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0:00:08.5 Jackie Strohm: Welcome to PA Centered, a podcast designed to help listeners be a part of the solution to end sexual harassment, abuse and assault. Each episode, we will take on a topic or current event to help spark conversation and break down barriers to building communities free from sexual violence.

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0:00:32.0 JS: Hi, I'm Jackie Strohm, the Prevention and Resource Coordinator at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. I'll be your host today as we learn about the KeystoneLINK Coalition and the connection between abuse of animals and abuse of humans. Today, we are joined by Cathleen Palm from the Center for Children's Justice, and Amy Kaunas from the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area. They are going to share with us about the KeystoneLINK Coalition and how you can learn more. We're also joined by Corporal Spada from the Pennsylvania State Police, who is going to help shed some light on what he's seeing across the state in the co-occurrence of abuse of animals and humans. Welcome Cathy, Amy and Corporal Spada! 

0:01:17.8 Cathleen Palm: Thank you. Good to be here.

0:01:20.1 Amy Kaunas: Nice to be here, thank you for having us.

0:01:22.9 Corporal Spada: And thank you all for having us again.

0:01:26.9 JS: Great! So Cathy, to get us started, can you tell us more about the link between the abuse of animals and the abuse of humans? 

0:01:36.7 CP: Sure. So it's an interesting thing. First of all, this has been an evolving conversation over the last couple decades, but it's not as though it's a new element of people understanding the connection. If you look long before, there was a Child Protection Law, so long before Congress passed the first law that spoke to protecting children in the 1970s, the late 1970s, there's a story, there's a court case that made itself out about an abuse of a child. And actually, the parties that stepped in were the leaders of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. And they stepped forward, Henry Bergh, in particular, and said that what he was seeing and hearing from this child who was experiencing being whipped and beaten in her own home was similar to the thing that was happening when they were working to rescue animals.

0:02:31.1 CP: And so through the years, so there's clearly a long-standing historical link of people understanding that what happens to children happens to animals, and what happens to animals can happen to humans as well. And then we saw a vast growing body of research in the way in which you see this link emerge, whether it's sexual abuse or physical abuse or domestic violence. In 2016, the FBI opted to make on-animal, crimes against animals into the national database around funds, and in the hope, and first of all debating that we better understood that we shouldn't be abusing animals. But also, to potentially present the need for research going forward about where you see a co-occurrence of a crime against a person, as well as a crime against an animal.

0:03:31.0 CP: And we see this... Many times, you'll see where there's a mass shooting, where there's a situation you'll often see stories and follow-ups, the media will both talk about how the person who was responsible for the violence had a history of domestic violence or child abuse or harm against the women. But then also, buried is sometimes a sub-plot set of that conversation in the media is, "Oh, yeah, and they also had a history of cruelty against animals." So there's a growing body of research about the abuse, to which there's a link. And a couple years ago, when Pennsylvania was looking to really advance Libre's Law and a whole new series of actions for animals, the Center for Children's Justice and the Humane Society partnered together. And sometimes, it would seem like strange bedfellows when we would walk into a legislative office and say, "We're here to advocate for Libre's Law from the Center for Children's Justice," and they would think, "Mm." And it invited us to be able to talk about that link.

0:04:36.7 CP: And that led last year to us having a webinar where we were just curious. Do other people wanna learn about this topic? Do other people wanna be partners and allies in it? And we hosted an impromptu webinar last June on the dangerous link between abuse against animals and the abuse against humans, and had more than 555 people attend. And it became a really important conversation and led us to keep connecting with people like Corporal Spada and Amy and Kristen Tullo from the Humane Society, and others. So that's just a little bit of quick schooling as to the body of research and how we got where we are today.

0:05:17.0 JS: Great, thank you. So Corporal Spada, can you tell us more about the prevalence of the co-occurrence of these crimes and a little bit about what you're seeing across the state? 

0:05:28.0 CS: Sure. What we're seeing now in some of our investigation is that correlation between neglect and cruelty to animals, and violence, whether it be forms of neglect or cruelty against people. It's not every crime that we investigate that leads to the discovery of the link, but it is something that we're becoming aware of and looking at the total picture. Investigating, when we're investigating a crime, we look at a lot of different things. What crime was committed? Identify your victim or your victims, identify your actor or your actors. What's the relationship between them? What happened? Is there a reason? Is there something else going on that we just don't see yet? 

0:06:14.9 CS: We've had several troopers respond to an animal cruelty related call and found other crimes going on. An investigation into a neglected animal has led to the discovery of children and other adults living in the home being neglected as well. Things like dirty conditions for an animal in the house can also be detrimental to people. Conditions found in animal hoarding can be unhealthy for people living there as well. In investigations into different forms of cruelty have led to similar discoveries. If a dog is being beaten, is there the possibility that people or children in the home are being beaten as well? We've had several investigations where we respond to an animal being injured or somebody sees an animal being beaten, and then through a thorough investigation, you find out that a spouse or a significant other, or even a child is being beaten as well. We've had a call about small children wandering close to a road, and that call turned into a large-scale animal cruelty investigation.

0:07:34.0 CS: We've responded to drug investigations that have led to cruelty investigations. An investigation into an injured dog has led to that domestic violence investigation. And across the Commonwealth, and I'm not gonna say just with the Pennsylvania State Police, but with other police departments here in Pennsylvania as well, we are seeing that the work being put into the awareness and the education of this link is making a difference, not just for public education, but training of law enforcement officers as well to: When you see this, you might wanna start looking into the possibility of this. Or if you see that, maybe there's something else going on.

0:08:23.0 CS: Children act out. So if you've got a child that is the victim of sexual assault going on in the home, they might not have an avenue to express what they need to express and might take it out on an animal. Look at that. What else is going on? As children get older, they start to learn what is right, what is wrong. If you've got a teenager who is openly admitting to killing kittens, well, what's going on here? Do we want some type of intervention? And not just the, "Arrest him for animal cruelty," but is there something else going on? Could this child be something in the future that we can stop right now? Because of the information getting out there about the link, we're aware of this and it's like, "Hey, let's look into this. We can stop this."

0:09:26.8 JS: Yeah, that's so important, the idea of noticing something like this can prevent other kinds of abuse and crimes from happening.

0:09:37.0 CS: We're starting... A lot of times, you respond to an incident, you investigate the incident, and then you go. But now, it's we've reached a point where we're looking into, "Okay, what else is going on here?" We have a thing we call "look beyond the traffic stop". If you pull somebody over, you're always looking at stuff. Where are they going? Where are they coming from? Maybe the traffic stop leads to a conversation with the driver or the passengers and you see what's going on, but we're doing the same thing with criminal investigations. What is the investigation telling us? What is the victim telling us? What else do we see going on? We've all had pets and children at the same time, and I can honestly say that my pets were a lot easier to take care of than my children. And if I'm not taking care of my pets the right way, am I providing the care for my children? 

0:10:50.5 CS: And people, you look at violent outbursts. If I have that violent outburst where I, and I don't mean to present the image, but if I have a violent outburst where I kick my dog, well, am I also having that violent outburst against my spouse or my children? Find out what's going on. And with domestic violence, you're starting to see a lot of people out there care for their pets as their children. And in a domestic violence situation, you might have somebody who won't leave that situation in fear of what's gonna happen to their pet, their source of comfort when they leave. So it's nice to see that this type of topic is starting to open other people's eyes. You're gonna see domestic violence shelters start to look into, "You know what? Let's start taking some of these animals with them. Let's make partnerships with shelters."

0:12:00.0 CS: So if you have somebody who is afraid to leave because of a pet, "Let's bring the pet with you." Or you might have, and I brought it up before, a child in the house being sexually assaulted. Well, buying that child a pet can be a form of control. You know, "You don't tell anybody what I'm doing to you because if you do, I'm gonna do something to your puppy, or I'm gonna do something to your kitty." So a child's not gonna say anything. So when we are investigating this, look beyond the regular investigation, and we are seeing that happen. Now obviously, I can't say a whole lot about a lot of the investigations we have going on because they are open, but we have seen a good number of these turn into that link.

0:12:56.2 JS: Yeah, I'm so glad you shared all of that with us, and it really paints a picture of what's going on and why it sounds like we need to be educating more folks about the link. And so Amy, could you tell us a bit about the goals of the KeystoneLINK Coalition and a little bit more about how you all got started? 

0:13:17.2 AK: Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I'll start with our mission, which is to work together to break the cycle of abuse against people and animals in Pennsylvania. And as Cathy touched on, this just formed very organically. I think we were all operating in our own spaces, knowing about the link, knowing there needs to be more awareness, knowing about how it affects us, individually. But the idea of coming together just hadn't happened. There is a National Link Coalition, but we hadn't had anything formed in Pennsylvania. So we all organically came to the same table.

0:14:00.0 AK: And what's nice about our organization, our coalition, rather, is we're all from so many different backgrounds. We have folks that are working in the children's justice space. We have Corporal Spada working in the law enforcement space. We have animal shelters. We have domestic violence organizations. So it's very, very interesting, and it's a very enriching group where we can learn to open our eyes to those things. For me, working in the animal welfare space, having all these other folks sharing how to keep my eyes open to look for other forms of abuse going on in a home while I'm there investigating animal crimes is just completely invaluable. So it's such a good, good collaboration that I think really is gonna help us get to that mission of breaking the cycle.

0:14:54.9 AK: And we're trying to take a three-pronged approach. In addition to education of each other, we're also looking at providing information and resources to aid in breaking the cycle through education and training that we're gonna eventually develop and offer independently as an organization to other folks. We're also working on doing some engagement and outreach so we can make sure more Pennsylvanians are aware of the link between animal abuse and human abuse. And then we're also working on advocacy so we can work on promoting, preventing abuse, intervening and breaking the cycle. And that's going to be done through getting behind some legislation. Again, as Cathy already pointed out, coming behind those legislative initiatives that out of the gate, like Libre's Law, might not have been one that the Center for Children's Justice would have come to the table or taken a position on. But because we're educating ourselves in the link, we know the importance of supporting each other's bills and advocating for each other so we can be a louder voice to make sure we are breaking the cycle.

0:16:12.7 AK: We also wanna try to grow a website to serve as a hub for all of these trainings, all of these resources I'm referring to, and connect to some other resources that are already there. So sort of be a one-stop-shop for people that want to find out about the link, learn about the link, grow in this effort. And some of those organizations are the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Link Coalition, and the Animal Welfare Institute. So we're gonna be building from all of them who are all part of this effort and enhancing the resources that we have on our soon-to-be live website.

0:16:58.4 JS: That sounds very exciting.

0:17:01.8 AK: Yeah! 

0:17:03.0 JS: So I don't wanna say we're changing gears a little bit, but I do know that folks listening might be wondering what they could do if they saw a neighbor or somebody else abusing an animal, or they sense that there is an animal or a child in trouble. What can folks do if they're in that situation? 

0:17:26.0 AK: Sure, well, I can answer it from the animal piece, and I'm sure Cathy can do so from the child abuse piece. From the animal piece, we do encourage folks to contact their local Humane Society or SPCA if they have a humane police officer. So step one would be educating yourself on who investigates crimes of animal cruelty within your area. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a shelter that has a humane police officer. If they do not, then you wanna look to local law enforcement, again, if your community is fortunate enough to have its own police force. If not, you want to go to the state police. Make sure you know the barracks, make sure you know the phone number. Those are all things you can do ahead of time if you are interested in being a voice for animals before you even see any form of cruelty or abuse.

0:18:36.1 AK: If you do see cruelty or abuse, you wanna make a report. You wanna make it as detailed as possible. You wanna be prepared to have as much information gathered as you can. You also, many times, don't wanna speak for every organization, but many times, you cannot remain completely anonymous as the person who's making the report. And that's for purposes of should the organization need to use your information to get a warrant, your information would be in the warrant. And it's a comfortability, what people feel comfortable doing and not doing, but that is not always possible to remain anonymous, so emotionally being prepared for that. And a phone call doesn't hurt, and the organization will tell you how they're gonna be able to proceed before they do anything.

0:19:31.0 AK: But gathering information like time of day, location, address, description, if possible, anything that you know about the individual, anything that you know about the animal. If it's a neighbor and you know the dog has... You see the dog regularly, it doesn't always walk with a limp, and all of a sudden, it does, kind of contextual information. So definitely, reporting is key to the appropriate authority. And each of those organizations, again, whether it's the state police, the SPCA, Humane Society, or the local police will walk you through the steps that you need to take.

0:20:15.1 CP: And the importance of what Amy just described from the animal side is that even if by making that call, if what you're seeing is something about an animal, our goal is to keep educating people and potentially, even pass legislation around cross-reporting and some of those ways in which the humane officer getting to the door and knowing that an animal may be at risk now opens the opportunity to also make sure, "Is there a child at risk as well?" And vice versa.

0:20:46.9 CP: Several years ago, many of us did a training for the minor judiciary here in Pennsylvania, and one of the things we would often say to them was just simply, "Look, if you take nothing else from this training from us, is that if you have a case that's being brought before you that's about... And you're seeing pictures of a profoundly neglected animal, we want to make sure you ask the officers that are sitting before you or the other witnesses before you, 'Are there any children in the home?' And vice versa, if you have child before you, ask."

0:21:19.3 CP: So the general public can report suspected child abuse to Childline, there's a 1-800 number: 1-800-932-0313. And that, those calls are answered 24 hours, every day of the year, 24/7. And they're trained folks who will talk to the person. You can be anonymous, but Amy did a nice job of reminding why there might be a point where someone's needing you to come forward with more information. And so you've made the call to Childline if you're concerned about a child, but one of the things we also hope to do is not just engage and recruit the public to be on the lookout for the harm against children or animals, but also to think about like: If you are, if I'm a children and youth worker, and I've been enlisted to go investigate suspected abuse against a child, or a police officer like Corporal Spada talked about, is how am I also then on the lookout for what else is happening to another species? 

0:22:25.0 CP: And so in some states, we've seen really successful work. Ohio was one of the more recent states that enacted a law that really recognizes that there's an opportunity when an investigator is called to a home for one species, they really have the opportunity to be on the lookout to protect other species. So if I'm called here on behalf of the animals, I can be on the lookout for children as well, and vice versa. And so that's one of the things we hope to continue to engage in, in the conversation with legislators, is: How do we enact a piece of legislation around cross-reporting? How do we cross-reference that? That's not just about immediately protecting folks and children and animals, but it also then gives us a tool for research going forward. How often do we see those kind of cross-reporting? Or how often do we see the co-occurrence of one type of neglect or abuse against an animal? At the same time, we were seeing something against a human.

0:23:24.9 CP: So there really are ways but if you, to Amy's point, if you see an animal and if you see a child, then we'd say 1-800-932-0313. And we hope that going forward, there are days in our future where whether you call either one of those numbers, that the people responding are as equally attentive to what's happening for animals as they are for children, and vice versa.

0:23:49.0 JS: That would be great, and I know that's one of the goals that you all are working towards as a coalition.

0:23:54.9 CP: And if I can just say something, one thing about that. In some ways, just to make it a little real to people as to how... Last year, we saw the horrific violent death of a little boy named Miguel, little toddler, three-year-old. And in the course of police investigating the death, so after he was gone, there was somebody who came forward and apparently had recorded some footage of an animal that had also lived in the home with the little boy who had been injured, to the point that the dog, the little puppy needed his leg amputated. And Kristen Tullo from the Humane Society and I, from April on last year until today, would lament and talk to folks and say like, "Imagine if somebody had called or spoken up or stepped up when they heard what was happening to that little puppy. They might not have been able to reverse the course for that little puppy, the damage might have already been done, but what might have been the intervention that could have saved the life of Miguel?"

0:25:11.0 CP: And so I think it's really important. Increasingly, we see reality checks like that. We see real-life circumstances of what's happening for women and children and older persons that if somebody would speak up, sometimes, what's happening for an animal, they may actually not just be protecting the animal, but they may be preventing further violence and future violence against humans. So I just really encourage people to see it. In this general conversation, we've talked about researches and coalitions and what you can do, but really, there's a face to attach to it. And for us, in the last year, we've really tried to remember Miguel whenever we have these conversations.

0:25:56.6 JS: Thanks for sharing that story, Cathy. I also wanna go back to thinking about what Corporal Spada brought up before about that there are some people who might be trying to leave abusive situations, but have pets, and aren't sure what their options are. And so I'm wondering if maybe Amy could start, and then if there's more that others would like to add, but I'd love to hear about what are some of the options for someone who's trying to escape abuse, but they might have a pet or a farm animal, and they're just not sure what their options are.

0:26:31.0 AK: Sure, that's a very, very scary, very real barrier for a lot of folks to get out, and get the help that they need for themselves and their children. So again, stepping back, we have partnered with a number of organizations, and one of them, AWI, also known as the Animal Welfare Institute, has this great resource that they've put together, and it's called the Safe Haven Mapping Project. And you can go to Safe Havens, S-A-F-E, H-A-V-E-N-S, forpets.org. Type that in, and you put in your ZIP Code and it will give you Safe Havens within a certain mileage radius, and you can set that preference as well. And it will describe to you shelters, animal shelters and domestic violence shelters that are partnering with other animal organizations that will help an individual that has pets place the pets while they are in a temporary situation.

0:27:46.0 AK: So it's a great, great program. We do that here at the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area. It's very fulfilling to be able to do that. You really hate to see people have to feel like they have to give up a pet on top of everything else they're going through, and it's just a nice way to give back to the community when you're able to provide housing for those folks. So again, safehavensforpets.org, great, great resource for this.

0:28:21.6 JS: That's so wonderful. I'm so glad that resources like that exist. Is there anything else that anyone wants to add to this conversation or anything you think would be important for folks doing this work, or the general public to know? 

0:28:39.0 CS: I think patience is a must here. Understand that when you do call in a crime or what you think is a crime, just because you don't see anything going on doesn't mean that there isn't an investigation. Sometimes, these things can take a while. And if we need more information, we will make sure to contact you. When you are, and to agree with what Amy said about calling and reporting, be detailed. What was going on? What did you see? What did you hear? Sometimes, even, what did you smell? Take some notes. Obviously, do not break any laws when you're gathering your information because you cannot trespass on somebody's property to get a closer look in an animal. Don't do any of that. But from a legal standpoint, tell us what you see, tell us what you hear, and have the patience also to understand that sometimes, what you call in might not be something that we can actually prosecute. There are people out there that do not take care of their animals the way we want them to, and there's things that we can't do criminally, but there are things that we can do on an education side of things. And not just the animal side. Look at how your neighbors are treating each other as well.

0:30:13.0 CP: Well, and this is Cathy. I think one the of the things, just to pick up, it's actually funny 'cause two themes from what Corporal Spada said is patience. When we're talking about educating the public, when we're talking about potentially passing a legislation, there's nothing you're gonna need more fundamental than patience and perseverance. And off of Corporal Spada's point about it may not always be a crime, this is particularly, I can only speak from the child's lens, but it's particularly true from a child's perspective that some of the things that people see that are really unsettling to them, a child being present in a home where there's a lot of drug use, or a child even hanging out a window of a second-storey building, or a child who is walking, as Corporal Spada said, alone in the street. They are all clearly situations that concern us, have us on alert, but don't necessarily ultimately meet the statutory definition of child abuse or crime against a child.

0:31:12.6 CP: But the good news is that someone calling invites the opportunity for prevention, and invites the opportunity for someone to say, "So what's going on here? Does someone need childcare? Do you need help securing screens for that second floor window?" So I think that's one of the things it's really important for us to remember is that we have to be on the lookout and we wanna safeguard children and other humans from crimes against them. But particularly, as it relates to children, oftentimes, the call you make helps to bring about interventions that are therapeutic and helpful for that child to stay safe and to stay safe in their own family and their own community. So don't always be so concerned if what you've called in doesn't fit the book of "this is a crime" because there's still likely some level of intervention and support that's happening for that child in their family, or at least, that's what we're all working toward.

0:32:08.7 AK: Well, and I think that's a great point, Cathy, because we approach animal crimes the same way. It's a lot about education. And we, as folks that work in a shelter, "Look, we don't want the animal in the shelter. We do want to educate, improve the conditions in the home, and allow the animal to remain in the home if possible." But what I think is interesting about what Cathy and Corporal Spada were just talking about is if we go all the way back to the idea of folks maybe being hesitant about calling in to report these things because the famous phrase is, "Well, I don't wanna get involved. I don't wanna get anybody in trouble. I don't wanna get... " We have three organizations here all saying the same thing, that we approach it with education first. Education, improving conditions for everybody in the home first. That's what we wanna do. We don't wanna cite people. We don't wanna get people in trouble. And we certainly wanna be able to reach out to folks before it reaches the level of a crime.

0:33:16.5 AK: So if you're hesitant about calling in to report this because you think really bad things are gonna happen to your neighbors now and, "Oh, my goodness!" You don't wanna get them in trouble, and then they're gonna lose their job, and then they're gonna... All these bad things are happening. That's not what this is about. This is truly about intervening at the right level, which might not be the point in which this has become a crime. So I think that's another part of this conversation that's super helpful for people to understand.

0:33:53.2 CP: Particularly at a time that we're moving towards a real awakening in our understanding about racial equity and justice and economic justice as well. Because we do know that right now, at least again, as we speak to children, there's a disproportionality of children of black and brown skin who are reported to systems. And so some people are really hesitant right now to think about making that call because they don't want a punitive response. They don't want somebody locked up. They don't want a child taken away from their family. So I can't underscore it enough just to keep piggybacking on what we've said in the last couple minutes is, don't think of a call as absolutely positively about toddling on someone, about getting someone in trouble. Think about it as a possibility of a lifeline and an opportunity for services and supports, whether it be a child, whether it be a woman, whether it be that puppy, or some other animal. Just think about it as helpfully connecting them to services and supports.

0:34:54.8 JS: Thank you all so much. Amy, I would love for you to just share with folks how they can learn more about the KeystoneLINK Coalition before we wrap up.

0:35:04.6 AK: Absolutely. Well, our organization will be... We're working on this website that's gonna be live here momentarily, and that is keystonelink.org. We're so excited about it. We have a lot of information up there, information on the folks that are involved and information on the organizations that are making this all possible.

0:35:29.2 JS: Wonderful! Well, thank you all so much for joining us to talk about the connection between the abuse of animals and the abuse of humans. It was great chatting with all of you today.

0:35:40.0 CP: Thanks, Jackie.

0:35:41.6 CS: Thank you.

0:35:42.9 AK: Thank you! 

0:35:44.6 JS: Alright, that's all the time we have today. Thank you all for listening to this episode of PA Centered. You can learn more about the KeystoneLINK Coalition and all of the resources mentioned today by visiting the episode description.

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0:36:06.2 JS: If you or a loved one needs help, a local Sexual Assault Center is available 24/7. Call 1-888-772-7227 for more information, or find your local center online at pcar.org. Together, we can end sexual violence. Any views or opinions expressed on PA Centered by staff or their guests are solely their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of PCAR or PCAR's funders.