What A Felony Anti-Cruelty Law Should Do.

Apply to all animals.
Apply to first-time offenders.
Have large fines and lengthy prison time as penalties.
Have no exemptions.
Allow or require convicted abusers to get counseling at their own expense.
Prohibit abusers from possessing animals or living where animals are present.
Additionally, statutes should be combined with a strong commitment to enforce the law. Police, psychologists and even the FBI recognize the link between animal cruelty and acts of violence toward people. To better protect communities, all states should have strong penalties and should work to educate and increase community awareness of the significance of animal cruelty crimes. Every state has a law against animal cruelty. But what's surprising is the degree to which the states differ in their prohibition of cruelty. While some states have strong felony-level penalties, others still categorize egregious acts of intentional cruelty, such as setting an animal on fire or maliciously beating an animal, as misdemeanors or felonies with relatively weak penalties. As of June 2007, 43 states have enacted felony-level penalties for certain acts of animal cruelty, 29 of them in the last ten years. Some states have relatively effective laws that do not contain felony-level penalties, and not all states with felony-level provisions have otherwise strong laws. While the majority of states cover all animals, several restrict felony-level penalties to crimes against zoo or companion animals.