Samenvatting

In the media one notices items on mistreatment of animals on a regular basis. These can cause intense agitation in the society. Think of the many horses that have been abused throughout the country in 2012. This case remains unsolved to this day. The question is: who does this, who are the animal abusers, what are their characteristics and backgrounds? After a long search in several registration systems of many institutions the characteristics and backgrounds of 97 animal abusers have been found. The data of the institutions have also been used to create an image of the nature and extent of animal abuse. Subsequently there have been interviews with several experts from different organisations to record their knowledge and experience and to indicate the results. The characteristics and backgrounds of the animal abusers are diverse. Their ages range from 7 to 85 years. The offenders are an average of 34 years old at the time of committing the animal abuse. Animal abusers are not notorious criminals. Half is reported to be the first offender according to police data. The other half commits all forms of crime. This includes the share of capital offenses (34%) and violent crimes (23%). Dogs are most often abused. The motives are diverse. Disappearing anger and frustration seems to be an important reason to abuse animals. Only nine people found that there was domestic violence in addition to animal abuse. An initial classification of types of animal traffickers in, amongst others, group planners, loners and sadists, has to be empirically substantiated.