As I was looking around the web for animals in the news today, I found an interesting article over at Huffington Post.
It tells about a new law that Suffolk County in New York is setting to pass. It will be the 1st of its kind in the USA in regards to “keeping an eye” on people convicted of animal abuse. The county will start an animal abuse registry. This registry will require convicted animal abusers to register for the list or face fines and jail time. You can see the entire article at Animal Abuse Registry: Suffolk County, NY Creating Nation’s First Public Database Tracking Animal Cruelty Offenders.
I do understand the idea behind the list yet, I am not sure if it should be public. Sure people could see if their neighbors are a danger to their pets (or potentially people) but, there are other responsibilities that go with publishing the list.
Could people get a false sense of security if they feel the list covers all abusers?
Could people on the list become targets of abuse themselves?
What if an elderly person is convicted of animal cruelty because they can not afford to feed their pet or pay for medical care (yes, we have seen this happen)?
I despise people that are intentionally mean or abusive to animals so I agree that law enforcement, animal shelters…should have access to the list. I don’t think the list will keep people from getting ahold of another animal, the list has no way of constantly watching the peoples every move.
This list will also only cover the 1 county. If a person does not live in the county…they have no track of them (we see this with the sex offenders list and it is nation wide).
Will this list also lead to other list of crimes being made public?
So what do you think of having an animal cruelty list?
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