Pet Abuse by Batterers as a Means of Coercing Battered Women Into Committing Illegal Behavior

Abstract

Threats to harm and actual harm/killing of animals were explored in a group of emotionally and physically abused women evaluated at a family violence center. Each of the 107 women studied had committed at least one illegal behavior. Seventy-two of the 107 women had owned pets, either during the last year or currently (62%). Fifty-four of the 72 women owning pets reported actual and threatened pet abuse (75%). In all cases, there was at least one reported incident of physical abuse to the pet. Among these 54 women, 24 experienced coercion in the form of threats, and in each case, at least one incident of actual harm to animals occurred in order to force the women to commit an illegal act(s) (44%). Among these 24 coerced women, nine of them described threats of and actual abuse to pets in the context of coercion without threats to other loved ones such as children and elderly parents (38%). Each of the 24 coerced women reported committing the illegal act(s) to spare her pet the experience of abuse. They all reported a sense of desperation and anguish at having to violate their own value systems and become victim-perpetrators, or victims who perpetrated crimes.