A shocking study reports that the presence of a slaughterhouse in rural communities corresponds with a 166% increase in arrests for rape and a 90% increase in arrests for offences against the family. There is agreement from professionals and scientists that harming and abusing animals is part of a constellation of anti-social behaviours, so much so that the FBI now tracks acts of cruelty against animals, which are now counted alongside felony crimes like arson, burglary, assault, and homicide.
Previously, we’ve seen other research by Criminology Professor, Amy Fitzgerald, on slaughterhouse communities in US counties that established a correlation between slaughterhouse employment and violent crime increases. The findings indicated that the location of an average-sized slaughterhouse with 175 employees would annually increase the number of arrests by 2.24 and the number of reports by 4.69 on average. This pointed to a relationship between the violence of killing non-human animals and violence towards humans.
The unique thing about [abattoirs] is that [workers are] not dealing with inanimate objects, but instead dealing with live animals coming in and then killing them, and processing what’s left of them.
The author of the latest study from the University of Central Florida claims that prior criminology research focusing on social disorganisation theory and increases in crime rates in slaughterhouse communities often centre on the demographic characteristics of employees, population booms, and unemployment rates—all of which are contributing factors in community and neighbourhood disorder—but they overlook the violent nature of slaughterhouse jobs and the work-related stress that accompanies any type of violent occupation.
The Study: Slaughterhouse Violence Increases Sexual Assaults
The study was published in Society & Animals during late 2015 and the author—Jessica Racine Jacques who is a Ph.D. student—wanted to test whether the argument that slaughterhouse location in a community disrupts networks of social control and has an effect on violent crime rates. The study controls for factors commonly associated with social disorganisation. A person might object that slaughterhouse towns are often characterised by a disproportionate population of poor, immigrant worker, working-class males with dangerous working conditions as the possible cause, but both Fitzgerald and Jacques controlled for that possibility.
The study makes some chilling points on the psychological fragmentation or disconnection that can occur in order for slaughterhouse workers to keep up with the monotonous, rapid pace of killing non-human animals. Indeed, the slaughterhouse is an ideal site for investigating how violence perpetrated against non-human animals might affect the perpetrators who practice this violence.
Jacques’ general hypotheses tested in this study were whether slaughterhouse presence in a county would be associated with an increase in Total Arrests for crime; an increase in arrests for Offences Against the Family; and an increase in arrests for Aggravated Assault. The sample involved 248 US non-metropolitan counties located in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska in the year 2000. These three states were chosen based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing the highest concentration of beef slaughterhouse facilities and employment.
The first two hypotheses returned a significant positive relationship between slaughterhouse presence and Total Arrests and Offences Against the Family. The Total Arrests jumped by 22% and specifically, the presence of a slaughterhouse corresponded to a massive 166% increase in arrests for rape, while Offences Against the Family jumped up with a large 90% increase. The final hypothesis was the only one to not see a positive relationship to an increase in Aggravated Assaults.
Presented here is strong evidence behind how slaughterhouse violence increases sexual assaults and family violence within communities.
Animal Abuse is Differentiated
Animal abuse is the socially unacceptable behaviour that intentionally causes unnecessary pain, suffering, or distress to and/or the death of an animal, which include acts of abuse that are intended to cause either physical or psychological suffering. And yet, the constructed socially sanctioned violence against billions of farmed animals in the agricultural industries occupies a contradictory position within society that other industrial processes do not.
It has been argued by Piers Beirne of the University of Southern Maine that whenever human and non-human animal relationships are marked by authority and power, and thus by institutionalised social distance, there is an aggravated possibility of extra-institutional violence. When we consider how compassion involves an understanding of others and others’ suffering and the desire to alleviate it, then compassion for animals and compassion for humans, respectively, probably are strongly linked. Thus, Beirne states that whatever their social situation and motivation, slaughterhouse workers might be so desensitised by the act of animal abuse that subsequently they have lesser compassion for the suffering and welfare of many other beings, including humans.
The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll … Pigs down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them—beat them to death with a pipe. I can’t care.
It’s important to note that while this study provides shocking criminal insights into rural communities regarding the presence slaughterhouses, not every person who has the unfortunate experience of slaughter work commits violent crime. But scholars in non-human animal studies and criminology have argued for some time that we should be paying more attention to the violence against animals that is sanctioned by our society in the form of animal slaughter for industrial food production. Although a single act of violence is not predictive of another act, there is a building amount of research establishing a correlation between substantial violence towards animals and a pattern of recurrent violence directed against people.
All animal-based products are sold today with a carefully developed marketing campaign and story. The animal was “humanely” raised—as if forcibly taking someone’s life then becomes morally acceptable. The animal was cage-free—as if the exploitation of an animal’s body is then okay. The animal was pasture-fed—as if the animal’s natural diet justifies a captive bolt pistol to the head. And so on. Excluded from these pretty pictures is the fact that an animal lives a subjugated life until their early violent death. That she or he was a sentient being who had every interest in living their life. And then the person who had to kill the animal—another one we really never consider—who has to develop destructive emotional blocks and constructions to enable them to actually carry this kind of work out.
The on-going debate over the consequences of murdering billions of animals every year grows, from both an ethical and environmental point of view. The psychological trauma inflicted on slaughterhouse workers is rarely publicly discussed. This needs to change and thanks to studies such as this one, it is.
Sources: Society & Animals Volume 23 Issue 6, Society & Animals Volume 21 Issue 4, Piers Beirne: From Animal Abuse to Interhuman Violence? A
Critical Review of the Progression Thesis, Animals Open Access Journal, SSRN.
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