Why The ASPCA, Anti-Cruelty Society, PETA, And Others Must Stop Investigating Animal Abuse

If the ASPCA, Anti-Cruelty Society, PETA and others want to help abused animals, they must immediately stop conducting their own investigations and instead become advocates for a proper and widespread response to animal cruelty by public law enforcement.

This is a repeat of some information previously provided, but it is critically important for understanding why these organizations should not be investigating or responding to animal cruelty.

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Violent crimes can happen any time, any place. Only public law enforcement is available 24 hours a day most everywhere to respond. No one else is as capable of responding to crimes in progress.

Crimes in progress, especially violent crimes, must receive an appropriate, timely response.

If domestic violence, for example, is not responded to by public law enforcement, and if responding to domestic violence is left in the hands of special teams and private nonprofit organizations, there will be an explosion of domestic violence. If police do not respond appropriately to in progress domestic violence calls and if the public relies upon private organizations and special teams to do investigations, practically every domestic violence offender will never get arrested and the crime will grow exponentially.

This is how it is when it comes to dog fighting and animal cruelty. When these crimes are in progress, the public law enforcement response is poor, with few exceptions. The acceptance that animal cruelty and dog fighting can be investigated after the fact while accepting a poor response when the crimes are in progress means almost all animal cruelty and dog fighting offenders never get arrested.

Victims of violent crimes, including animal cruelty and dog fighting, cannot wait for special police teams or animal organization humane investigators to respond.

Dog fighting and animal cruelty are poorly responded to when in progress, and rarely responded to appropriately when on viewed by public law enforcement. The advocacy needed for this to change has been nonexistent for decades now. If violent crimes, including animal cruelty and dog fighting, are not responded to properly when in progress, and if they are ignored when police on view these crimes, then the crimes grow unchecked.

What is needed is for public law enforcement at large to respond appropriately to 911 calls for animal cruelty and dog fighting, and to respond appropriately when on viewing animal cruelty and dog fighting. Animal organizations and so called animal advocates should have long been at the forefront ensuring proper police responses. Every effort that diverts from this being achieved benefits animal abusers and dog fighters.

Most humane investigators do not have law enforcement powers, which makes their investigations toothless at best. Those that do have law enforcement powers - whether they are employed by private sector nonprofit organizations or are assigned by police departments to investigate animal cruelty -  do little more than give larger public law enforcement an excuse to continue doing little to nothing about animal cruelty and dog fighting. Token police teams assigned by a police department or by an animal organization to investigate animal cruelty are little more than public relations ploys that enable police departments and other public law enforcement to continue poorly responding to animal cruelty related crimes.

It is often ineffective, even harmful, when animal abuse and dog fighting are investigated by special police teams or by humane investigators fielded by non profit animal organizations. Many are the times where animal abusers and dog fighters move their animals to another location after getting paid a visit by a humane investigator or another investigator.


Humane investigators can play a role in helping animals. They can assist people that have animals that are not properly cared for in the many instances where animal care needs to be improved but does not rise to the level of criminal animal cruelty or abuse. They must stop conducting criminal investigations they have no business conducting.

No animal organization has any business investigating animal cruelty. They have created a false impression that something meaningful is being done about animal cruelty and dog fighting. The more the public thinks they are the answer to animal cruelty, the more money pours their way in donations.

If animal organizations want to help, they must become advocates for police to respond appropriately and in a widespread manner to animal cruelty and dog fighting. They can also assist police departments in removing animals from crime scenes if needed and by providing shelter if needed for the animals until a judge decides if the seizure is justified. Because this does not keep the illusion going that certain animal organizations are the answer to animal cruelty, this does not happen.

The dysfunctional status quo means dog fighters have a greater chance of getting struck by lightning than ever getting arrested for dog fighting. Few animals abusers are arrested despite animal cruelty being a common occurring widespread crime. Animal cruelty is an easy crime for police to enforce, if things ever change for the better and there is a widespread appropriate police response to animal cruelty, in that the physical evidence of the crime is most often visible and easy to document.

Sadistic people continue burning, starving, torturing, fighting, beating, and mutilating animals with rarely anything being done to stop them.

No anti domestic violence or anti drunk driving organization conducts their own criminal investigations. Instead, they advocate for police to respond broadly and appropriately to those crimes. If they investigated these crimes on their own and did not hold police accountable, domestic violence and drunk driving would be out of control.

What is needed is for public law enforcement at large to respond appropriately to 911 calls for animal cruelty and dog fighting, and to respond appropriately when on viewing animal cruelty and dog fighting. Animal organizations must advocate to make this happen. Everything else, token anti animal abuse police teams, humane investigators, nonprofit animal organizations' anti cruelty investigations, and so forth, are only ineffective window dressing that maintains a dysfunctional status quo.

The priority for all crimes, animal cruelty, dog fighting, domestic violence, battery and so forth, is for a timely and appropriate police response when these crimes are in progress. Failing to respond appropriately to in progress crimes and crimes that are on viewed by law enforcement, including animal cruelty and dog fighting, means missing the most critically important opportunities for stopping these crimes.

Is it ethical for a private nonprofit organization to investigate any crime, including animal cruelty, when the public already pays through their taxes for public law enforcement to perform this task?  If public law enforcement is not properly doing their job in responding to a crime, including for animal cruelty, then it is the responsibility for an organization concerned about animal cruelty to ensure that that there is a better police response. No organization should use the poor police response as the excuse for why they should be the ones investigating a crime. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The poor police response is exploited by a number of animal organizations, who use this opportunity to present themselves as the answer to animal cruelty. By presenting themselves as the answer to animal cruelty, they create a false narrative that generates money and publicity for themselves.

No animal organization, even if they were far more successful and competent than they are now at responding to animal cruelty, can come anywhere close in effectiveness to what public law enforcement can achieve.

To repeat the same message said for decades now to these organizations, only to fall on deliberately deaf ears -  help animals, stop investigating animal cruelty and instead be advocates that fight for the police to respond appropriately.