In Your Opinion Podcast

Inside an animal abuser’s mind: What drives such cruelty and why some say penalties aren’t enough

Ang Qing

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SINGAPORE – In May, four gruesome cat deaths in the neighbourhoods of Yishun, Punggol and Tampines occurred within a month, stoking fears that a killer was on the loose.

While the authorities have since attributed three of these deaths to road accidents

instead of deliberate acts of cruelty

, the string of cases re-ignited calls for Singapore to toughen its laws and enforcement against animal abuse.

Some have even suggested heavier penalties like mandatory jail time and caning.

But can such stiff punishment deter a person bent on hurting animals?

On May 27, I sat down with psychiatrist Lim Boon Leng and criminal lawyer Josephus Tan to unpack these dark impulses and how society can help to curb them.

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

Why would anyone want to harm animals?

Dr Lim: It’s quite important to understand that not everyone who is an animal abuser has a mental illness. A lot of people do it out of malice, anger or boredom, or they are just thrill-seeking. This can come from a place of unresolved trauma or they are displacing their anger.

There are three categories of people.

The first are impulse abusers who lash out because of their poor ability to regulate emotions.

The second are neglectful abusers. I suspect that most animal abusers fall within this group. They fail to care for pets due to ignorance and indifference.

The last group is the sadistic abuser, which I think accounts for a minority of cases. This is the group that we tend to worry about because they really derive pleasure or a sense of control from inflicting pain.

Individuals with antisocial personality disorder, commonly known as psychopaths, are more likely to resort to animal cruelty. They are typically quite deceitful.

They are also quite emotionally distant. Therefore, if they inflict pain on animals or other people, they do not have empathy.

Are there any red flags that indicate a person is more likely to abuse animals?

Dr Lim: History is the best way to predict the future. So when children or adolescents harm pets, stray animals or even insects, when there are repeated incidents – these are very big warning signs.

Then there are people who show very little empathy towards other human beings and animals. They have this indifference, and fail to recognise animals as sentient beings. They could feel that animals are objects and treat them as such.

Another red flag is someone who finds violence fascinating. Most of us will cringe when watching violent videos, but these people actually enjoy them and sometimes even seek them out. There is the risk that they will re-enact these acts, which I think can be quite dangerous. Many times when you talk to them, they may lack remorse.

Mr Tan: Legally speaking, based on cases that I have handled and heard about, there can be no tell-tale signs.

A person can look really normal and yet have an antisocial personality disorder. You would not be able to tell until something triggers it, and this probably occurs in a private setting. You would not know unless you are living with that person – that’s when you can pick up certain habits that can appear different from others.

Where do you think the gaps are in how Singapore tackles cases of alleged animal cruelty?

Mr Tan: If you have a designated community space for feeding, then maybe that’s where surveillance cameras can be targeted at so you know who is in that area.

If you understand cats, they are quite skittish in nature. So I think, within calculated speculation, that a killer or a group of killers probably have to lower a cat’s guard with food and toys before committing a cruel act, or torture or kill them.

There are police community cameras everywhere, but they do not cover every corner. There are blind spots. So that is where, when I read about all these cases over the years, I think more can be done by having surveillance cameras at designated feeding areas.

Dr Lim: My concern as a psychiatrist is that as our society progresses, if we are better educated as a whole, why are numbers not coming down? Why is it that such acts continue to be prevalent?

A lot of times we have to question if this is the tip of the iceberg. Is our society too stressed out? Are people venting their anger on animals? What are we teaching our children? They may be top mathematicians and scientists, but are they taught empathy? Are they top in values?

Mr Tan: If people want to own a pet, we should make sure that they are serious about it. In countries where the rights of animals are heavily protected, there are many hurdles to cross to buy a puppy or a kitten.

But in Singapore, I can just walk into the shop right now and pay a few hundred dollars, and I can just get a young life. So I think that is something which only legislation can overcome. Apart from increasing punishment against animal abuse, I think we should go a step further to do away with selling live animals at pet shops in the shopping mall.

Do you think the law needs to be tougher?

Dr Lim: Laws are actually quite a good way of education as well. It defines what we think is right and wrong in society.

Laws are just one aspect of it. So I think there are those who can be rehabilitated and do better. For young children and youth, there’s a greater propensity for them to be rehabilitated.

I suppose we have to look at animal abuse in a more holistic way. So basically, animal abuse is just a gateway behaviour. I think there’s a deeper symbolic meaning to it for the whole of society. Are people becoming more cruel and non-empathetic as a whole? And how much of this empathy education are we having?

We do not have to teach people how to be kind to animals – just how to be kind.

Mr Tan: I feel that it’s timely to introduce caning. The whole idea about caning is to instil pain. We inflict pain on you so that you can register the lesson. Right? This is really the long and short of it.

Dr Lim: I think in terms of cognition, if you are going to commit an act, and you know that the consequences are severe, you will have a second thought.

Highlights (click/tap above):

1:45 Inside an animal abuser’s mind

5:29 Understanding psychopathy and spotting red flags

10:19 Gaps in enforcement and how criminals exploit them

15:30 Do some abusers have a sadistic desire to get caught?

18:58 What animal abuse says about Singapore and its people

24:06 Can tougher laws and caning make a difference?

32:59 What the ordinary citizen should or shouldn’t do

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