We didn’t do it blindly though. We spent quite a long time and continue to be involved in training all police officers in New York on the significance of animal cruelty in general and its connection to other crimes. What we’ve seen in building that relationship is a much better response. We’ve seen more felony animal cruelty cases brought forward just in the first five months of this year than we did all of last year. We’ve gone from having about 20 humane law enforcement agents with the A.S.P.C.A. that were doing this job in the past to 34,000 police officers in the New York Police Department who are now looking out for the same issues in their daily duties. I think that is a trend we’re going to see in the future as more and more communities recognize that recognizing and responding to animal cruelty should be a core part of police activity. It’s not that animals are more important than people, but animals are an important indicator of what else is going on in a community. Animal crimes are something that the general public cares very much about. So taking animal crime seriously is part of good community policing. Kimberly 07:35 Well, thank you, Dr. Lockwood, for providing us with your time and expertise on this issue. Voiceover: Beat Exit 07:39 The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice, COPS Office. The COPS Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving grants to law enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications, developing partnerships, and solving problems. Voiceover: Disclaimer 07:56 The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or polices of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.