|
Limitations of Adult
Reports on Children's Cruelty to Animals
Both the ACQ and CBC rely on caretakers'
reports, and comparable information from
youth's self-reports of cruelty to animals
is not available. The reliance on caretakers'
reports, however, could be problematic
because animal abuse may be performed
covertly (a characteristic shared
with youth vandalism and firesetting) and
caretakers may be unaware of the presence
of this behavior in their children.
Offord, Boyle, and Racine (1991) surveyed
a nonclinical sample of 1,232 Canadian
parents/guardians and their 12- to 16-year-old boys and girls. They asked respondents
(both parents/guardians and
adolescents) to report on a number of CD
symptoms, based on a 3-point scale identical
to the one used with the CBC. (See Animal Abuse and Conduct Disorder
for a more indepth discussion
of the link between CD and animal abuse.)
Figure 3 compares parent/guardian reports
of cruelty to animals with youth self-reports.
These data suggest that parents
and guardians may seriously underestimate
cruelty to animals, with boys self-reporting
this behavior at 3.8 times the
rate of parents/guardians and girls at 7.6
times the parent/guardian rate. Similar
underestimates appear for two other CD
symptoms, vandalism and firesetting, that
may often be covert and, therefore, unknown
to or undetected by parents or
guardians (see figure 4).
A recent study of a nonclinical sample
of youth (1,333 boys and 837 girls; mean
age, 14.6 years) in Alexandria, Egypt
(Youssef, Attia, and Kamel, 1999), also
provides data on self-reported cruelty to
animals. Dividing their sample into two
groups—one reporting that they had engaged
in violent behavior (acts of "physical
force that tended to inflict harm or
cause bodily injury") and the other reporting
that they had not—Youssef, Attia,
and Kamel (1999:284) asked youth whether
they were often cruel to animals. Of the
violent youth, 9.6 percent reported being
cruel; of the nonviolent youth, 2.05 percent
reported being cruel. The cruelty-to-animals
variable significantly (p<0.003) determined membership in the violent or
nonviolent group.
It should be noted that instruments used
to assess teacher reports of children's
problem behaviors rarely include an item
on animal abuse (e.g., Reynolds and Kamphaus,
1992). Although teachers are unlikely
to observe their pupils being cruel to
animals, teachers may hear about such
acts or read about them in students' written
work. These indirect observations
should be taken seriously and serve as a
signal for further assessment (Dwyer,
Osher, and Warger, 1998).
| Figure 3: | Comparison of Parental Reports and Self-Reports of Cruelty
to Animals Among 12- to 16-Year-Olds, by Offender's Gender |
Source: Offord, D.R., Boyle, M.H., and Racine, Y.A. 1991. The epidemiology of antisocial behavior
in childhood and adolescence. In The Development and Treatment of Childhood Aggression,
edited by D.J. Pepler and K.H. Rubin. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 31–54.
This figure was derived from table 2.3, p. 39.
|
|
| Figure 4: | Comparison of Parental Reports and Self-Reports of
Vandalism and Firesetting Among 12- to 16-Year-Olds,
by Offender's Gender |
Source: Offord, D.R., Boyle, M.H., and Racine, Y.A. 1991. The epidemiology of antisocial behavior
in childhood and adolescence. In The Development and Treatment of Childhood Aggression,
edited by D.J. Pepler and K.H. Rubin. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 31–54.
|
|
|
|
| Animal Abuse and
Youth Violence |
Juvenile
Justice Bulletin • September 2001 |
|
