Definition: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Input: LOS ANGELES (AP) — Young people who torture and kill animals are prone to violence against people later in life if it goes unchecked, studies have shown. A new federal category for animal cruelty crimes will help root out those pet abusers before their behavior worsens and give a boost to prosecutions, an animal welfare group says. 
  
 For years, the FBI has filed animal abuse under the label "other" along with a variety of lesser crimes, making cruelty hard to find, hard to count and hard to track. The bureau announced this month that it would make animal cruelty a Group A felony with its own category — the same way crimes like homicide, arson and assault are listed. 
  
 "It will help get better sentences, sway juries and make for better plea bargains," said Madeline Bernstein, president and CEO of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles and a former New York prosecutor. 
  
 The category also will help identify young offenders, and a defendant might realize "if he gets help now, he won't turn into Jeffrey Dahmer," she said. 
  
 Law enforcement agencies will have to report incidents and arrests in four areas: simple or gross neglect; intentional abuse and torture; organized abuse, including dogfighting and cockfighting; and animal sexual abuse, the FBI said in statement. The bureau didn't answer questions beyond a short statement. 
  
 "The immediate benefit is it will be in front of law enforcement every month when they have to do their crime reports," said John Thompson, interim executive director of the National Sheriffs' Association who worked to get the new animal cruelty category instituted. "That's something we have never seen." 
  
 Officers will start to see the data are facts and "not just somebody saying the 'Son of Sam' killed animals before he went to human victims and 70-some percent of the school shooters abused animals prior to doing their acts before people," said Thompson, a retired assistant sheriff from Prince George's County, Maryland. 
  
 FBI studies show that serial killers like Dahmer impaled the heads of dogs, frogs and cats on sticks; David Berkowitz, known as the "Son of Sam," poisoned his mother's parakeet; and Albert DeSalvo, aka the "Boston Strangler," trapped cats and dogs in wooden crates and killed them by shooting arrows through the boxes. 
  
 It will take time and money to update FBI and law enforcement databases nationwide, revise manuals and send out guidelines, Thompson said, so there won't be any data collected until January 2016. After that, it will take several months before there are numbers to analyze. 
  
 The new animal cruelty statistics will allow police and counselors to work with children who show early signs of trouble, so a preschooler hurting animals today isn't going to be hurting a person two years from now, Bernstein said. 
  
 The FBI's category will track crimes nationwide and is bound to give animal cruelty laws in all 50 states more clout. Many states are seeing more of those convicted of animal cruelty being sentenced to prison, in marked contrast to years past. 
  
 Whether talking about state laws or the FBI change, it is clear "that regardless of whether people care about how animals are treated, people — like legislators and judges — care about humans, and they can't deny the data," said Natasha Dolezal, director of the animal law program in the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. 
  
 ___ 
  
 Online: 
  
 — National Sheriffs' Association: www.sheriffs.org 
  
 — Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles: www.spcala.com 
  
 — Center for Animal Law Studies: law.lclark.edu/centers/animal_law_studies |||||  
  
 This Aug. 22, 2012, photo provided by the Beaverton, Ore., police shows pit bulls that were allegedly attacked. (AP Photo/Beaverton Police Department) 
  
 It was more than 10 years ago that Mary Lou Randour realized she couldn’t answer what should have been a simple question: Was cruelty against animals on the rise or in decline? 
  
 Randour, a psychologist who switched careers to devote herself full time to animal rights advocacy, found there was no one keeping track of animal-abuse crimes. Even the most egregious cases, like dogfighting, fell under the category of “other” when local police agencies reported their statistics to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’ National Incident Based Reporting System. 
  
 She began a concerted push for the FBI to elevate animal cruelty to its own separate offense category. After a years-long lobbying effort, in 2014, the FBI agreed. And this year will be the first time it collects data on animal crimes the way it does for other serious crimes like homicide. 
  
 The FBI defines cruelty to animals as: “Intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly taking an action that mistreats or kills any animal without just cause, such as torturing, tormenting, mutilation, maiming, poisoning, or abandonment.” 
  
 There will be four categories of crimes: simple or gross neglect, intentional abuse and torture, organized abuse — like dog fighting and cock fighting — and animal sexual abuse. 
  
 “These are creatures that suffer and we know their capacity to suffer,” said Randour, now the senior adviser for animal cruelty programs and training at the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute. “In most societies it’s recognized that creatures that are dependent on others, whether the elderly or children or animals, need to be protected.” 
  
 Over the weekend, a YouTube video of an abused dog in Romania reacting to his first time being petted was viewed more than 4 million times. The dog cowers and yelps at the sight of a woman’s hand. When he realizes she’s showing him affection, he nuzzles close and allows her to stroke him. 
  
 It’s a devastating reminder of the realities of animal cruelty. 
  
 Like these distressing images, advocates hope the statistics on the volume and extent of crimes against animals will evoke similar emotions of outrage and heartbreak. 
  
 The FBI now counting animal abuse as a serious crime and backing it up with hard data is a “huge policy shift and significant step forward,” said Scott Heiser, an attorney with the Animal Defense League. 
  
 “I think there is truth to the notion they will be a lot more interested when they recognize how much volume there really is,” he said. 
  
 In 13 states and Washington, D.C., neglecting an animal is considered a felony. In all but two states, so-called affirmative acts of abuse are a felony on the first offense, though that can be subjective. 
  
 Vandhana Bala, an attorney for Mercy for Animals, which advocates for humane treatment of farmed animals, called the FBI’s move a “step in the right direction.” But she said there is inequity in how cruelty to dogs and cats is punished compared to other animals, like pigs, cows, and chickens. 
  
 On Tuesday, the group scored a victory when a farm worker in North Carolina was convicted for kicking chickens and stomping them to death. 
  
 “As practical matter, it’s heartening that the FBI is beginning to understand the seriousness of animal cruelty,” Bala said, but added that she hopes the agency will crackdown on crimes against all animals. 
  
 The National Sheriffs Association was also a strong backer of the FBI’s policy change. But the group’s motivation wasn’t animal welfare. 
  
 When Randour first brought the idea of tracking animal abuse data to the FBI a decade ago, John Thompson sat on the agency’s policy advisory board. It was dismissed as trivial. But several years ago, Thompson, now deputy executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association, was presented research that many serial killers, like Son of Sam, foreshadowed their penchant for violence at an early age through abusing animals. 
  
 Research has backed up that animal abuse can be a precursor to future violent crimes. In the popular Netflix true crime series, “Making a Murderer,” the principal character burned his cat alive. 
  
 “I’m on a mission because all these years I’ve missed it and it was sitting right in front of me,” Thompson said. 
  
 Some police agencies are already on it. Baltimore and Fairfax counties, for instance, have officers dedicated to investigating animal cruelty complaints. 
  
 The goal, he said, is that after several years of collecting the statistics other agencies will be able to see trends that will allow them to better allocate their resources to catching animal abusers. 
  
 For Randour the mission now is convincing local law enforcement to report the statistics, since the FBI’s data collection is voluntary. Part of that is appealing both emotionally — animal abuse is inhumane — and pragmatically — it can help understand other crimes. 
  
 “There is overwhelming evidence that [animal abuse] is linked to crimes against people, including violent crimes and domestic violence,” she said. “It’s not about protecting people or animals, it’s protecting them both.” ||||| The FBI is now tracking cases of animal cruelty, and while animal advocates and law enforcement differ in their motives, both groups see it as a point of progress. 
  
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 In this photo provided by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, ASPCA CEO Ed Sayres and forensic veterinarian Dr. Melinda Merck hold a puppy named Cole inside the first-ever Mobile Animal Crime Scene Investigation Unit, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007, in New York. The vehicle was created for the ASPCA to advance the prosecution of animal cruelty and strengthen cases against offenders by using veterinary forensics to process evidence at crime scenes. 
  
 In 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will begin collecting data on animal cruelty crimes throughout the country to prevent animal abuse and help flag those who might become violent offenders. 
  
 Animal cruelty crimes will now have their own organized category within the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the FBI’s public collection of national crime statistics. The FBI partnered with the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Animal Welfare Institute to make the change. 
  
 As of this year, animal rights advocates and law enforcement will now have access to organized data on convicted animal abusers such as age, criminal history, and location. 
  
 But how is this collection process different from before? 
  
 “It’s the difference between night and day,” Mary Lou Randour, senior advisor for animal cruelty programs at the Animal Welfare Institute, tells The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview Wednesday. Offenses such as arson, murder, and assault all have their own categories, but animal abuse fell into a catchall category that Ms. Randour refers to as a “dumping ground.” In this "other crimes" folder, statistics on animal abuse became irretrievable and intentionally killing a pet was deemed equivalent with other offenses such as spitting. 
  
 “When the FBI says animal cruelty is important and we are going to track it, it sends a message to others in law enforcement and the community at large saying ‘pay attention to this,’” Ms. Randour says. 
  
 And even those not invested in animal rights have reason to pay attention. Studies in the US and other nations have shown that between 63-70 percent of people convicted of violent crimes began their criminal careers with acts of animal cruelty, according the New York Humane Association. 
  
 “Regardless of whether people care about how animals are treated, people – like legislators and judges – care about humans, and they can’t deny the data,” Natasha Dolezal, director of the animal law program in the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark College, told the Associated Press. 
  
 “Serial killers are closely linked to animal cruelty, so much so that it is exceedingly rare to find one who did not begin his or her career with animal abuse,” explains Dr. Harold Hovel in a 2015 report by the New York State Humane Association. “An individual willing to cause such suffering to animals is not likely to be sympathetic and empathetic to humans.” 
  
 The FBI's decision to collect animal cruelty data through NIBRS will help law enforcement identify violent hotspots in the country as well as strengthen cases by prosecutors. 
  
 “Picture a state with a lot of red dots which represent animal cruelty,” explains Randour. “There are also lots of other dots representing other forms of violence. When they are co-occurring, the area is even more dangerous and you can focus your resources on those places.” 
  
 NIBRS helps law enforcement to know where acts of burglary and gang violence are most frequent so they can act accordingly, and now acts of animal abuse will be exposed, helping law enforcement detect criminal patterns. Animal rights organizations can also reallocate resources based on the new federal data by focusing their attention and finances on a specific region of the country or a certain age demographic that seems most prone to animal violence. 
  
 And if prosecutors go after someone for committing a non-animal related crime but they are on FBI record for animal abuse, “you have another charge to bring, you have more to work with,” says Randour. “Its like a twofer.” |||||
Output:
This year, for the first time, the FBI will track animal abuse the same way it tracks crimes such as homicide, arson, and assault. After years of lobbying, the bureau agreed in 2014 to make animal cruelty a Class A felony with its own category, and started tracking cases this year, the Washington Post reports. Previously, animal cruelty crimes were reported to the FBI as "other." The change will allow animal rights advocates to easily see whether abuse is going up or down, and it could even alert authorities to criminals who might eventually turn to violent crime against people: The deputy executive director of the National Sheriffs' Association backed the change when he learned that many serial killers are animal abusers first. Collecting animal abuse data could help "flag" future violent offenders, as many as 70% of whom may have abused animals first, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Animal cruelty, organized into four categories (simple or gross neglect, intentional abuse and torture, animal sexual abuse, and organized abuse like dogfighting and cockfighting), will have its own category within the National Incident-Based Reporting System, but actually reporting to NIBRS is voluntary, so animal rights advocates must convince local law enforcement agencies to do so. Once in the NIBRS, law enforcement and animal rights advocates will be able to access the age, criminal history, and location of convicted animal abusers, and having enough data could help authorities to see trends or notice "hotspots" of activity on which they should focus resources. "When the FBI says animal cruelty is important and we are going to track it, it sends a message to others in law enforcement and the community at large saying ‘pay attention to this,'" says a senior adviser at the Animal Welfare Institute, which worked with the FBI on making the change.