Spotlight on Criminal Justice: National Justice for Animals Week – Feb. 19-25, 2024
TW: This post discusses graphic descriptions of animal abuse to increase awareness.
Feb. 19-25, 2024, is National Justice for Animals Week. The initiative aims to raise public awareness around crimes committed against animals. Laws to protect animals can be enacted at the local, state, or federal level. Most laws are passed at the state level, but several federal laws are designed to protect domestic or companion animals, like dogs and cats, and others include protections for marine life, horses, livestock, and performance animals. Although many cases of these crimes go unreported, an estimated 10 million animals in the United States die every year from abuse, neglect, or cruelty; 250,000 are victims of animal hoarding; and more than 110 million are abused and killed each year as part of laboratory experiments and testing. Zoo and circus animals are also subjected to abuse and unnatural training and environmental conditions. Around the world, at least one animal is abused every 60 seconds.
Existing Legal Protections for Animals
State and Local Laws
All 50 states have a felony animal cruelty law, though the criterion of what constitutes “cruelty” and the associated penalties vary by state. The Michigan State College of Law created an interactive map compiling the laws of each state. These include laws related to dogfighting, intentional cruelty, neglect/abandonment, and bestiality, as well as state-specific chapters for livestock and non-livestock species and typical exemptions. Domestic animals are considered “property” and may appear in penal code sections under “crimes against property”; alternatively, they can also be found in subsections of moral offenses or chapters dealing with agriculture and animals.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund conducts the most comprehensive study and authoritative annual report, ranking state animal protection laws according to their strength and effectiveness. In 2022, which is the most recent ranking available, Maine remained at the top, with the strongest animal protection laws, and New Mexico remained at the bottom—both for the third year in a row. Maryland was the most improved state, and the report noted a trend toward the inclusion of animals in protection-from-abuse orders and laws prohibiting the sexual assault of animals.
U.S. law enforcement agencies received reports for 16,573 animal cruelty offenses in 2021. An analysis of data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Incident-Based Reporting System indicates that Texas reported the most animal cruelty offenses from 2012 to 2021, with nearly 7,000 cases—3,000 of which occurred in 2021 alone. In fact, the number of offenses in Texas is six times higher than the national average. Delaware had the highest incidence of animal abuse, with 129 offenses per 100,000 people, which is 16 times the national average.
Federal Laws
The Lacey Act, enacted in 1900, was the first federal law banning illegal wildlife trafficking. It prohibits falsifying documents related to wildlife sales and shipment and trading wildlife and plants that have been illegally possessed, transported, or sold. The Humane Slaughter Act of 1958, amended in 1978 as the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, gives the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) the authority to regulate the slaughter of livestock, preventing needless animal suffering and providing protections for producers, processors, and consumers of these products. The USDA also oversees the 1980 Swine Health Protections Act, which prohibits feeding garbage to swine “unless such garbage has been treated to kill disease organisms.” The 1973 Endangered Species Act includes international agreements and imposes criminal and civil penalties for law violations against fish, mammals, birds, and plants that are in danger of extinction. The Animal Welfare Act, the Horse Protection Act, and the Transportation of Animals law are other examples of federal legislation that protects animals.
More recent laws address the proliferation of people distributing images and videos of small animals being tortured for the pleasure of sadistic viewers and sexual fetishes. The Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010 and the 2019 Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act prohibit the creation and distribution of animal-crushing videos, including photographs and digital images, depicting, “one or more living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians intentionally crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury.”
Organized Animal Crimes
Dogfighting, hog-dog, and cockfighting are examples of organized animal crimes that have deadly outcomes—for the animals and the human attendees. Connections between international organized crime syndicates and animals have also been documented, including horse racing, animal fighting, and wildlife and marine trafficking. These crimes, which are difficult for law enforcement to infiltrate, also present opportunities for, “gambling, drug dealing, weapons offenses and money laundering.”
While puppy mills, zoos, and circuses are not illegal, per se, the organizations that own them financially benefit from keeping animals in crowded, unsanitary conditions. Many of these animals are euthanized when they are no longer of service.
Perpetrators and Victims
Animal abuse is aggressive, antisocial behavior. Youth violence against animals is both an indicator of existing interpersonal violence in the home and a potential predictor of future adult crimes of violence, including serial and sexual murder, domestic abuse, and victimization of children and the elderly. The MacDonald Triad, which is the theory that bed-wetting, fire-setting, and animal abuse signal future violence, has been met with renewed scrutiny, as the presence of all three is “exceedingly” rare, and an individual exhibiting just one of the behaviors could engage in future violence. Further, individuals who didn’t exhibit any of these behaviors are also capable of violence. Psychiatrists and psychologists suggest that “kids periodically wet their bed past the normal stage, have experimented with fire in some capacity, and have probably kicked the dog out of misplaced anger,” so approaching these behaviors through the lens of what the child needs is an alternative to envisioning a criminally violent future. Specifically, child victims of violence and trauma who become juvenile perpetrators of crime could be better served by restorative justice programs that hold them accountable while prioritizing rehabilitation. Similarly, arresting youth unnecessarily—especially young children and adolescents—is counterproductive to public safety.
Triad aside, an established, significant correlation exists between domestic violence, child abuse, and animal abuse; perpetrators who abuse their intimate partners and children frequently target family animals. Animal abusers also tend to be associated with other crimes, like drug, property, and public disorder offenses. Individuals who intentionally harm animals are generally men under the age of 30.
Hoarding is another particularly heinous form of animal neglect, cruelty, and abuse. Animal hoarding is associated with severe neglect when the animals’ care requirements exceed an individual’s ability to provide that care, and people who hoard animals are often in need of mental health and social services. The recidivism rate among this group is nearly 100 percent, so prohibiting and preventing them from possessing animals is recommended. Animal hoarders are usually women over 60 years of age, and they primarily hoard cats and dogs.
Conclusion
Despite the startling statistics and correlation between family violence and adult crime, animal abuse rarely receives media attention unless something particularly horrific grabs national headlines. Before, during, and after National Justice for Animals Week, we can all do things to help. Recognizing the signs of animal neglect, abuse, and cruelty; reporting suspected incidents; and advocating for stronger protections for animals can hold perpetrators accountable and help victims—human and animal alike. Violence against animals can also be an indicator of violence in the home, so first responders, animal control officers, and social service providers should coordinate their investigations and responses. Animal advocates also urge people to “adopt not shop” and to teach children appropriate animal care from a young age. Responsible pet owners are also encouraged to follow the advice of the late Bob Barker, “to control the pet population – have your pets spayed or neutered.”