Posted September 24, 2014
The
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will start tracking animal cruelty cases,
according to a USA Today article by Susan Wyatt available here.
Newswire also published an article available here
and Huffington Post here.
Local
agencies will also track cruelty cases and report them to the FBI.
"No
longer will extremely violent cases be included in the "other
offense" category simply because the victims were animals. Just as the FBI
tracks hate crimes and other important categories, we will now have critical
data on animal cruelty,"
said
Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of
the United States (HSUS).
Prior to
this expansion, there was no process for capturing animal cruelty data on a
statewide or national level, according to the Huffington
Post.
The new
information will be included in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report
creating an incentive for law enforcement agencies to more closely monitor
these incidents.
Examples
of animal cruelty, include “instances of duty to provide care, e.g., shelter,
food, water, care if sick or injured; transporting or confining an animal in a
manner likely to cause injury or death; causing an animal to fight with
another; and inflicting excessive or repeated unnecessary pain or suffering,
e.g., uses objects to beat or injure an animal," according to Newswire.
The
definition does not include proper maintenance of animals for show or sport or
use of animals for food, lawful hunting, fishing or trapping.
For more information on animal welfare, please visit the National
Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
