Last week, Best Friends Animal Society launched a new study, completed by John Dunham & Associates, that tries to put a mathematical formula behind the cost of enforcing breed specific legislation in a community.
The bottom line: it would cost $450 million to enforce a nation-wide ban on pit bulls.
"Pit Bull bans are enormously expensive and ineffective," said Ledy Van Kavage of Best Friends. "And if breed descriminatory ordinances are passed, people who love their pets will fight the arbitrary identification of their dog, making them more difficult to enforce. If you take someone's property away, the burden of proof is on the government to prove the pet is subject to the law, which means you must prove it is a pit bull. That becomes an extensive, costly battle that could require DNA testing to see if the dog actually is subject to a ban."
I'm sure there will be people who will try to poke holes in the study's methodology. The reality is, there hasn't been a ton of research in this area, so they had to make some assumptions based on the best available data. And the study tries to accumulate everything -- enforcement, sheltering, vet care, euthanasia, DNA testing and litigation. And each city's circumstance is different.
But the reality is, BSL IS expensive to implement...and you don't have to look very hard to find that out. Denver is now looking at going to court for the third time defending their breed ban. Kansas City, KS - 20 years after passing their breed ban -- continues to lose battles in court over breed identification problems. 20 years after passing their ban, Miami Dade county's law was declared "too vague" because of the difficulty of determining breed ID. And Kansas City, MO is dealing with the sheltering and killing of thousands of dogs because of their ordinance (which isn't even a ban, it's just mandatory spay/neuter for pit bulls), including at least one that was taken unjustly and mistakenly killed.
Given all of this, I'd be stunned if their estimates aren't low. Besides, the costs are based on effectively enforcing BSL, even though no one has done that yet. Anywhere.
It makes absolutely no sense given that there are significantly better options available - with a proven track record of working.
Go check out the article, and feel free to check out their online calculator that should calculate the costs of enforcement in your city.
Very informative post. I have also checked the links.
Posted by: Patrice | June 04, 2009 at 06:36 AM