Scheduled Time: Thu, Nov 15 - 9:30am - 10:50am Room: Buckingham Room, 5th Floor
In Session Submission: Mental Disorder and Victimization

Animal mistreatment is often related to affective and link disorders within interpersonal relationships concerning underage people whose lack of empathy and remorse, associated with behavior disorders, are personality traits which imply probable violence in adulthood (Ascione, 2001). In our study fifty adult forensic cases (49 men, average age 34), in which there’s a history of animal mistreatment as an independent variable, and the dependent variables are: (a) crime committed (violent/ non-violent); (b) presence or not of two dimensional psychopathy factors (PCL:SV; Hare 1985), and APD (DSM-IV-TR); (c) McDonald triad (cruelty to animals, pyromania, night urinary incontinence) and Pincus triad (child abuse, brain injury, paranoid ideation), and (d) kind of animal mistreatment in childhood-adolescence. The results show a 70% violent crimes in batterers of animals as the cause of their prosecution (56% in their crime history), a clearly antisocial profile (APD) or factor 2 of psychopathy (rather than nuclear psychopathy), with a McDonald triad prevalence of 48% and 30% of Pincus triad. These results show the need to assess the possible childhood and adolescence cruelty to animals in individuals whose violent behavior include crime in adulthood.