This book has been replaced by a newer edition:

Animal Cruelty cover

Animal Cruelty: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding, Third Edition

Edited by: Cassandra L. Reyes, Mary P. Brewster

2023, 648 pp, paper, ISBN 978-1-5310-2232-7

$78.00

Teacher's Manual available

Animal Cruelty

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding

Second Edition

Edited by: Mary P. Brewster, Cassandra L. Reyes

Tags: Animals and Crime, Criminal Behavior

Table of Contents (PDF)

Teacher's Manual available

510 pp  $57.00

ISBN 978-1-61163-623-9
eISBN 978-1-5310-0316-6

Animal Cruelty is an anthology that addresses all critical aspects of animal cruelty including: its history and prevalence; related legislation; special types of cruelty (hoarding, poaching, blood sports, etc.); its link to other types of violence and crime; theories used to explain animal cruelty; the role of the media; and emerging issues related to animal cruelty. The text is suitable for undergraduate and graduate classes in criminal justice, criminology, psychology, law, sociology, animal studies, and other disciplines, and is especially well-suited for use in classes on such topics as animal cruelty, animal welfare, deviant behavior, animal law, violent crime, veterinary studies, abnormal psychology, and animal husbandry.

This second edition includes chapter updates related to legislation, prevalence and incidence of animal cruelty, and research findings, as well as the addition of two completely new chapters related to veterinary forensics and cruelty towards roaming dogs.


PowerPoint slides are available to professors upon adoption of this book. Download sample slides from the full 274-slide presentation here. If you have adopted the book for a course, contact bhall (at) cap-press (dot) com to request the PowerPoint slides.

Praise for the first edition:


Animal Cruelty is a welcome, timely, and truly comprehensive look at the history of animal cruelty in the United States, and our nation's multi-dimensional response to it, including attempts to define and understand it."
— Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, from the Foreword
This comprehensive volume gives the study of animal cruelty — in all its many forms and from a variety of angles — a much firmer footing to establish and assert that animal cruelty is a type of violence that requires responses from policymakers, researchers, and educators.
— Animal Welfare Institute Quarterly
…starts a crucial, groundbreaking, and illuminating conversation among seemingly disparate disciplines about animal cruelty and how to approach it. It would behoove anyone interested in ameliorating animal suffering to read this book.…This field is ripe for scholarly, political, legal, and cultural attention and legitimization. This book starts us on this trajectory."
— Animal Law Committee Newsletter
This collection ... brings together the best current scholarship on a comprehensive list of topics related to animal cruelty ... Animal Cruelty would provide a useful resource for established scholars in criminology and criminal justice as well as those new to the fields, including students at both the graduate and advanced undergraduate level."
— Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

Comp Copy If you are a professor teaching in this field you may request a complimentary copy.