By: Tracey Zysk – October, 2014
On September 17, 2014 the announcement many of us animal advocates had been waiting for finally was released. The FBI was going to start tracking animal cruelty cases.
Wayne Parcell, blogger for the Human Society of the United States, broke the news to our animal networks and the roar of cheers could be heard across the country. YES! Finally, law enforcement will be able to track these important crimes, in detail, as animal cruelty cases.
One may ask, why is this important? Or how are they currently reporting these cases? Well, currently when the FBI documents these vicious acts in their system it is listed as “other offense.” This gives little to no information to law enforcement of the acts a person may be committing against our animals.
Animal abuse has statistically been proven to be an indicator for a person to commit other types of “hate” crimes, including murder. Abuse to women, children, and our seniors usually starts with “practicing” on animals. Patterns of sociopaths, extremely violent people and murderers, have shown at one point these individual took part in harming animals.
Parcell also mentioned, “Now that animal cruelty, including animal neglect, is included in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, there is a real incentive for law enforcement agencies to pay closer attention to such incidents. With accurate data, law enforcement agencies will also be better able to allocate officers and financial resources to handle these cases, track trends, and deploy accordingly.”
Our animal loving State of Mass is more than thrilled with this. Massachusetts has been proactive in fighting for animal rights and protection acts at the state level. These laws, have in return, helped our local police departments press charges against these cowards. We have been a model for many other states to follow as a fore leader in prosecuting animal cruelty, neglect and fighting crimes. Our own Valley Patriot Doggie HERO, Senator Bruce Tarr, has been aggressively working on a Massachusetts Animal Abuser registry list. With the FBI initiating their new tracking system, I am more than confident Sen. Tarr will be able to get our local system up and going in the near future.
This is a wonderful new tool and another WIN in our efforts to help prevent animal abuse!