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WaPo: "Animal abusers are being registered like sex offenders in these jurisdictions"
- Thread starter AuthenticM
- Start date
What experience?
The Illiterati
Member
""On the other end of the spectrum, there are pet owners who have an inadequate doghouse, Shatkin said. We wouldnt want to paint both types of offenders with the same brush."
I like how nearly every person quoting the article ignores this point. Its the same as when peeing behind a bush at 3AM gets you on the same list as a convicted pedophile. I don't have a problem with pointing out severe abusers, but a better line should be drawn.
I like how nearly every person quoting the article ignores this point. Its the same as when peeing behind a bush at 3AM gets you on the same list as a convicted pedophile. I don't have a problem with pointing out severe abusers, but a better line should be drawn.
Killer Queen
Banned
They were raising awareness over the fact that those people were doing those things, not sharing it for pleasure. Every person who shared those things had already called the authorities on said individuals.
Do you really want someone with a history of killing animals to go into a different town and adopt some dogs and cats?
| Praxis |
Banned
Good, name and shame these fucking bastards.
SocksAndShoes
Banned
It's pretty easy to not get put on these lists though. It's not like the majority of pet owners are going to find themselves put on this list in an unjust fashion.
Baron Von Beans
Member
Animal abusers deserve this. There is no excuse for that disgusting behavior.
off duty ninja
Member
Well, currently there are sex offender registries and now there are going to be animal abuse registries so we will start with those.
I don't like to do people's research for them but it is even easier to find evidence of how terribly sex offender registries have impacted peoples lives than it is to look up public criminal records. They are not all predatory offenders. Here is one article about one's experience with this system.
Here is another article based on the research of Patty Wetterling:
Oh sure, "don't do the crime" and don't get put on the list. I am sure they said the same thing about sex offender registries.
For one their shelters are a joke that kill most of the animals brought to them without even bothering to even attempt to find them homes and we aren't talking monstrous beasts that will never get trained or rehabilitated. That and we have stories of PETA employees taking pets from people's yards and front porches to bring to said kill shelters.
Then there are their constant campaigns against things like carriage horses in NYC that seem to show a major lack of understanding on basically anything involving animal husbandry. I've also personally dealt with them when they went an event I was at and started letting dogs out of their crates to "be free" and several where either lost or hit by cars and killed.
If someone wants a dog or cat it not particularly hard to get one. With or without this registry.
So you read some inflammatory articles online and had a problem with a few individuals and as a result anyone that had nothing to do with that, but were teaching kids to be nice to animals or mailing out guides to becoming vegetarian should be forever barred from owning an animal again? You must be joking.
BobNewbert31
Member
So are you going to disprove what I said or just say I'm being hyperbolic? They have a long history of this bull shit and I've dealt directly with them. They're slimey as they come and maybe your friend shouldn't be targeted but the group at large is terrible at everything except pushing their agenda.
cloudburst
Banned
Do they really kill animals in shelters? I don't blame you for feeling that way
Killer Queen
Banned
But its less likely that they get the chance to adopt any.
Yeah its well documented
SocksAndShoes
Banned
I mean, yes? You're addressing a tiny minority of people that get caught up in the wrong side of this. I don't disagree that we need to focus on rehab for these people but I just don't think that's ever going to happen with our current political climate.
Count Dookkake
Member
What's the animal abuse equivalent of getting on the sex offender list for public urination?
It isn't that they kill in shelters. Its that is almost all of what they do. They aren't shelters, they're basically just kill facilities. Most shelters without gigantic backing by a group like PETA try much much harder to find homes for all sorts of animals be they perfect angles or abused by cruel owners in need of rehab. There are even a variety of no kill shelters which will hold onto and care for animals, even those that are unadoptable for a variety of reasons be it attitude or health reasons.
John Kowalski
Banned
Unsure this will help
Why would I need to disprove any of that? A few anecdotes aren't the point. Your argument is that everyone involved in this large organization is dangerous to animals and that's nuts and in no way true.
A crime or a civil violation?
Chainsawkitten
Member
Which it doesn't. Public sex offender registries have been a total and utter failure. They don't make anyone safer, quite the contrary.
Killer Queen
Banned
Please enlighten me then.
off duty ninja
Member
Semantics, the absurdity of the list to begin with is the point.
Well yes because the organization doesn't care about animals except to exploit them for more money because people at large are suckers for animals. Most don't seem to realize that PETA is doing far more harm than its good and is far more concerned with crap like telling Obama to not swat a fly then actively using all that money and clout of theirs to stop poaching. Let's not even get into their depiction of women as that is a whole other issue.
cloudburst
Banned
That is very disappointing. I always knew PETA was a glorified ad campaign, but this is very heinous stuff. People should just donate to ASPCA.
Most certainly is not. Dont throw out something that's BS if you want to discuss this rationally.
off duty ninja
Member
Why don't you enlighten yourself?
This provides a pretty good start and there are tons of stories from people who have had their lives ruined over what was a fairly small mistake in life.
It isn't that I don't want to discuss this rationally, I was simply stating that it is semantics to debate whether or not spitting is a crime of civil violation. It doesn't matter because creating a list for spitters is dumb. Just like I think this list is.
TickleMeElbow
Member
I mean on one hand there are the people who torture animals and shit.
On the other hand, there are crazy old cat ladies who have like 50 cats, and they're always malnourished/dying because they can't feed them all.
Do they both go on the registry?
They need to draw a line somewhere like what that Shatkin guy is talking about.
Also, it says you can just pay a fine to get out of being put on the registry, so this is just going to disproportionately affect poor/mentally ill people (like crazy cat lady).
On the other hand, there are crazy old cat ladies who have like 50 cats, and they're always malnourished/dying because they can't feed them all.
Do they both go on the registry?
They need to draw a line somewhere like what that Shatkin guy is talking about.
Also, it says you can just pay a fine to get out of being put on the registry, so this is just going to disproportionately affect poor/mentally ill people (like crazy cat lady).
Its not about being sympathetic but about not making a worse problem out of the current one just because you want to get more self-justified vengeance out of them after what the state legally got out of them.
And you can just jump to the extreme if you like. How about this: should someone who gets convicted a lesser charge be fully ostracized and shunned by society as a whole? Do you REALLY think it will be populated by just people who have 'brutally killed' animals? The statement in the article is those who have 'harmed' animals. Harm is a broad term.
Same shit happens on sex offender registries at times where 19 year olds land on it after consensual sex with 17 year olds.
A registry can serve some good, but NOT it being public. There's no reason for the public to have that information. Here's a way to make that work: $10 charge on a dog adoption made that goes to a quick check against the registry done by the police to be sure the adopter isn't on it. Funds for the police to administer it, and it doesn't have to be public.
sturgboski
Member
My heart bleeds for the people who get a few hundred dollar fine and some hours of community service for torturing animals. When the punishment gets above a slap on the wrist then maybe I'd be able to go "I see where you are coming from" and even then I wouldn't bat an eye that this was happening.
I'll happily argue for stronger sentencing for animal abuse crimes. But that's not what's being offered here.
sturgboski
Member
Craig's list is a pretty big shithole where lots of folks have adopted pets and tortured and killed them. It's why there are many petitions to get that shit closed.
ghostofsparta
Member
Did you even read the other portion?
Go to any hood in the US and some people will have their dogs out in the open or use something like an old garbage bin as a doghouse.
This seems like a way to penalize poor people and keep tabs on "the baddies", even when it's a particularly minor offense. I care about people way more than I care about pets.
SocksAndShoes
Banned
Yeah, I addressed this. Any list like this has the potential to be abused, but I agree in principal with a registry that would need to be checked when someone tries to buy/adopt a pet.
And I agree, this is complete and utter nonsense
Latvian Hitman
Member
This is correct. PETA's leadership has basically constructed a cult. There are some well-intentioned people at the local level that belong to the group, but on the whole, they're more interested in self-promotion and shock and awe than they are with actively helping with animal abuse, neglect or homelessness. They're basically the Scientologists of the animal help/awareness community.
Short version:
PETA= bad
ASPCA= good
Donate to the ASPCA.
TickleMeElbow
Member
This.
Also, the article says you can avoid the registry by paying a fine, which will disproportionately affect the poor.
I'm against criminal records being publicly available but I know I'd take advantage of them if I were ever a landlord or in a position to hire for an important job.
Public criminal records really shouldn't exist or at the very least have an expiration date.
Killer Queen
Banned
So it's a flawed system, saying it just makes things worse is hyperbolic and people who just made a small mistake seem to be a fairly small part of the registry so I'm not sure why that's relevant. The same could be said about any type criminals in North America ever. One small mistake can ruin your life whether it be in the form of doing drugs, getting with an underage girl while you're legally an adult (18, 19, etc), hanging around bad people.
If that's your issue then maybe you should be looking into criminal justice reform in general rather than complaining that some animal abusers get put on a list.
In the age of the internet, information of every crime and criminal is already public, so what difference does it make if they're on a public list or not that sets them apart from other criminals? You can still find out who they are and what they did through local registries.
You're right, harm is a broad term, but as presented in the OP someone who brutally murders animals (Like my examples in my first post) aren't in the same category as those who don't. Could there be improvements to both systems? sure. Is making it public really hurting anyone aside from said offender? no.
Any increase in crime due to implementation of SORN is marginal at best and as per the wikipedia article, it benefits victims, family members, etc which obviously isn't a bad thing. And whether or not SORN works as a deterent to sex crimes varies from state to state.
At the end of the day, something is better than nothing.
off duty ninja
Member
If you don't see how the harm caused to one is eventually caused to many than this is a wasted discussion to begin with. Of course the offender isn't the only person harmed by this.
Killer Queen
Banned
You're own article says that most people jailed for being a sex offender don't go on to be repeat offenders. There are a marginal few that do because of the costs of SORN. This isn't many, this is a few.
It also says SORN in some cases works as a deterrent and doesn't in others. Some places it brought sex crime down between 11-13 %
some places it didn't really do much to change the number of sex crimes.
It helps victims, family members and friends stay away from their abusers.
and there's really nothing in that article that states that having a public registry of sex offenders does anything to actively hurt the community, just that it works better when the list is small rather than when the list is large.
Should SORN have some reform and only include violent sex offenders, pedophiles and the like? probably
is it some terrible awful thing that's ruining the lives of millions across the country like you're making it out to be? No, at least as per your own article. You're free to bring me things that state otherwise as this is your argument.
At worst its ineffective on a large scale.
Chainsawkitten
Member
Well, I'm the one making a claim (that US public sex offender registry laws have been ineffective, or even harmful), so it's reasonable to require me to provide an argument to back that claim up.
Sex offender registries can be a useful tool for police to use in order to monitor convicted felons who are at risk of reoffending. These are a common tool all over the world. Unfortunately it was a long time ago since I looked at this so I don't remember the studies I looked at (I need to start keeping track of the scientific articles I read so I can actually refer back to them), but I remember a significant one looked at UK police and found it helpful (though I don't remember what metrics they used to determine that...). Sorry for the lack of info here.
It is also common to require background checks for positions involving children (or disabled people). I don't have any data on the effectiveness of this but it certainly seems reasonable to me.
What is unique to the US is an online, publicly available registry, accessible to anyone. The US is the only country in the world to do this, and I'd say that's for good reason.
Whether notification laws (requiring sex offenders to register with police on moving, etc.) are helpful isn't entirely clear and there are conflicting studies in the matter. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Policies for Reducing Sexual Violence against Women (Letourneau et. al) (full text available) noted:
However, other studies have cast doubts on the effectiveness of notification requirements and whether they work as a deterrent. I won't go into them here since my focus right now is on public registers, but my impression is that it seems like they might be helpful but it's not entirely clear.
Now, the same study goes on to say:
This is supported by a study by Amanda Y. Agan (full text available). She makes three conclusions:
- Sex offenses were not reduced in states after the introduction of a publicly available register.
- Sex offenders released into states which had publicly available registers were actually slightly more likely to reoffend than those who were released into states with no publicly available registers.
- The locations of sex offenders were not a good indicator of the locations of new sex offenses. Thus, a public register is not helpful for determining how safe a neighborhood or other location is.
Another study in the same journal (The Journal of Law & Economics), Do Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws Affect Criminal Behavior? by Prescott and Rockoff (paywall, but you can get access to it online by registering an account) finds that public registries increase recidivism rates and sex crimes overall. (A little confusing since they essentially use 'notification' and 'registration' in the opposite way I've been doing here.)
These were not the same studies as I read years ago but I don't remember what those were. Sorry.
Anyhow, the explanations may be twofold (my interpretation, supported by some of those old studies I read):
1. Public registries, along with things like housing limitations, may increase recidivism rates as they limit offenders' abilities to live a normal life. An extreme example of that being the sex offender colonies. Essentially, when you don't have a life to throw away, the consequences of getting caught don't seem that bad. (Obviously the colonies were not results of registries alone but of housing restrictions.)
2. Public registries is essentially another example of stranger danger. And like stranger danger it puts undue focus on the wrong targets. Most sex offenses are commited by first-time offenders known to the victim. Public registries present a false sense of security, which leads parents and children alike to be less cautious overall, instead focusing only on strangers (which, again, don't commit most offenses).
Edit: You've been discussing SORN a bit. That's not necessarily the same thing as publicly available registers (eg. via the Internet). It can include simply notification to police or community notification.
Emperor_Uriel
Member
Animal murderers deserve the shame just like child rapists and vicious sexual sadists deserve to be on the sex offender registry.Problem is, just like with the SORN, you're going to end up with a bunch of people put on here for much less egregious offenses.
What is the definition of "abuse" these people are using? Will a person who leaves their animal in a hot car for a small period of time be put on? What about someone who feeds their pet improperly? Or someone whose pet escapes from their backyard too often? Or someone who walks their pet without a leash?
These things always start out as a list of vile trash but, a few years in, end up 90% full of decent people who made stupid mistakes, or were falsely accused, who pose zero threat to anyone.
If you're going to do this, make it for animal killers and torturers only.
What is the definition of "abuse" these people are using? Will a person who leaves their animal in a hot car for a small period of time be put on? What about someone who feeds their pet improperly? Or someone whose pet escapes from their backyard too often? Or someone who walks their pet without a leash?
These things always start out as a list of vile trash but, a few years in, end up 90% full of decent people who made stupid mistakes, or were falsely accused, who pose zero threat to anyone.
If you're going to do this, make it for animal killers and torturers only.