The FBI will start with a new program targeting animal cruelty as a "crime against society" and Class A felony, on Jan. 1, 2016. The new program is part of a decision made in 2014 that finally goes into effect at the beginning of the year with the FBI tracking animal cruelty cases, according to Barkpost.
The National Incident Based Reporting System, a catch-all where crimes against animals were lumped along with every other offense across the U.S. was used, but now the FBI can track where cruelty is occurring, how often and whether or not animal cruelty is on the rise. Having this specific targeted data will help in the fight against animal cruelty with the offenses falling into four categories: neglect, intentional abuse and torture, organized abuse (dog and cock fighting) and animal sexual abuse.
One of the aspects of cruelty particularly of interest is the correlation between animal abuse and other crimes.
"In animal abuse, you have total power over the animal," said Baltimore County prosecutor Adam Lippe, according to the Tech Insider. "If you are willing to exert that in a cruel, malicious and vicious way, then you're likely to do that to people, too, who don't have power, like children and vulnerable adults. It's an issue of a lack of empathy."
The change has been a long time coming and an uphill road for the FBI, who took a year to update their databases for the new classification, and it looks like we will have to wait another year before analysts will have the data they need to examine and track the cruelty cases in the U.S. Regardless, it's a huge step in the right direction for the animals and for the authorities that have to work these cases.
"This is important just for just tracking, education of law enforcement, and being able to support states across the US and people's efforts to successfully speak with their representatives about increasing animal cruelty punishments," Maura Davies of the SPCA of Texas said.
"The important thing about law enforcement seeing this data more readily is that it will allow law enforcement professionals to truly have the data to see how closely animal cruelty is linked," Davies continued, according to NBC DFW. "In fact, it's a one-to-one correlation between animal cruelty and human violence."