Animal Abuse Registry: What is it and where?

The Animal Abuse Registry is a registry that would make convicted animal abusers register online just as sex offenders do. This would make it known what this person has done and where they live. The information they would have to register with their local police department is their home address, their place of employment and a recent photograph. In California, this very registry has been introduced into a bill on Friday the 19th by the State Senate’s leader, Dean Florez. He is a chairman on the Food and Agriculture Committee. He has seen many bills come through recently for new protections on farm animals such as chickens, pigs and cattle.

 This bill would make it to where people would know if they were living next to a convicted animal abuser. With the way people are treating their pets as part of the family, people should have the right to know. The Animal Legal Defense Fund has helped with the draft of this bill. They are aware that something like this needs to be in placed as it helps to work as an early detection system for people that are more likely to commit other violent crimes against people. These offenders usually start with animals and then eventually move to people. With this system in place they are hoping to deter that from happening or at least make it harder for them to do it.

 This bill still has a long way to go, especially the funding part of it. Some say the funding could come from a small tax put on pet food but that idea has some drawbacks. Dean Florez will move forward to get this bill passed and try to come up with a happy medium for the funding. He is proposing the cost to be under one million dollars to set it in place. This bill would only be responsible for California and some say the people could just pick up and move out of the state to continue. This is where one website, Petabuse.com, is trying to overcome that. They offer an online registry listing animal offenders and their crimes. It is basically a site you can go to and enter your zip code and a mile radius to see who has done what in the news for animal cruelty.

This bill would go a long way with animal abusers but it may also have a long way to go before everyone gets on board with it. In 2008, a similar bill was introduced in Tennessee and was passed by the State Senate but then never developed. This bill is also similar to the “Tiny Tim” law  that Ken Wahl is trying to get together. His proposed law would state that convicted animal abusers should be classified as violent offenders. This law would work well with the Animal Abuse Registry. It would classify them as violent but also make people aware of where they are in their pet-friendly neighborhoods.
 

Click the paw print for the “Pet Pages” blog, a place for the authors’ personal notes.

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