GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) — On average, every year 10 million animals die from abuse in the United States alone.
The Special Reports Team at Veterinarians.org analyzed data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Incident-Based Reporting System which provides national and state data for a variety of crime types, including animal cruelty offenses.
With this data, the team created three lists:
- The Top 15 states with the highest number of animal cruelty offenses over a 10-year period
- The Top 15 states with the highest number of animal cruelty offenses in 2021 (the most current year available)
- The Top 15 states with the highest incident rate of animal cruelty offenses in 2021 (number of offenses per 100K people).
The first list is an analysis of animal cruelty offenses in the US over a 10-year period. Texas takes the lead with nearly 7,000 offenses during this time. This number is six times higher than the national average.
There were 16,573 animal cruelty offenses reported to US law enforcement agencies in 2021.
Texas, along with Delaware, Virginia, and Georgia, are the only states on the list where animal cruelty offenses exceeded 1,000 within the analyzed year. All of the states listed see offense numbers that are higher than the national average (324).
Delaware sees 129 animal cruelty offenses for every 100,000 people. This incident rate is 16 times higher than the national average.
North Dakota, Colorado, Montana, and Virginia round out the Top 5 in this list. All but two of the states on the list have an incident rate that’s higher than the national average.
