Agreed, three years for animal cruelty is absurd. However, in the case of the OP, Zeriel pointed out that crimes other than animal cruelty were committed: criminal deprivation of property (taking the woman’s dog without the intent to appropriate it for himself), criminal mischief (destroying the woman’s property), and wanton endangerment (throwing an object into the flow of traffic). It seems to me that the perpetrator should have been charged with those crimes, which (in my state, at least) could also amount to three years in prison.
Agreed, such a penalty is monstrously unjust.
Yes and no. He engaged in worst acts of cruelty, but (so far as I know) only destroyed his own property, which makes it less wrong in my view.
Ok, I couldn’t find the same studies, but likely it is because new studies have shown up ahead of the line. And I couldn’t access all of them, but a couple of studies below (from Australia) have their abstracts at least available online. I can dig some more information later, if I go back to my office:
Not sure if the link works, but you can look up by the titles:
They are all Australian studies, since it seems Australia finally starting publishing their own results about that topic, but some also reference in their abstract North American (US and Canada mostly) studies.
This is an important issue with veterinarians because they may see the injured pet , and if so, what shall they do and how should they proceed?
I can look up more information later, but it irks me to no end that some people fail to recognize that most animal abusers are not “OK”, something is not right in their heads. Simple jail time may not solve it, but then just jail time won’t solve most negative behaviors in humans. But to go up to say there shouldn’t be laws against it, then yea, that is IMHO wrong.
Yes, I’m female. And this is an issue I do not take lightly, as I am involved in the cases that do NOT make it. And it is an issue that overall is important in my profession.
(i’m currently raising a (now) 6 week old Orphaned Kitten. A friend of mine actually Witnessed a man THROW A SACK in a local lake. She got the license #, was able to rescue two kittens. i’ve been caring for one with an eye towards finding her a fabulous family to call her own… When this was reported to the police, they did NOTHING. There is a pervasive Culture of just not caring… if there were absolute laws and penalties on the books, if this were, in fact, a CRIME- then the police would likely investigate and the DA would file a charge. I DO believe this man SHOULD be PUNISHED, not just ‘educated’, but PUNISHED. Certainly, his crime shouldn’t be swept under the rug)
People are kept civilized by two constraints – internal and external. Animal cruelty is a highly reliable diagnostic for absence of the former; all that can be done is to amplify the latter to compensate (i.e. punishments sufficiently severe to put the fear into them for life) or to put the perps down before they inevitably move on to human victims.
Of course there are people who don’t care if others suffer. As I noted above, self-defense dictates that they either be removed from society, or convinced that they had better at least pretend to be civilized or the rest of society will bloody well make them suffer (something they do care about).
I have a Maltese that I love very much. We dont have children so this dog is a substitute child for us. If someone were to kill my dog in such a way there had better be some punishment otherwise I’m going to be planning my own revenge.
I have bitched at teenagers in our neighborhood for speeding up and down our road. Mostly because if something weird happened and they ran over our dog, Im pretty sure a teenager is gonna take a beating. I dont want to go to jail, but Im pretty emotional about the dog.
So there has to be some punishment that makes the aggrieved feel like justice has been done.
If that incident isn’t a crime in your jurisdiction (it’s not in my home state), then the police were right to do nothing. They’re not intended or suitable to convey moral lessons, just enforce the law.
Can it be demonstrated that those who engage in animal cruelty inevitably move on to human victims, or just that they are more likely to?
Sure there should be punishment; they stole and destroyed your property.
Sure. And in the example of the OP, the guy got three years for taking someone’s property and destroying it. That seems fair to me - three years is a lot of time to learn the “don’t break people’s stuff” lesson. So what’s the problem? Did you think I was saying we shouldn’t punish people for killing other peoples’ animals? No, we should. I was only saying that the fact the property is an animal doesn’t merit punishment beyond destruction of any other property. And if it’s your animal, it’s no one’s business what you do to it.
Actually, based on the article I linked to earlier and this one, it seems that the perpetrator was only charged with animal cruelty:
The relevant statue is this, California Penal Code 597:
So, just “maliciously and intentionally” killing an animal is a misdemeanor. The defendant in this case was convicted of a felony under section b of the same statute:
According to the appellate court document available here (PDF), the defendant was found to have caused the dog to be cruelly killed, thus being guilty of a felony.
I’m no lawyer, but the California statute seems absurdly broad and draconian to my lawman’s eyes. The defendant could have run over his own dog and received the same sentence, which is unjust.
I’m going to point at how arbitrary your distinction is by mentioning that I’m unable to tell which of both “crimes” you think is much worse than the other. It seemingly appears obvious to you, but I honestly can’t figure that out.
I’m guessing the fish, since it ends up dead and presumably is swallowed alive, but I’ve a hard time considering this a serious crime worthy of a severe punishment, especially since we usually let them asphyxiate before, indeed, swallowing them. And in case you meant that horse sodomy is worst, I would note that most of them spend their lives carrying us on their back, which is without doubt a much worse treatment than an occasional penetration by a tiny human penis.
Total anecdote that I’m sure people have heard a few times over - have personally seen a man or two locked up for killing the family dog long enough to get what would have been a soon-to-be-dead wife or two out of harm’s way. Also a person or two in court-ordered treatment for animal hoarding.
However, we should not have to use animal cruelty as a means of getting around pitiful mental health services and domestic violence laws (Lovely fact - it’s more than possible to get less jail time for domestic violence than animal murder, especially if the victim is male, in my neck of the woods). Surely we could fix this? I’m getting a little sick of writing my state representative whenever the state decides to cut funding (again) for mental health services. Especially since they’re cheaper than, like, jail. I’m a card-carrying vegetarian, but I cringe at the idea of sixty-ish state dollars a day for any amount of time unless there is a really, really good reason - though I think this counts.