Childhood Cruelty to Animals: Assessing Cruelty Dimensions and Motivations

ABSTRACTPreventing 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 moth...