Suzanne R. Goodney Lea

Lea challenges the assertion made by animal rights activists that animal cruelty enacted during childhood is a precursor to human-directed violence. The activists argue that our most violent criminals started off their bloody sprees with animal torture. Many parents, teachers, school administrators, and policy makers have thus accepted this claim on face value. In contrast, Lea finds that, in fact, many American youngsters—and boys, especially—engage in acts of animal cruelty but that few of these children go on to enact human-directed violence. This “link” does not withstand rigorous statistical examination and may be a myth that serves to label young people caught in these acts as dangerous monsters. In-depth accounts of animal cruelty, analyzed herein, suggest that youngsters whose behavior goes undetected experience these acts as a “phase” of their youth that they outgrow and even later regret.