Archive Interview - Michael Kaufmann, Director
of Education Programs for AHA
 "The
forces and influences that foster violence towards humans
and animals spring from the same roots" (AHA)
Those who work to protect animals from cruelty have long
emphasized the importance of a general ethic of compassion
toward all species--people and animals alike. In recent
years there have also been several in-depth studies documenting
a definite link between malicious acts of animal abuse in
childhood and later violence toward other people.
The American Humane Society (AHA) is stressing the significance
of the "Link" in their Campaign against Violence. They state:
"Evidence is mounting that violent acts are not separate
and distinct, but are part of a cycle.....This kind of research
is shaking society's nonchalant view of animal abuse. No
longer is cruelty to animals passed off as just a phase
in childhood or with a "boys will be boys" attitude. It
should alert parents, societal leaders, prosecutors, and
judges to the importance of animal cruelty as a potential
indicator of disturbed family relationships and future antisocial
and aggressive behavior towards humans...."
AHA has opened the first National Resource Center on the
Link Between Violence to People and Animals. COOL GREEN
WORLD spoke with Michael Kaufmann, Director of Education
Programs for AHA about this Link and the work that is being
done to break this cycle of violence:
CGW: Michael, could you explain the mission of the American
Humane Association?
Michael: AHA was founded in 1877 and has two main missions--one
is the protection of children and the other is the protection
of animals from abuse, neglect and exploitation. Since the
beginning, we have done both of these jobs in separate program
divisions and continue to do so to the present day. The
children's division is staffed by social workers, psychologists
and people in child welfare, and the animal protection division
is staffed by animal protection professionals, veterinarians
and animal control specialists. There's definitely enough
research now to establish the relationship between child
abuse and animal abuse, domestic violence and animal abuse,
abuse of the elderly and that sort of thing, and there is
a joining for this correlation between the abuse of animals
and people where our children's division and our animals'
division work together.
CGW: What forms of animal abuse does the LINK look at
because it almost seems like there are two areas of animal
abuse--heinous acts of torture that most people would find
repugnant and then what we might consider "accepted abuse"
that society "condones," such as slaughterhouses, hunting,
animal research, the fur industry etc? So what do we actually
mean in this context by "animal abuse?"
Michael: In human abuse, we generally work with physical
abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect. In animal
abuse, all of those happen also. By and large, the main
type of abuse that we see with animals is neglect. Neglect--either
on purpose or because people don't know any better.
Another thing that one needs to consider is that obviously
human beings are individuals with rights. What makes it
problematic for animals is that animals legally are considered
property and that's where the problem starts. Because of
their status as property, and other ways that we view animals
legally, there are a lot of activities that people do with
animals that you and I would probably consider either physical
abuse or emotional abuse, or neglect if nothing else--but
it's legal.
The type of violence to animals that we focus in on most
narrowly in this Link situation (child abuse, domestic violence,
etc.) is the intentional, malicious violence to an animal
that people care about, that is socially valuable--a pet
dog, a horse, a pet snake. It doesn't really matter as long
as that animal is a pet, or somebody is attached to that
animal. It's at that point that the Link relationship really
starts to happen--so, setting an animal on fire, putting
a cat in a microwave to get back at a girlfriend, or intentionally
poisoning a pond full of fish because these fish belong
to your grandmother who you hate and you're trying to get
back at her--that's sort of most narrowly what the Link
focuses on and some of the research that is Link-related.
That's when you come to Jeffrey Dahmer and some of the other
serial killers, who early on had a fascination with dead
animals, or with hurting animals, and then escalated that
behavior.
We try to separate this kind of cruelty from the "normal"
stuff that kids will do--stepping on ants, pulling the wings
off of flies, sticking a pencil in a cat's ear--the difference
being that the child with a problem doesn't respond to correction.
After the parent says: "Don't do that, it's bad," most kids
will stop and they'll learn. If, however, a child doesn't
stop and escalates and does this stuff in secret and it
really becomes a pattern of behavior and it gets worse--that's
when it starts to be of significance.
CGW: And what is the usual motivation for this behavior?
Michael: Most of the time it certainly is a sign that something
is not developing properly with that child, and that can
be as victims of abuse themselves, or some other disorder
and that's where psychologists are becoming much more attuned
to it.
CGW: Does it seem that animal cruelty is on the rise?
Michael: I don't think you can really say that with any
certainty. A big part of it is that in the last 10 or 15
years we've become much more attuned to violence in general,
and things like substance abuse, alcoholism, domestic abuse,
child abuse have really only become recognized as conditions,
I would say, in the last 20 years. The very issue of child
abuse before 1960 was hardly ever discussed anywhere. People
didn't even believe that people hurt their own children.
So, I think we're going through the same thing a bit with
animal abuse now.
CGW: How can these findings be used in the future to
make a practical difference?
Michael: Well the hardest thing is that, up until recently,
a lot of professionals have worked in isolation. The child
welfare people work with other child welfare people, law
enforcement works on its own, domestic violence advocates
work on their side and, of course, the Humane societies
and animal control personnel work in their world.
The realization has to be on the community level that what
this Link really means is that everybody first of all needs
to be attuned to all of this violence. They have to understand
that the family who has substance abuse problems, that may
have problems with their children in school, that may have
child welfare coming in concerned about the children, that
may have an elderly person in the home who is not being
tended, that has a problem in the neighborhood with speeding
tickets and traffic violations--is also the family that
has the barking dog complaints because their dogs are outside
and are maybe not being fed and animal control is there.
So, in other words, all of these community systems are
kind of dealing with the same people and it's not efficient
not to work together, not to understand what each other's
trying to do. And that's really what we try to do in our
trainings--try to show everybody in a community that this
is all OUR stuff, there is no mine and yours and it's not
separate. It's all one problem.
CGW: So AHA trains people in these areas?
Michael: Absolutely! We have a two-day training that we
take all around the country where we speak to mixed groups
of social workers and judges, prosecuting attorneys, humane
society professionals, veterinarians--pretty much anybody
we can get in who has any professional responsibility as
a community helping system.
CGW: Other than training the professional, how can we
best educate people?
Michael: We have a Campaign Against Violence, and really
the first step is that it has to be reported. People have
to be attuned to it. However one does that as a private
citizen--you can do that in your family, in the work place,
with co-workers in your own profession, whatever it is--just
bring greater awareness to the issue.
Realize that when somebody sets a dog on fire it's not
just a prank, and it's not just something you shrug off
because "it's only a dog," but that there's a real potential
for problems there--not just for animals but also for the
community. So that I would think is step one.
And the second part is really just to try to see, once
you have this information, what can you do differently?
Is there anything you can do differently in your work? Is
there any way you can become active? It might be something
as simple as writing to a state legislator or a judge when
a certain case is talked about in the paper. And that happens
a lot. A bunch of boys put a group of cats into a sack and
beat them to death with baseball bats -- that happened in
Texas. Well, community outrage and people writing letters,
that can really make a difference on how the case will get
treated in court--and not just write hateful letters about
"these awful kids, how could they do that to the poor animals?"
Really write very educated letters signed with your professional
credentials, very calmly stating that "this is really of
concern and as a member of this community I don't want to
accept this behavior."
CGW: Because if it's accepted at that level, that's
when it escalates further?
Michael: Exactly!
CGW: Within the States are there strict enough legislation
and penalties dealing with this?
Michael: Absolutely not! One of the ways that the information
on the Link has really been helpful is on trying to help
states strengthen their animal cruelty legislation.
Several states, Maryland, Oregon, and Colorado among them,
have significantly strengthened their cruelty laws from
misdemeanors to felonies--having people like social workers
testify on behalf of the legislation saying: "I'm not an
animal advocate as much as I am a child advocate but I am
concerned about animal cruelty." And that's really swayed
a lot of legislators to look at animal cruelty in a different
light.
CGW: Recently, in the unfortunate cases of high school
slayings many of the children committing the violence seem
to have had backgrounds involving hunting or at the least,
access to guns used for hunting. Does the issue of children
being taught "violent" activites such as hunting and legally
being able to own hunting rifles at the age of 12, for example
here in Wisconsin, factor into this equation of violence
at all?
Michael: There are a couple of things. One of the more
difficult things is that there are activities in this society
that you can take part in that are perfectly legal that
could be of concern. For example, someone who really enjoys
killing animals in a very malicious way can do so in the
context of hunting, working in a slaughterhouse--there are
a lot of sites where you can live out acts like this. Which
is not to say that every hunter or every slaughterhouse
worker falls into a troublesome category in the context
of what we're talking about.
Now the bigger issue is this--there are four areas that
we focus on when we talk about this Link. One is we need
more research--we really need to document this even more
than it already has been.
The second thing is intervention strategies--what do you
do when people are abusive and cruel to animals whether
they're children or adults? What can you do--counseling,
incarceration? What are the treatment options that really
do something and work?
Then the third area is programmatic change--how can we
take the information about this correlation between cruelty
to people and animals and make a difference to the work
we're already doing? For example, in a domestic violence
shelter that may mean asking the women "do you have pets
at home that have been hurt or that are at risk?" and then
helping the women get those pets out of the home and into
an animal shelter short-term, rather than have them hurt
by the perpetrator. It's that kind of adapting of things
that we're already doing.
And then the final thing is prevention--how do we prevent
people from being cruel and abusive to anybody? And that
would be through traditional humane education, public service
media, modeling as a parent or teacher. As a parent you
have power over your own children to a certain extent, so
what do you model at home? As a teacher, what do you model
in the classroom? That's where I think we're going to head
into things like teaching people compassion and caring.
That would eliminate things like hunting or doing things
to other animals that are painful or inhumane and will really
develop a new ethic of caring and kindness......
Michael E. Kaufmann
Director of Education American Humane Association
63 Inverness Drive East
Englewood, Colorado 80112-51117
phone: 303-792-9900
fax: 303-792-5333
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