Juveniles and Animal Abuse in Finland - Prevalence and Associations with Antisocial Behavior

In this paper, we analyze the prevalence of animal abuse and its associations with antisocial behavior using representative random school sample from Finnish adolescents (N = 5674; Mage = 15.3). According to our results, the lifetime prevalence of animal abuse in adolescents was 5%, with 13% reporting exposure to animal abuse. The likelihood of animal abuse was positively associated with bullying and nonviolent delinquent behavior, low empathy toward animals, and exposure to animal abuse. Violent offending was not found to be associated with animal abuse, highlighting bullying-specific dynamics. Our findings partly comply with the deviance generalization hypothesis, which suggests that animal abuse is part of a more generic pattern of antisocial behavior among adolescents. We conclude that because animal abuse and antisocial behavior are related many of the same tools used to address and prevent bullying or criminal behavior can be expected to work, at least partly, in preventing animal abuse. Collaboration and information-sharing between animal and child welfare agencies are important and warrant further investigations and development.