Ever since the untimely and very public demise of "Cecil the Lion", here in Rhode Island we've seen a renewed interest in the care taking of animals, and punishment for those who do them wrong. Perhaps it was just the timing as it relates to the story of Cecil the Lion, but "Moses the dog" truly captured all of our hearts-and how could he not? A sad story about a dog that was all skin and bones, with an offender right here, that we were sure we could make pay! But can we?
Despite being regularly ranked by the Animal Legal Defense Fund as one of the top states in the nation for animal protection laws, we quickly found out that justice isn't so swift, nor is it guaranteed for animals like Moses. It wasn't 24 hours after we discovered Moses' true owner that we discovered that owner had more dogs that he still kept. The next day, on talk radio here in Providence Dr. Finocchio or the RISPCA was interviewed, and he didn't even know that the current dogs of Brian Kenney-the suspect in the Moses the dog case-would or could be taken away. He also revealed that not only does he consider the laws here very lax when it comes to animal cruelty, but he says they're not properly enforced either. That although the laws may allow for up to a year in jail or $500 fine for such an offense, he'd never seen such a penalty levied in any animal cruelty case put before the Providence courts.
After calming expectations and calls for his figurative head, Dr. Finocchio set up a meeting for September 14 (last night) at the RISPCA for those worried about such laws to meet up and talk about taking action that will affect such cases in the future. Amongst them, and the rest of us interested in the topic of animal cruelty one question really stands forth: do penalties for such crimes need to be increased, or do our current laws simply need to be enforced?
According to the Animal Legal Defense Fund's annual report, in 2014 Rhode Island was ranked in the top ten (9th overall) for animal protection laws, we also know that this report measures only the laws, not their implementation or enforcement. And while laws are nice, what are they without implementation and enforcement but wasted paper and lip service? In 2015, we've certainly made strides in written laws, but are we enforcing them?
On July 10, David Rodriguez of Johnston, RI was the first Rhode Islander arrested under the new law covering dogs being left in hot cars. He was due in court July 16, where he could have lost his pet and ultimately faced up to a year in jail and/or a $1,000 fine. What did he get? We have no idea, because nobody has followed up, mentioned, or probably even thought about David Rodriguez since that day. He's not a part of our current news cycle-in other words he hasn't done anything in the last 2-3 days-so we've completely forgotten about him.
Given the progressive nature of Rhode Island's animal cruelty laws, and apparent inaction of the court to enforce them thus far, I think it's fairly clear that the true path to dissuading animal abuse here in Rhode Island, is for us to ask judges to enforce the laws as they're currently written, and enact the punishments they're empowered to. Collectively we need to put more pressure on our judicial system to do just that.
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