Animal abuse not uncommon

Some of Bloomington's most brutal crimes are committed against creatures who are completely defenseless.\nCrimes might range from denying food and water to burning, hanging and shooting. \nThe motivation can be a good laugh or an uncontrollable urge to demonstrate power and control. The victims most often include cats, dogs and rodents. \nAnimal cruelty is a complex type of crime that ranges widely in severity. The Dec. 17 campus incident involving a guinea pig being tossed from an eighth-floor window with a makeshift parachute initially was conceived as a joke, but more serious cases of animal abuse are not unheard of in Bloomington.\n"What someone might think is a terrible crime, we don't see as quite so bad," said Laurie Ringquist, director of the Bloomington Animal Care and Control Center. "We see an awful lot of stuff here."\nRingquist said she sees anywhere between six and twelve animal cruelty cases each year. The most typical victims are dogs and cats, but she says the center will handle almost any animal, from horses to reptiles. \nRingquist broke animal cruelty into two types: abuse, which is intentionally hurting or harming an animal, and neglect, which is failure to care for an animal. She said the most common cases of abuse in Bloomington occur when animals are abandoned and left without food and water. \n"I'd say there are probably more neglect cases because of people not understanding how to take care of an animal," said Sarah Hayes, executive director of the Monroe County Humane Association. She said neglect varies from a person not knowing to give a dog heartworm pills to simply not feeding a pet.\nHowever, abuse cases are not uncommon. Hayes noted that one of the humane society's major fund-raisers is the Olivia Fund, which helps pay the medical bills of owners whose pets are victims of abuse. The fund was established for a cat named Olivia who died after being set on fire by four IU students in 1997.\nAccording to the Animal Abuse Crime Online Database, more recent animal cruelty cases in Bloomington include two horses who were found neglected and under-nourished in August and several puppies who were found in a trash bin last February. Hayes said animal cruelty in Indiana is a class D felony, thanks to Mayor Mark Kruzan, who helped pass a bill changing it from a misdemeanor during his time in the state legislature. She also said animal control officers work much like police officers: When a case of cruelty is found, the officer can issue a fine and make a recommendation to the Monroe County prosecutor regarding the severity of the case. \n"Rarely is there a time that a case isn't in some phase of the system," Hayes said. "It (animal cruelty) is more frequent and more severe than I'd like to see." \nProfessor of psychology Peter Finn said there are many causes of a person committing an animal abuse crime. He said the guinea pig incident was more likely an act of immaturity and lack of forethought than a psychological problem. He said another reason people might harm an animal is if they are intoxicated. Other animal cruelty incidents result from more serious complications. \n"The more incidents occur, the more severe the abuse, and the more intentional it is, ... the more likely it is that the individual has severe psychological problems," Finn said. \nFinn said usually two types of people commit animal cruelty crimes. Some have emotional problems in which the person fails to feel compassion or guilt. \n"The average person would cringe, but this person wouldn't respond," he said. "The person somehow gets pleasure out of hurting an animal."\nAnother possibility is that people have an "impulse-control problem" in which they go into a state of rage, harming anything in their path. These people later feel remorse. \nFinn also said there is a clear connection between being abused as a child and later becoming abusive as an adult. Causes of animal abuse are similar to those that cause a person to abuse a spouse, child or elderly person.\n"It goes with an attitude of taking advantage of people who are defenseless and vulnerable," he said. "There's an association there."\n--Contact Staff Writer Kelly Ginty at kginty@indiana.edu