Located recent internet article that says FBI will no longer be filing animal abuse under the label "other" along with lesser crimes. It will have the above label like other crimes such as arson, homicide, assault etc...
Law enforcement agencies will have to report incidents and arrests in four areas - simple or gross neglect, intentional abuse and torture, organized abuse (dogfighting, jerk fighting) and animal sexual abuse.
The FBI's category will track crimes nationwide......
This is/was suppose to start going into effect January 2016, stating it would take several months before there are numbers to analyze......
Wonder if this category change will start showing up on say Michigan website "OTIS" which is available to the public (insert persons name and see if they have any convictions), but that may take several months.
Law enforcement finally getting on board that this type of activity leads to more significant crimes...