Childhood cruelty to animals: Assessing cruelty dimensions and motivations

Preventing and treating childhood cruelty to animals will require a) qualitative as well as quantitative, assessment methods and b) specification of the varied motivations for such behavior: Although some information is available about the prevalence and frequency of animal maltreatment in samples of children and adolescents, especially those diagnosed with Conduct Disorder; other dimensions of such maltreatment (e.g. severity, chronicity) are only beginning to be explored. We describe the research and development process leading to construction of a semi-structured interview, the Children and Animals (Cruelty to Animals) Assessment Instrument (CAAI), for use with children over four years of age and their parents, to obtain information on animal maltreatment. The CAAI was field-tested with a community and clinical sample of twenty children and included children in day treatment and residential programs for emotionally disturbed youth, incarcerated adolescents, and children accompanying their mothers to shelters for battered women. The dimensions of cruelty to animals scorable using the CAAI include: SEVERITY(degree of intentional pain/injury caused), FREQUENCY (number of separate acts), DURATION (period of time over which cruelty occurred), REGENCY (most current acts), DIVERSITY ACROSS AND WITHIN CATEGORIES (number of types and number of animals within a type that were abused), ANIMAL SENTIENCE LEVEL, COVERT (related to child's attempts to conceal cruelty), ISOLATE (individual versus group cruelty), and EMPATHY (indications of remorse or concern for the injured animal). A method is described for converting these ratings to numerical scores in which higher scores indicate more severe, problematic cruelty. Varied motivations for children's cruelty to animals are discussed including curiosity and peer reinforcement, modification of mood state, imitation of adult cruelty, and using animals as an "implement" of self-injury. The need for the CAAI is especially critical for assessment since we often found discrepancies between parent reports on one-item cruelty-to-animals assessments (e.g., Child Behavior Checklist) and CAAI results.