Animal Abuse In Serial Killers

Animal abuse is a big part in determining a psychopath, even though not all psychopaths become serial killers, or even commit crimes. If a psychopath does, in fact, turn out to be a serial killer, when the FBI profiles them, one of the main things that they look for is people who abused animals when they were younger or, people who still abuse animals today. They do this because animal abuse is one of the most common things that serial killers share in common. Also, most psychopaths have this in common. More than half of serial killers, or psychopaths, abuse animals (Meyer 9). For example, Dahmer would rip the legs off of frogs while they were still alive, hence the torture aspect, repeatedly stab squirrels and dogs, and he would even sometimes cut the ears off of the dogs

If these children do, follow in the footsteps of this abusive adult then they too will become abusive towards animals and later on become abusive towards human beings. They also become very aggressive towards abusive adults, which could lead to domestic violence. 10.6% of children who are abused will go back and abuse the adult who abused them (Peterson 21). In the article “Cruelty to Animals and Violence to People,” written by M.L Peterson and D.P Farrington, discusses how children who abuse animals have a higher chance of being violent towards other humans later on in their life. There were cases that showed that serial killers abused animals in their early adolescent years, or teenage years. They also did studies on different families, families that didn’t have domestic abuse in the family and families that did have domestic abuse in the family. In the families that had domestic abuse, they were more likely to have participated in animal abuse rather than the families who have no sign of domestic abuse in the family (Peterson