犯罪心理学研究

Only a few criminal psychology studies have investigated animal abusers, and there is little evidence in Japan. Nevertheless, it is often stated that “animal abuse is a sign of future atrocious crimes such as homicide”. Many studies on this topic have been conducted internationally. The classical theories for mechanism of animal abuse are various: ‘social learning theory (Akers, 1985),’ ‘moral disengagement (Bandura, 1990),’ and ‘general strain theory (Agnew, 1992).’ Macdonald (1963) proposed the ‘Macdonald triad’ of risk factors in children, including animal abuse, enuresis, and fire setting that can escalate in the future to interpersonal violence and homicide. The ‘graduation hypothesis’ similar to Macdonald’s triad, assumes that the object of children’s aggression changes from animals to humans. However, after the 2000s, the graduation hypothesis has been replaced by the ‘deviance generalization hypothesis,’ postulating that children with a history of animal abuse are apt to conduct various criminal acts in the future. Furthermore, recent researches have supported ‘LINK’ that animal abuse is deeply related to child abuse and domestic violence. The author emphasized the critical need to conduct criminal psychology studies on animal abuse in Japan and discussed research methods.