Why everyone should insist cities use information (Part 6 and Final)

Yesterday, I dug deeper into the data to see if we could find real information regarding dog bites, and what cities might do to try to prevent them.  Overwhelmingly, the information points to the following factors leading to dog bites:

1) Number of stray dogs

2) Number of neglect and cruelty cases in an area

3) Amount of crimes (both violent and non-violent) in an area (presumably leading to people getting dogs for guarding purposes)

So what happens when cities focus on data -- and individual statistic -- and focuses their efforts on controlling dog bites with some type of breed restrictions?  They take their eye off of what really matters.  Instead of their local animal control focusing their efforts on dealing with strays and neglect and cruelty issues, they end up focusing on things that aren't relevant to public safety.  There is always an opportunity cost associated with BSL...and that opportunity is to focus on the things that matter.

This is why San Francisco, CA had more than 100% increase in dog bites two years after passing their ordinance mandating the spay/neuter of pit bulls (this is the ordinance Kansas City, MO used as inspiration for their current ordinance).

This is why Council Bluffs, Iowa has seen an increase in dog bites since passing their breed specific legislation 2 years ago.

This is why The UK, which was the "leader" in Breed Specific Ordinances when they banned four different breeds of dogs, has seen a 34% increase in hospitalizations due to dog bites since their Dangerous Dogs Act was last updated in 1997.

This is also why Erie County Ohio saw a DECREASE in dog bites in the two years following its largest city, Sandusky repealing its breed ban because of fears the law was unconstitutional.

And the cost to the cities in enforcing Breed Specific Ordinances can get very expensive, as New London (Ontario) found out with their pit bull ban sucking up 25% of their overall animal control costs.

These costs take money and resources away from enforcing other animal control violations like cruelty, neglect and stray dogs - -the enforcement of which would actually have a POSITIVE effect on public safety.

Every person who lives in a city has a stake in this.  Every citizen should demand that their city makes decisions based on REAL INFORMATION, not a small data set that not only will tell a small part of the story, will often tell a part of the story completely incorrectly.  Once we start doing this, and listening to the dog experts in our communities, we will get to animal control ordinances that really work.  Until then, we'll be stuck with cities making bad, breed specific laws, that actually do nothing to improve the public safety of our communities -- and in fact, take resources away from the things that do.

Comments

[virgil mccubbins]

i hope someone in our beloved usa can get there heads on strait and come up with one unified decision on animal control laws such as leash laws and so forth . it seems that everyone has there own way of dealing with this issue and its open game on owners of our beloved pets when in actuality ther should be a set of laws that everyone should and i say should abide by but that just dont happen in the real world for some reason. when people start bending rules to fit the way they want the law to read then our society might as well throw the constitution out the window ,whose going to abide o4r much less follow the rules anyhow .i guess were all animals anyhow so wouldnt it be in our best intrest to say ill do as i please cause there isnt any rules anyhow . in our beloved country we ARE INNOCENT until proven guilty but not our pets ,any controversy just kil them,problem solved? that just dont work for me . a animal cannot speak for itself and trusts in us to take care of them and when someone else decides the fate of anothers animal we mightas well say thge heell with it all and turn into animals ourself then the government could just put us all to sleep. this is my thoughts on a ongoing issue im currently inved in . im reaching out for help for my pet at any cost im in plattsburg mo where they bend the rules to fit whatever they want to do at will, surly there is someone who can help . god bless our pets and there loved ones

[Laura G]

When Indianapolis was considering BSL a few years ago, the people at Indy Pit Crew exhibited a map produced by Indianapolis Animal Care and Control. The map indicated the location, by way of color-coded dots, of every call that the ACO's had gone on the previous year. Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of the dots were clustered in certain zip codes.

Interestingly enough, the BSL-obsessed mayor (who has since been sacked) had just declared a war on the high crime in a few selected zip codes.

Want to guess what they had in common?

Yep. Lots of people who refused to comply with laws, much less animal ordinances, a lot of loose, mismanaged dogs (of all kinds of breeds), and a lot of frustrated citizens who deserved better from their local goverment than a "silver bullet" solution for a complex problem.

[Brent]

And don't forget the good people that got "watchdogs" because they were tired of getting their homes broken into. There are a lot of good people in these neighborhoods (they never make the news either), who live in fear because the police are unable to provide adequate protection. So they get a dog (they can't afford an alarm system) for protection, and because training a guard dog is a highly specialized skill, they end up endangering their family or the neighbor's kid. But yeah, if you follow the crime, you'll find the dog bites, for a variety of different reasons. The dogs are just a symptom of a much larger societal problem...