FBI Turns Animal Cruelty Into Top-Tier Felony
Source: abcNews
Young people who torture and kill animals are prone to violence against people later in life if it goes unchecked, studies have shown. A new federal category for animal cruelty crimes will help root out those pet abusers before their behavior worsens and give a boost to prosecutions, an animal welfare group says.
For years, the FBI has filed animal abuse under the label "other" along with a variety of lesser crimes, making cruelty hard to find, hard to count and hard to track. The bureau announced this month that it would make animal cruelty a Group A felony with its own category — the same way crimes like homicide, arson and assault are listed.
"It will help get better sentences, sway juries and make for better plea bargains," said Madeline Bernstein, president and CEO of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles and a former New York prosecutor.
The category also will help identify young offenders, and a defendant might realize "if he gets help now, he won't turn into Jeffrey Dahmer," she said.
Law enforcement agencies will have to report incidents and arrests in four areas: simple or gross neglect; intentional abuse and torture; organized abuse, including dogfighting and cockfighting; and animal sexual abuse, the FBI said in statement. The bureau didn't answer questions beyond a short statement.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/fbi-turns-animal-cruelty-top-tier-felony-25889135
Yaaay! The FBI is making the connection!
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I have a "neighbor" that just last week threatened to dump a poison all over his yard after stating that he has seen my cat jump the fence.
Said cat and my other two cats are no longer going outside because of this threat as I consider it to be
Maybe a call to the Sheriff is in order?
I've been so upset I cannot tell ya'll.
This should and is a horrible crime. People that abuse/kill animals belong in a place called prison!!!!!
before being pulled or poisoned. 
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Jeffrey Dahmer did not torture and kill animals. Instead he collected ones that were already dead. At least when I read up on him, all accounts that I read said that was what he did. I may have missed where he ever actually killed any animals.
Still, I'm glad they are doing this. It is a good idea to stop the nasty animal torturers as young as possible. I hate the culture where I live. Here, the mayor of the town six miles north of me, named Ellerbe, hit a black bear and held its head up for a picture on the front page of the local newspaper, like he was posing in a hunting trophy picture or something. What a fucking asshole. Little boys here will brutally kill animals to please their other male buddies and make girls cry. Later, those same straight girls end up marrying those boys and having children who will do the same, generation after generation. Parents and teachers laugh about it when little boys here do these cruel things to animals. It is a decidedly cruel place. I hope the feds will crack down on some of the cruelty in my area while they are at it.
And yes, there has been a serial killer operating in my county and the one next to us for over a decade with not much news about it in the papers. If the sheriff of the county next to us hadn't mentioned it by accident once in the 90s, I would never have known. Our local paper has never mentioned it. And most people here do not know it. Women are turning up dead and slashed up here and people think this is Grade A safe little town, much better than the nasty evil bigger cities up north. I wish I was joking about their attitude, but I am not. That is how they really feel.
I sometimes feel I live in the bowels of Hell, especially considering what these assholes around here consider "fun." 
