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Increasingly in some Countries such as America, Law
Enforcement, Judiciary, Child Protection and Psychological
services are beginning to work together. They see the
correlation between animal abuse/murder and other crimes.
Animal abuse is more often than not a sign or a warning of
other abhorrent deeds carried out on humans by humans.
There seems to be an unwillingness or total ignorance to
explore these concepts in Ireland. Daily we see social media
posts of animals mistreated starved left to the elements or
murdered. It’s rare to see cases coming before a Court and
if they do sentencing is lenient, usually a fine, a ban from
keeping animals for a few years, or a short (as in weeks)
prison sentence. This is mind-boggling; would you allow a
child abuser/murderer to take care of children again? Hoping
that they have magically changed their callous ways healed
their violent psyche, without any therapeutic intervention
or rehabilitation. There are reasons for parole hearings.
They evaluate if the prisoner has made an effort to reform,
and is ready to contribute to society purposefully. Yet
nothing on this scale is offered to a persistent animal
abuser, just a slap on the wrist! Again, there is a 65 per
cent chance that if someone mistreats/murders an animal,
they will go on to do the same to a human being.
We have a sex offender’s register; we also have a points
system for driving offences. Registers are society’s way of
keeping people in check. We have crime statistics released
each year. We can see how many people are killed yearly,
also the figures on rape, burglaries, how many children are
in care and domestic abuse. But we have no way of knowing
how many animals are murdered each year by humans. We need
to register animal crimes in Ireland to show precise data of
how common these heinous crimes are. We need it as a
deterrent, also as a means to convince judges that their
sentencing is to light. Think about it, if you come before a
judge for a driving offence your licence could be revoked
for life. If you injure/kill someone while driving, you may
never drive again. Sentences handed down are listed
throughout agencies so that you can never get a licence or
insurance back. With lesser offences, you may be forced to
undergo driving instruction once more. The same applies to
child abuse grievous harm or murdering another human being.
You will not be allowed to reconnect with society until you
undergo many years in prison with rehabilitative training.
When you are released your crime is still attached to your
name, you can never lose it. So why can’t we do this with
wanton animal abusers? Again we know they are massive
correlations between animal murder and a propensity to cause
severe damage to human beings at a later stage.
It is incredible how many Councillors at a local level have
said ‘sure we don’t have a problem really’ that’s because we
have no comprehensive data on file to make them see.
Politicians need facts and figures to work from; they need
to see in data form how common these misdeeds are. They need
to see if interventions to abate crime are working.
Would it be too outlandish to ensure that when an animal is
found dead that a vet and a Garda forensic person attends,
takes at least some samples, tries to determine the cause of
death? Probably I hear you say, just for an animal. Yes
just for an animal because next time it could be a child. If
the public are aware due diligence is happening, it might
act as a deterrent. We regularly see that some animals are
now dumped at rescues instead of being discarded in the
‘good old fashioned’ way. The message is slowly getting
through that society will not tolerate these awful sights
anymore.
An animal crimes register should then be accessible to
animal rescues, breeders, park rangers I.S.P.C.A, and other
organisations that deal with animal/child welfare daily. It
should be added to by Courts /Police if a conviction is
secured. Rescues can then check up to see if ‘potential
adopters’ are without a conviction, before handing over
defenceless animals.
You may think this is over the top, and you may be right
because it will be your taxes that would fund someone in
Authority to keep this register. But remember next time
these people take a bag of kittens and drown them, or buy
piglets to blood greyhounds, or adopt small dogs using them
as bait in dog fighting, you are also condoning the vast
sums of money that is earned underground from these
activities. And when they finish murdering these defenceless
animals, there is a high probability that they will then
injure or murder a human being. We cannot turn a blind eye
anymore, or show our disgust for a day or two. We need to
start getting this data recorded so that the Authorities are
forced to do their jobs also. As Melinda Merck (forensic
veterinarian) once said “People who commit animal cruelty
are usually criminals in other ways.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/magazine/13dogfighting-t.html
https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/animal-cruelty-and-human-violence-faq#connection
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/melinda-merck-veterinary-forensics/538575/ |
