animal cruelty?

Of course then people would think twice about it . In my opinion there is no difference between children or animals . Both need protecting and abuse of one leads to abuse of the other. As many have said most serial killers started their career by torturing animals. It is not a normal thing to do.And nothing excuses it.

Those convicted of animal cruelty SHOULD be given harsher sentances and it should be relavant to the cirumstances (e.g a woman with 50 cats she cannot care for should not recieve the same sentance as a person who tortures a dog for 3 days before slowly killing it).

I am not relating the murder of a dog to the murder of a human (completely different league) but the penalties we have here are rediculous.What does a £100 fine and ban from keeping animals for a year teach anyone?

Another thought: many violent offenders have a history of animal abuse (this is one of the main milestones for serial killers). If abusing animals was not considered so trivial then maybe these people can be stopped before they go on to kill humans.

In my mind anyone who senslessly abuses and animal needs to be viewed as a potential risk to others. There is something very very wrong about abusing such trust.

I think people might think twice about abusing animals if they knew the courts could throw the book at them for doing that. The sentences are too light. And it is a proven statistical fact that humans that are violent towards animals are often violent towards other humans, children who abuse animals often grow up to be abusive adults. Men who are domestically violent towards women also tend to abuse animals or may even kill the animals to upset the woman or to intimidate her into compliance. Ppl saying no, the courts should not have more power do not know the statistics obviously. Then again, most Americans are too busy watching American Idol to worry about such important things as animal welfare.

Yes definitely harsher sentences should be give for animal cruelty although I am saying more or less that for human cruelty. Animals didn't ask to be put in to the world, they suffer the same pain etc as humans and cannot speak or justify anything they do. Those who are cruel to animals are nothing but cowards !

I think cruelty to animals should have more status.

Friends of mine from Holland said they have to pay something like £150.00 each year for each dog they own, and people will tell on anyone they know who hasn't got their dog licensed, if anyone is found without a licence they receive a fine of about £1,000 same big fines for animal cruelty.

I know I'm going to get slated for this, but as for feeding the poor and the health of the world, we've been giving 3rd world countries billions for years and it has done no good, about time we stopped giving them financial aid,we should only give them supplies, medicines,machinery but absolutely no money, we've got senior citizens in this country who die of hypothermia or don't feed themselves so they can heat their homes, children who are mal nourished, and people sleeping in the streets, what about giving them some aid.

Yes because perhaps the courts would get more power and in situations like when the UK had an out of control poodle in charge like Tony the courts could had intervened -

-what separates us in humanity is how we care for those that need our help- animals sometimes need our help (like a horse i found out about the other day that had its eye shot out by some ASBO chavs using it as target practice) People shouldnt get things like 10 year bans for mistreatment they should have life bans, long jail time and made to help out cleaning up in animal shelters (supervised well)

Of course! People have the power to change the situation that they are in and animals don't. People place animals in situation that they do not choose to be in. So yes, people who are cruel to animals should be punished with harsher sentences because they have the capability to chose their actions and know what is right from wrong. A person who is cruel to animals intentionaly and knowingly choose to do so, so they should be punished just as if they were cruel to a human being (animal or not).

Yes absolutely!!

I deal with abandoned, neglected, abused dogs all the time, it's not my line of work but I foster these dogs for a welfare organisation

It breaks my heart to see how badly some people can treat them

I had one brought to me about 2 years ago, she was only 15 months old but had already had 2 litters.

She was painfully thin, riddled with fleas and worms, had an infected eye that hadn't been treated for some time

Along with those problems she had very severe behavioural issues

She wasn't in anyway aggressive but she was terrified of men

It took nearly a year of working with her to get her health back up and sort out her various problems

Her 'owners' received a fine for what they did to her, and they were free to keep animals in the future

Yes. The courts should be able to impose more significant sentences.

To answer those posters who proclaim that we should be ignoring animal welfare in favour of humans welfare, this is not an either/or scenario. We should be showing equal concern for all sentient beings. One form of cruelty all to often leads to another!

No its status as being below human cruelty should be maintained. Sentencing tariffs should be reviewed and reset and more prisons built to accommodate those that commit offences.