Sunday, December 23, 2012

PETITION: We demand HARSHER PENALTIES for ANIMAL CRUELTY worldwide!

PETITION: We demand HARSHER PENALTIES for ANIMAL CRUELTY worldwide! LINK: http://www.causes.com/causes/644857-let-s-turn-facebook-orange-for-animal-cruelty-awareness/actions/1691659 Animal cruelty and the case for harsher punishment.. Dear members of Let's turn Facebook Orange for Animal Cruelty Awareness ... please sign and share our petition. I am hoping to get 100,000 member signatures! But in order to achieve this number i need all your help. Please help lobby, create awareness, be vigilant, and let the Lawmakers know that this is an important matter to us all. Animals are often relegated to the bottom of priorities because, as they say, animals don't vote… When we protect our animals, we then are also protecting our society against violence. People who have been known to hurt animals move on to hurt human beings. Widening our circle of compassion to include the animals is not just for sentimental reasons. It makes perfect sense. Animals are connected to people. What happens to them happens to us. More often than not these cases don't reach the courts but the few that do demonstrate our judicial system's failure to treat animal abuse as a serious offence. Magistrates can impose jail terms of up to 5 years but it is extremely rare for a custodial sentence to be handed down in an animal abuse case. Despite extensive evidence linking cruelty to animals to serious violent offences against people, the judiciary continue to treat such crimes as largely trivial matters. If our system is designed to punish as well as prevent serious criminal offences then surely greater attention needs to be paid to those who mistreat animals, particularly those who torture and kill for fun. The direct relationship between animal abuse and violent crime has been recognised by the FBI since the 1970s. Many of the world's most notorious killers have long histories of animal abuse; Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, Edmund Kemper and Albert DeSalvo better known as the Boston Strangler were all fond of torturing animals. In Australia murderers such as Paul Denyer, Robert Barrett and Ivan Milat are known to have tortured animals long before they started killing people. What greater motivation do our legislators and Courts need to treat animal cruelty with the utmost seriousness? Simply cautioning offenders is not good enough. In the United States of America, there has been a growing trend towards toughening laws to make animal cruelty a felony rather than only a misdemeanour. Penalties for individuals who engage in deliberate animal cruelty have been increased, dramatically in some states. England has similarly strengthened its animal welfare laws but in Australia we continue to treat these heinous crimes as minor offences not worthy of lengthy custodial sentences despite profilers and psychologists telling us that one of the strongest precursors to violent crime including murder is a history of animal abuse. Tough penalties including incarceration must be handed down for serious animal abuse cases. To allow such cruel and sadistic behaviour to keep going unpunished is not only morally reprehensible, it may very well have dire consequences when at some point these offenders turn their rage and fury on the rest of us. Thank you.

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