GW LAW WASHINGTON DC THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL ,08 8. SCHOLARLY COMMONS GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works Faculty Scholarship 2006 Linking Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, and Animal Cruelty Joan Schaffner George Washington University Law School, jschaf@law.gwu.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/faculty_publications Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Linking Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, and Animal Cruelty, (ABA-TIPS Animal Law Committee Newsletter), Fall 2006. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact spagel@law.gwu.edu.
Linking Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, and Animal Cruelty Joan E. Schaffner I. A "Fictional" Story of Family Abuse Jane lives with John, her husband, their 2-year-old son, James, and their cat, Jilly. For years John has been emotionally and physically abusive towards Jane. John chastises Jane in front of James and will slap or push Jane against the wall or down the steps when upset. Often, Jane is not so severely injured that she requires medical attention but she does fear for her safety and the safety of James and Jilly. One afternoon she found Jilly lying in a pool of his own blood. James was sitting next to him, crying. James exclaimed: "Daddy hurt Jilly and threatened to hurt me too if I was not a good boy." Jane took Jilly to the veterinarian who was able to save him. Jilly had been thrown against the wall. When Jane returned home John bragged about his abuse of Jilly and claimed that next time Jilly would not survive. While this story is fictional, similar, often more egregious, events occur daily throughout this country. Many times the level and frequency of abuse is great and the consequences are death-for Jilly, Jane and/or James. There are laws against domestic violence, child abuse, and animal cruelty but the law has not explicitly recognized these links even though studies of family abuse have proven the link time and again. In the District of Columbia, the George Washington Law School Animal Welfare Project (Project) is working to implement new laws that will address these links and protect all victims of family abuse. II. The Cycle of Family Abuse The cycle of family abuse is complex. First, it is well-documented that in homes where there is child or partner abuse there is generally animal abuse as well. In 1983, researchers interviewed 53 families under investigation for child abuse and documented animal abuse in 60% of those families. E. DeViney, et al., The care of pets within abusing families, 4 INT'L J STUDY OF ANIMAL PROBLEMS 321-29 (1983). In a more recent national survey of battered women's shelters, 85% of the shelters reported that women seeking shelter at safe houses spoke of incidents of companion animal abuse. Frank R. Ascione, et al., The abuse of animals and domestic violence: A national survey of