Starting in January 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigations will change the way animal cruelty is reported in the National Incident-Based Reporting System.
In the past, animal abuse fell under an ‘other’ category lumped together with other less serious crimes, said Maura Davies with the SPCA of Texas.
However, next month the FBI will begin to track four types of animal abuse as Group A offenses.
There will be four categories to report animal abuse incidents investigated by law enforcement including neglect, abuse and torture, organized abuse like dog fighting and cockfighting and animal sexual abuse.
"This is important just for just tracking, education of law-enforcement, and being able to support states across the US and people’s efforts to successfully speak with their representatives about increasing animal cruelty punishments," Davies said.
Davies said the new reporting of animal cruelty cases shows it is a high priority.
"The SPCA of Texas receives between 3,000 and 5,000 calls of suspected animal cruelty or abuse each year," Davies said. "This past year we seized more than 1,500 animals from cruelty."
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In addition, with new data law enforcement may be able to better highlight a link between animal abuse and other crimes.
"The important thing about law-enforcement seeing this data more readily is that it will allow law-enforcement professionals to truly have the data to see how closely animal cruelty is linked," said Davies. "In fact, it's a one-to-one correlation between animal cruelty and human violence."
While the information will begin to be collected in 2016, it won’t be available to the public until the following year, according to a podcast by the FBI.
