Showing papers on "Cruelty published in 2018"

Me too, #MeToo: countering cruelty with empathy

Abstract: Critical and cultural studies scholars have long debated the promise and perils of pressing empathy, the sensation of shared feelings and experiences, into toppling systems of oppression and its at...

Forensic Use of the Five Domains Model for Assessing Suffering in Cases of Animal Cruelty

Abstract: Conceptual frameworks for understanding animal welfare scientifically are widely influential. An early “biological functioning” framework still influences expert opinions prepared for Courts hearing animal cruelty cases, despite deficiencies in it being revealed by the later emergence and wide scientific adoption of an “affective state” framework. According to “biological functioning” precepts, indices of negative welfare states should predominantly be physical and/or clinical and any that refer to animals’ supposed subjective experiences, i.e., their “affective states”, should be excluded. However, “affective state” precepts, which have secure affective neuroscience and aligned animal behaviour science foundations, show that behavioural indices may be utilised to credibly identify negative welfare outcomes in terms of negative subjective experiences, or affects. It is noted that the now very wide scientific acceptance of the “affective state” framework is entirely consistent with the current extensive international recognition that animals of welfare significance are “sentient” beings. A long list of negative affects is discussed and each one is described as a prelude to updating the concept of “suffering” or “distress”, often referred to in animal welfare legislation and prosecutions for alleged ill-treatment of animals. The Five Domains Model for assessing and grading animal welfare compromise is then discussed, highlighting that it incorporates a coherent amalgamation of “biological functioning” and “affective state” precepts into its operational features. That is followed by examples of severe-to-very-severe ill-treatment of dogs. These include inescapable psychological and/or physical abuse or mistreatment, excessively restrictive or otherwise detrimental housing or holding conditions, and/or seriously inadequate provision of the necessities of life, in each case drawing attention to specific affects that such ill-treatment generates. It is concluded that experts should frame their opinions in ways that include negative affective outcomes. Moreover, the cogency of such analyses should be drawn to the attention of the Judiciary when they are deliberating on suffering in animals, thereby providing a basis for them to move from a current heavy reliance on physical and/or clinical indices of cruelty or neglect towards including in their decisions careful evaluations of animals’ negative affective experiences.

“The safest hands are our own”: cinematic affect, state cruelty, and the election of Donald J. Trump

Abstract: For many, the results of the 2016 election felt like an explosion. The election of Donald J. Trump was characterized as “throwing a Molotov cocktail” into the system by both film maker/activist Michael Moore, who opposed Trump, and investment banker Catherine Austin Fitts, who supported him. The vitriolic campaign, which routinely transgressed norms of deliberation and decorum, culminated in an administration that continues shattering expectations, protocols, and long-established policies. The Trump administration seems, in many ways, to be at war with the norms and structures of American governance as it seeks to erase not only the policies of the Obama administration but, apparently, the set of principles that have undergirded American policy since at least Franklin Roosevelt. FDR, more than any other US president, positioned the US Federal government as central to protecting its citizenry against the dangers of the external world. Whether poverty, pestilence, or war, the modern welfare state positioned the government as a bulwark against a world that could at times be cruel and unfair. In just its first year in office, the Trump administration has worked to dismantle this system. Trump has overturned numerous environmental regulations, undermined health insurance provided by the Affordable Care Act, and removed protection for transgender students in public schools, among other actions. These policies are the result of a fundamental shift in orientation toward the federal government, which is now seen not as protection from danger but, largely, as the source of danger. In turn, this sense of danger has provoked widespread, popular anger. The destructive anger embodied by the Trump administration did not arise out of thin air, nor was it an invention of the current resident of the White House. The decade preceding the 2016 election was one in which the broader system of American life came under increasing scrutiny from all ends of the political spectrum. The Tea Party rose to prominence in 2009, calling out the broader system of American federalism for perceived inequities. Echoing Ronald Reagan, the Tea Party insisted that government was not the solution but, instead, the problem. In 2011, the Left joined in this broad questioning of the American system in the form of the Occupy Wall Street movement. While diverging on many particular issues, both Tea Party and Occupy shared an overwhelming sense that the systems of American and global life were deeply flawed and corrupt. This angry sentiment was, I will argue, part of a broader shift in the affective structure of American life. As Lauren Berlant has argued, shifts in public policy entail not just

Animal cruelty among children in violent households: children's explanations of their behavior

Abstract: Despite increased recognition that childhood animal cruelty (CAC) is a risk factor for subsequent interpersonal violence, there is a dearth of research examining motivations for children’s animal cruelty behaviors in the context of violent households. The purpose of this study is to build on prior research in this area using a qualitative child-centered design to explore themes in children’s narratives about harming animals. We were specifically interested in learning: (1) what contextual or situational factors are related to CAC behaviors in the context of adverse family settings? (2) what do children’s accounts of their behaviors reveal about their beliefs about animal minds?, and (3) what are motivations for children’s perpetration of harm against animals? Forty-six children and their maternal caregivers were recruited from community-based domestic violence services. Children were asked to describe times when they had harmed animals; caregivers were interviewed separately about children’s harm to pets, and these data were used to triangulate patterns in the child data. Data were analyzed in Atlas.ti using the qualitative coding process of template analysis. Our thematic findings included: history of witnessing animal cruelty; history of witnessing pet neglect/abandonment; CAC with family members; minimization of animal harm; anthropomorphic beliefs about animal sentience; punishing pets out of anger; and curiosity. Our findings demonstrate that asking about children’s experiences with animals is an important part of the evaluation process for professionals who encounter children exposed to, or at risk for, experiencing family violence. Implications for research and intervention efforts are discussed.

Whiteness and the joys of cruelty

Abstract: I grew up in a country where religion did not exist. The so-called “opium of the people” was relegated to the Communist Party’s critique of the bourgeois excesses; the spirit of Providence haunting...

Associations between different motivations for animal cruelty, methods of animal cruelty and facets of impulsivity

Abstract: Associations between specific motivations for animal cruelty, particular methods of animal cruelty and different facets of impulsivity were explored among 130 undergraduate students. Participants c...

Having the time of our lives: love-cruelty as patriotic impulse

Abstract: In Race and the Education of Desire, Ann Stoler reminds us that, in colonial times, especially European colonialism, nation-making was built through capitalizing on hierarchies of race and intimacy. She describes the colonial project as a “racialized economy of sex,” where “[T]o be truly European was to cultivate a bourgeois self in which familial and national obligations were the priority.” According to Stoler, “family” through a white, bourgeois domesticity was central to the ways that the relationship between colonial powers and the native other was imagined. She writes, “European women and men won respectability by steering their desires to legitimate paternity and intensive maternal care, to family and conjugal love.” Here, Stoler’s work on familial ties and affections as a tool of social organization and nation-making provides a useful framework for understanding the white-bred dreams of citizenship and nation-making by Donald Trump and his followers. Because, much like the colonial powers of the past that Stoler describes, the forty-fifth president and his sycophants rely on a narrative of white superiority, racial purity, and white reproduction as central to consolidating power. The often-violent calls for preserving a white, heterosexual citizenry, especially since the 2016 presidential elections, provide fresh evidence for Stoler’s observations on the ways that love of family has been harnessed to notions of security, citizenship, and empire. This essay borrows from Stoler’s work on the role of familial intimacy in nation-making, extrapolating her argument on the relationship between familial love and national obligation, to frame a preliminary argument for how love animates cruelty in the time of Trump. In this context, I see love as a necessary, even central, component of cruelty. Without love and its redemptive framings, we would recognize cruelty for what it is: a physical and/ or emotional state of violence that produces a sense of precarity that is sustained by sociocultural and economic practices. Instead, we learn to rescue or redeem acts of cruelty by framing those transgressions and aggressions as love. Cruelty, within the sociopolitical narratives of our times, is love that cannot be expressed. Or it is a love that is poorly

Parroting the past: historical continuity and change through cultures of cruelty in Brazil

Abstract: In the recent Brazilian Netflix series 3% (Aguilera 2016), international audiences were presented with an array of visual reminders about the legacy of historic human rights abuses in Brazil. With the image of the pau de arara as a point of historic and semiotic reference, this paper adopts evidence and ideas from New Capitalist History to extend the interrogation of the historical memory of torture in Brazil in particular, to the rise and predominance of coercive practices in workplace cultures in free societies in general. This interrogation demonstrates the need for paradigm shifts within Western academic disciplines. First, to re-locate historically modern slavery in political philosophy as central to conceptions of “evil,” and second to overturn the notion of discontinuity and incompatibility between slavery and capitalism. Throughout this interrogation, a short story by Machado de Assis and Lissovsky’s critique of processes of memorialisation of human rights abuses open up the possibility of revisionist thinking about technologies of power, under slavery, military rule, and democratic regimes in Brazil; an approach which suggests systematic and sustained “cultures of cruelty” past and present (Giroux).

Violence in Animal Cruelty Offenders

Abstract: Introduction.- Historical Background of Animal Cruelty.- Attachment.- Empathy.- General Violence.- Meloy's Biopsychosocial Model of Violence.- Meloy's Bimodal Theory of Affective (Reactive) and Predatory (Instrumental) Violence.- The Relationship Between Violence, Antisocial Personality Disorder and Psychopathy.- Interpersonal Violence.- Description of the Problem of Animal Cruelty and Its Association with Interpersonal Violence.- The Relationship Between Family Violence and Animal Cruelty.- Predicting Risk of Animal Cruelty and other Violence.- Motivations of Animal Cruelty Acts and Other Violence.- Methods.- Material.- Results.- Discussion.- Case Example of Affective Animal Cruelty Offenses.- Case Example of Predatory Animal Cruelty Offenses.- Comparison of Affective and Predatory Offenders.- Suggestions.- Conclusion.- Limitations and Strengths.

The Companions We Keep: A Situational Analysis and Proposed Typology of Companion Animal Cruelty Offenses

Abstract: Abuse and neglect of nonhuman companion animals (i.e., pets) are not well understood as crime phenomena even though the keeping of animals as companions is relatively commonplace, reports of abuse and neglect are not at all rare, and the media generally serves to reinforce this notion that cruelty is a frequently occurring and widespread problem. This study is a typological content analysis of situational factors in 179 cases of companion animal cruelty featured in news media reported in the United States during the first six months of 2013.

Abuse and Cruelty in Religious Bureaucracy: The Case of the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle

Abstract: This paper draws on critical theories of organisations to question why child sexual abuse is a frequent correlate of male authority in institutional settings. While acknowledging the role o...

El Mocito : A Study of Cruelty at the Intersection of Chile’s Military and Civil Society

Abstract: Twenty-five years after the end of the Chilean military dictatorship (1973-1990), the redemocratization process still has not drawn to a close. The persistent tensions in civil-military relations have sparked the concern of national and international human rights organizations and have even begun to occupy a space in the country’s cultural production. In this article, I will focus on El mocito (Marcela Said and Jacques de Certau, 2011). This film tackles Chile’s dictatorial past through the perspective of a civilian who was closely connected to the Armed Forces. It addresses the case of an individual living on the border between worlds often perceived as mutually exclusive. He is a civilian, but he was also a member of the DINA—Chile’s secret police under Pinochet— though not as a member of the Armed Forces, but rather in the role of a butler. Although, as far as the public knows, he never participated in torture or assassinations, through this position, he was aware of what was taking place, bore witness to events related to state repression, and by fulfilling the tasks of his work, in many ways sustained the framework of the authoritarian system. By focusing on an atypical actor who is simultaneously an outsider and an insider in both the Armed Forces and the civil society, the documentary presents a unique perspective on these two groups and their intersections. In so doing, the film poses questions about responsibility for, and complicity with, the cruelty that took place during the military regime and beyond that all members of Chilean society must consider. How far can we extend responsibility for what happened? How do we measure the guilt or innocence This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact scholarcommons@usf.edu. Recommended Citation Ros, Ana Laura (2018) \"El Mocito: A Study of Cruelty at the Intersection of Chile’s Military and Civil Society,\" Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal: Vol. 12: Iss. 2: 107-124.

Using a Standardized Client Encounter in the Veterinary Curriculum to Practice Veterinarian-Employer Discussions about Animal Cruelty Reporting.

Abstract: Animal cruelty is the antithesis of animal welfare. Because veterinarians take an oath to protect animal welfare, they are professionally obligated to report animal cruelty. Several US states have mandatory reporting laws for veterinarians, and both the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Animal Hospital Association support reporting. Some state veterinary practice acts, such as Arizona's, also require reporting. Despite this, animal cruelty is not always emphasized in veterinary curricula. As a result, not all veterinary students and graduates feel comfortable recognizing signs of animal cruelty and may not be aware of the resources that are available to them when considering reporting. AVMA suggests that practices develop their own protocols for identifying signs that patients may have been victims of cruelty and consulting on cases with senior colleagues with regard to when to report. To enhance student comfort with these conversations, Midwestern University College of Veterinary Medicine developed a standardized client encounter titled "Grizabella's Final Fight." I hope that other colleges of veterinary medicine will adapt this teaching tool to allow students the opportunity to practice discussions surrounding animal cruelty reporting in the context of state-specific legislation that guides their code of professional conduct.

Cruelty and Afrofuturism

Abstract: Afrofuturism combines science fiction and fantasy to reexamine how the future is currently imagined, and to reconstruct futures thinking with a deeper insight into the black experience, especially ...

‘Great inhumanity’: scandal, child punishment and policymaking in the early years of the New Poor Law workhouse system

Abstract: New Poor Law scandals have usually been examined either to demonstrate the cruelty of the workhouse regime or to illustrate the failings or brutality of union staff. Recent research has used these and similar moments of crisis to explore the relationship between local and central levels of welfare administration (the Boards of Guardians in unions across England and Wales and the Poor Law Commission in Somerset House in London) and how scandals in particular were pivotal in the development of further policies. This article examines both the inter-local and local-centre tensions and policy consequences of the Droxford Union and Fareham Union scandal (1836–1837), which exposed the severity of workhouse punishments towards three young children. The article illustrates the complexities of union cooperation and, as a result of the escalation of public knowledge into the cruelties and investigations thereafter, how the vested interests of individuals within a system manifested themselves in particular (in)actions and viewpoints. While the Commission was a reactive and flexible welfare authority, producing new policies and procedures in the aftermath of crises, the policies developed after this particular scandal made union staff, rather than the welfare system as a whole, individually responsible for the maltreatment and neglect of the poor.

Animal cruelty, discourse, and power: A study of problematisations in the live export policy debates

Abstract: This thesis explores the human-focused problems that are an inevitable, but often overlooked, aspect of animal cruelty policy debates. Focusing on policy debates over the treatment of animals in the wake of the live export debate, it analyses how these debates produce competing definitions of what 'animal cruelty' is and how it should be responded to legally and politically. The thesis argues that understandings of 'animal cruelty' are often tied to human-focused problems, and any response to animal cruelty must meaningfully engage with these human-focused problems simultaneously if an adequate solution to animal cruelty is to be achieved.

Just mercy through cultural and convict criminology

Abstract: Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore Bryan Stevenson’s (2014, 2015) call to action from within two emergent schools of thought in criminology, “cultural criminology,” and “convict criminology”, which share a special concern with the contributions that criminological research makes to a climate of social control and punishment. The author’s central aim is to explore the capacity of what the author argues is a potentially under-leveraged tool of social change – the philosophies underlying and implemented in cultural and convict criminology. Design/methodology/approach To demonstrate the potential impact of this research, the author draws upon a purposive sample of qualitative studies that exemplify the particular emotive, moral, and aesthetic goals central to Stevenson’s call to action. The impact of the production of images of crime, crime control, and criminals that emerge in the development of the paradigms central to cultural and convict criminology is finally discussed in terms of Stevenson’s four prescriptions for social and criminal justice reform. Findings The underlying philosophies, theoretical assumptions, and methodological approaches dictated by convict and cultural criminology are uniquely equipped to make visible the forces linked to resistance to penal and social reform. Research limitations/implications In synthesizing cultural criminology and the emergent convict criminology as guides to doing empirical research, and identifying each as embodying Stevenson’s call to action, the author hopes – maybe not to extract those easily ignitable, invisible forces away from reform efforts entirely, but at least – to provide those who are interested with a more nuanced map of where they are not likely to live and breathe them. Stimulating and widening the criminological imagination might not satisfy our need to quickly and concretely apply a solution to injustice, but it might be what the problem demands. Originality/value Stevenson (2014) argues that the extent of injustice in the US criminal justice system is so pervasive, extraordinary, and long standing, that everyone has a role to play in the course of our everyday lives in turning the tide of indifference and cruelty that feed mass injustice and incarceration. Applying his proposals to the on-the-ground working lives of empirical criminologists holds potential for effecting change from the top-down.

The predictive ability of childhood animal cruelty methods for later interpersonal crimes.

Abstract: Research on the topic of childhood animal cruelty methods and their link to interpersonal violence is sparse. Most of the studies that do exist focus only on the frequencies of different methods of childhood animal cruelty. Only two studies to date have examined the predictive nature of these methods for later violence toward humans. One of these previous studies found that drowning and having sex with animals were predictive of later human violence, while the other found that sex with animals and the age at which the offenders began committing animal cruelty were its only statistically significant predictors. Using data collected from 257 anonymous self-reports by male inmates at a medium-security prison in a Southern state, we investigate the predictive ability of several retrospectively identified childhood animal cruelty methods (i.e., drowning, hitting/beating, hitting with rocks, shooting, kicking, choking, burning, stabbing, having sex, and starving/neglecting) for later violent crimes toward humans. Regression analyses revealed that recurrent (i.e., more than once) childhood animal cruelty and stabbing animals were the only statistically significant variables in the model that predicted recurrent interpersonal violence in adulthood.

Roots of Violence by ISIS, An Analysis on Beliefs

Abstract: ISIS was an Islamic fundamentalist organization which presents a radical version of Islamic beliefs, encourages holy violence, and considers others who do not agree with its understandings as apostates. As a theoretical debate, the discussions developed by Gregg could cover the arguments stated through this study. He considers Social Movements, Fundamentalists, and Cosmic Warriors as the frameworks of religious cruelty. Daesh`s Dogma could be analyzed in two levels: traditional platform and new generation literature. As the former, three pillars Salafism. Qutbism and Wahhabism shape the basements and frameworks of IS`s ideological structure. New generation literature, joined with an anti-western attitude and combined also with a Sense of revenge against the old powers of imperialism, justify the most violent acts everywhere. As an alternative of being shaped in traditional dogma, ISIS’s philosophy could be drawn from 3 new booklets. The Management of Savagery (Idarat al-tawahhush) written in 2000s by Abu Bakr al-Naji, is one of them. For methodological aspect, the content analysis, concentrated on the basic sources is selected and for discussing the arguments, a descriptive analytical method is opted.

‘We Were Treated Very Badly, Treated Like Slaves’: A Critical Metaphor Analysis of the Accounts of the Magdalene Laundries Victims

Abstract: In the last decade, the Magdalene Laundries scandal has revealed endemic problems of Irish society. From 1765 to 1996, these asylums run by female religious congregations became prisons for prostitutes, single mothers, abused girls or young ladies allegedly prone to seduction. Forced into these institutions, those women had to work under pseudo-slave conditions. Drawing on the materials compiled by Justice for Magdalenes, we examine their verbalised experience from a critical discourse analysis angle. We thus aim to identify the ideologies that the metaphorical patterns used by the victims reflect, as they awaken to the trauma of their past. This analysis can help us to understand their construal of redemption and remorse, the blame attributed to the Catholic Church, their conception of womanhood, and their portrayal of cruelty and violence.

Thematic Analysis of YouTube Comments on Disclosure of Animal Cruelty in a Luxury Fashion Supply Chain

Abstract: While consumers’ increasing demands for luxury leather goods drives luxury brands to secure supplies of exotic and high-quality animal skins, animal welfare activists have attempted to raise the public’s awareness of cruelty in the luxury fashion supply chains. Adopting the attribution theory, this study aims to uncover the pattern of consumers’ responses to the issue of animal cruelty in the luxury fashion industry. Data were collected from consumers’ responses to animal cruelty as revealed in PETA (People of Ethical Treatment of Animal)’s video on YouTube. Data analysis revealed distinct blame attributions and coping strategies, which depend heavily on viewers’ attitude toward the video content. Findings from this study suggest that consumers’ blame attributions are dispersed among different stakeholders, with luxury fashion brands and their customers treated as the causes of animal cruelty, slaughterhouse workers, and humans in general treated as perpetrators, and PETA and commenters that support PETA’s message treated as accusers. Implications for the luxury fashion business and animal welfare promotion are discussed.

Rethinking the nature of cruelty: The role of identity leadership in the Stanford Prison Experiment

Abstract: The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) is one of the most famous studies in the history of psychology. For nearly a half century it has been understood to show that assigning people to a toxic role will, on its own, unlock the human capacity to treat others with cruelty. In contrast, principles of identity leadership argue that roles are unlikely to elicit cruelty unless leaders encourage potential perpetrators to identify with what is presented as a noble ingroup cause and to believe their actions are necessary for the advancement of that cause. Although identity leadership has been implicated in behavior ranging from electoral success to obedience to authority, researchers have hitherto had limited capacity to establish whether role conformity or identity leadership provides a better account of the cruelty observed in the SPE. Through examination of material in the SPE archive, we present comprehensive evidence that, rather than guards conforming to role of their own accord, experimenters directly encouraged them to adopt roles and act tough in a manner consistent with tenets of identity leadership. Implications for the analysis of conformity and cruelty as well as for interpretation of the SPE are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

'Not Cruelty But Piety': Circumscribing European Crusading Violence

Abstract: Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/history_fac Part of the Christianity Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, European History Commons, History of Christianity Commons, History of Religion Commons, Islamic Studies Commons, Islamic World and Near East History Commons, Medieval History Commons, and the Medieval Studies Commons Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits you.

Dog Fighting and the Growing Social Epidemic of Animal Cruelty

Abstract: Cases of animal cruelty have gained much attention in recent years, due in part toincreased numbers being reported and the use of social media in reporting such casesSadly, thousands of domesticated animals (ie, primarily horses, dogs, and cats) arevictims of cruelty every year Exact numbers are unknown because a national reportingsystem does not currently exist However, the number of cruelty cases reported each yearindicates that a real problem exists Additional areas of concern include correlationsbetween animal cruelty and other criminal activities, to include abuse and neglect againsthumansKeywords: abuse, bait animals, cruelty, companion animals, dog fighting, hoarding,neglect, trunking

Motivations of Animal Cruelty Acts and Other Violence

Abstract: Motivations are difficult to measure since they rely on a combination of self-report from the offender, victim, crime scene, and act of violence. Animal victims cannot share their views of the offender’s behavior. Felthous (1986) noted that motivation is important to understand and along with Kellert presented nine motivations for animal cruelty.

The Relationship Between Family Violence and Animal Cruelty

Abstract: This section provides studies that examined the overlap between interpersonal violence along with animal cruelty. It also supported the idea that animal cruelty is a “reliable red flag” regarding the presence of child abuse or domestic violence. Another study presented indicated that women who experience domestic violence and enter a shelter express concern about abuse against their companion animals. One study found that 71% reported that their partner had threatened and/or actually hurt or killed one or more of their pets.

Direito animal e a inconstitucionalidade da 96a emenda à Constituição Brasileira

Abstract: This review article uses the systematic interpretive method, and from a bibliographical and documentary research, analysis of the constitutionality of Constitutional Amendment No. 96 of July 6, 2017, which excepted the constitutional norm that prohibits the practice of activities that subject the animals to cruelty, whenever the activity is considered a cultural manifestation registered as intangible cultural heritage. The article demonstrates that constitutional amendments promulgated by the derived constituent power can not have the material limits of constitutional reform set forth in substantive clauses, including the stability of individual rights and guarantees (article 60, § 4, IV of the CF). The article also analyzes the arguments presented by the Declaratory Action of Unconstitutionality n. 227,175 / 2017, concluding that the said Amendment is unconstitutional, since the practice of cruel acts against animals constitutes a direct offense against the individual fundamental right to a healthy and balanced environment.