Q: Does your office prosecute animal cruelty cases?
A: Yes. We recently submitted our annual legislative budget request and in it we included a funding request for a dedicated animal cruelty unit. We have a robust animal cruelty representation already as one of our prosecutors is on the Florida Bar Animal Cruelty section. He’s our expert for any animal cruelty cases in our four counties to train and coach prosecutors handling these types of cases. More funding from the legislature would allow for us to hire more prosecutors and having a dedicated unit would enhance our efforts.
Q: Why is this important?
A: Animals deserve to be treated with love and respect and animal cruelty is bad enough on its own, but when you consider that animal cruelty is a strong indicator of other crimes against humans, strong prosecution of these cases is necessary. If we can prevent other crimes against children or spouses, it makes our community safer.
Q: What is the correlation between animal cruelty and violent crimes against humans?
A: Statistics show a strong correlation between those who are intentionally cruel to animals and those who commit violent crimes against people. Surveys have shown that 71 percent of domestic violence victims said their abusers also targeted pets. In another study, pet abuse had occurred in 88 percent of families under supervision for abuse of the children. If a person is prone to senseless violence against animals, it’s a logical progression that they may also abuse people.
Q: What other kinds of animal cruelty need to be considered?
A: People who are animal hoarders display another form of animal cruelty. These are the people who just have too many pets to care for. The animals are victimized, but this is often also a sign that the hoarder has a mental health condition and intervention is necessary. Also, there is organized animal cruelty such as dog fighting and cock fighting. These abusers train the animals to be aggressive and violent. Sometimes due to the heightened aggression at these events of not only the animals but also the people, homicides and other violent events occur.
I believe that a strong policy of prosecuting animal cruelty cases may also prevent other crimes and that is why we are requesting this additional funding.
