Right now, in Pennsylvania, animal shelters and rescues have no way of knowing whether they are adopting a pet out to a convicted animal abuser. That should not be. Even if they maintain their own “do not adopt” list based on their knowledge about their own history, they have no way of knowing if a potential adopter abused or neglected animals from other shelters. Some fears can be laid to rest by having extensive conversations with the potential adopter or by doing home visits before approving adoptions, but even the most experienced adoption counselor has been fooled and, in the real world, large shelters do not have the staff to conduct their own investigations or even do home visits. That is where the idea for animal abuse registries started. Modeled after the Megan's Law registries for child sex offenders, animal abuse registries would provide some sort of central database to which shelters or rescues could refer before completing an adoption. But, as with most legal issues involving animals, the solution is not simple and, while we can look to other types of offenses for guidance, they do not provide a perfect analogy.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) has been at the forefront of pushing state and local legislation authorizing the creation of animal abuse registries. In 2001, ALDF added an “offender registration and community notification” section to its collection of model laws available for state and local animal advocates. Most registries are at the local level, giving them limited utility, but interest in statewide animal abuser registries increased with legislation passed in Tennessee in 2008 and California in 2010. In October 2010, legislators in Suffolk County, New York, unanimously passed a bill creating the nation's first countywide animal abuser registry. Others have advocated for a national animal abuser registry, arguing that would be the only way to prevent abusers from simply crossing a city, county or state line to get more animals.

Different bills propose very different requirements for offenders and, consequently, raise different degrees of constitutional and other concerns from opponents. There are currently two bills pending in the Pennsylvania legislature, a comparison of which illustrates how different these registry bills can be. Both HB 351 and SB 527 propose to create animal abuse registries. HB 351 is the simpler of the two. It puts the burden on county sheriffs and the Pennsylvania State Police to maintain and disseminate information from an animal abuser registry. This would seem to be a substantial burden with no funding set aside from the budget to cover it but the bill applies only to those convicted of a felony-level animal cruelty offense, which, in Pennsylvania, means mainly animal fighters. The bill would have no effect on the vast majority of cruelty and neglect cases, which are only summary offenses under 18 Pa. C. S. A. Section 5511 (c). SB 527 is a far more extensive bill covering both felony- and misdemeanor-level animal offenders as well as those convicted of attempts to commit such offenses. In addition to expanding the registration requirement to those convicted of misdemeanor offenses, including second or subsequent offenses for basic cruelty and neglect, the bill attempts to respond to anticipated objections by prohibiting the illegal use of animal abuse registry information and by giving offenders the right to bring suit against any individual or group who is engaged in a pattern or practice of misuse of the information. It also creates an animal abuse registry fund and allocates the proceeds between county sheriffs and the Pennsylvania State Police for purposes of reimbursing the expenses associated with maintaining the registry. Both of these bills would make the information in the registry (other than the offender's Social Security number) available to the public on the Internet.