House passes bill to create statewide animal abuser registry

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MAY 27, 2019 04:20 PM, UPDATED 35 MINUTES AGO
PROVIDENCE, R.I.

A bill to create a statewide animal abuser registry in Rhode Island has cleared the House and awaits action in the Senate.

The House passed a bill on Thursday to create a registry to prevent people with a history of mistreating animals from obtaining other animals, advancing it to the Senate.

Democratic Rep. Arthur Corvese, of North Providence, is leading the effort. He calls it a commonsense measure to prevent known abusers from "having easy access to more likely victims."

. . .

The information would remain in the registry for 15 years. Anyone convicted more than once would have to register for life.

Read more: https://www.bradenton.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article230881409.html

[AJT]

1. I think abusers of animals should be punished,

and there are state laws covering animal abuse, but adding the expense of creating and maintaining a registry seems to be a waste of money. A person's history of arrests, etc is available to authorities already.

[meow2u3]

2. Animal shelters would know who's been convicted of cruelty to animals

This way, they would also know not to allow those criminals to adopt a pet.

[smb]

4. Also, It Would Warn People About Dangers To The Community

Animal abuse now is a strong predictor of human abuse later.

That is the basis for a coldly logical case for severely punishing animal abusers. People behave themselves for two reasons: internal restraint (conscience) and external restraint (fear of punishment). Animal abuse is a clear diagnostic signal that the former is simply not working, the logical response is to amplify the latter.

[JudyM]

3. K&R for preventing animal abuse.