It's tough to not laugh at Cincinnati at this point. It's almost as if they're rats in the maze that keep pushing the same buzzer over and over hoping this is the time it doesn't shock them. I don't know how else to explain it.
For starters, Cincinnati is under Ohio's state law sets restrictions on 'pit bulls' (insurance requirements, containment and leash requirement). In 2003, they decided that law wasn't working, so the city decided to institute an all-out ban on 'pit bulls'. That too proved to be a failure.
In 2007, the city continued to euthanize over 1000 pit bulls a year, the number of "German Shepherds in the shelter started to grow, and the city estimated that it spend more than $86,000 prosecuting the 50 'pit bulls' that were taken from homes for being illegal.
So, the city decided to up the anty, and in spite of having one of the highest murder rates per capita in the country, in June of 2008, the city passed an ordinance that began training police officers to identify pit bulls so the police force could help enforce the ordinance.
So what do you do when that doesn't work?
Jim McNulty, the president of the Westwood Civic Association said it's common for pit bulls to still live in his neighborhood and pleaded with the council to do something about it. The Cincinnati SPCA says that over 1,000 'pit bulls' show up at the shelter still every year (although, it should be noted that the SPCA folks aren't very good at breed identification as they are currently facing a lawsuit for killing a woman's American Bulldog that was mistaken for a 'pit bull")
So, Cincinnati created more laws.
So this week, Cincinnati passed a law that not only can people not own pit bulls, but now it will be illegal to breed them, sell them, or give them away too.
Huh?
If it's illegal to own one? Then wouldn't it already be illegal to breed or sell one?
So now, if someone is caught owning, keeping, breeding, selling or transfering owenrship of a pit bull in any way, they will face up to six months in jail. That's six months in jail for owning a dog.
Let's put this in perspective. Cincinnati is a crime-ridden city. Their murder rate is 4x the national average. Forcible rape? 3x the national average. Robbery? 4x. Burglary? 2x. Larceny? 2x. Car Theft? 1.5x. All of this helped get Cincinnati rates as the 16th most dangerous city in the US with a population over 75,000.
And we're going to put people in jail because they own a certain type of dog, that may or may not be dangerous, that may or may not even be a pit bull. Are we going to take Paulette Evans' dog, kill it and throw her in jail too?
That's not how I'd prefer to use the jail space in Cincinnati if I lived there.
It is sort of entertaining to watch the city council in Cincinnati try to make their breed specific laws work. They're now on version 4.0 of this ordinance because they can't get it to work. Maybe, at some point they're realize the law isn't not working because it isn't harsh enough -- maybe eventually they'll figure out it isn't working because it is an unenforceable law based on a failed premise.
You can't tell a vicious dog by its shape.And even if certain breeds were more aggressive, the ability to tell different breeds apart, particularly with mixed breeds, is virtually impossible and will lead to lawsuits. Dangerous dogs are not a problem -- but a symptom of a much larger societal problem that remains a problem within Cincinnati. It isn't the problem itself.
And tweaking a failed law with a failed premise isn't going to fix it.
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