Animal Cruelty

The topic that I have chosen for my reasearch paper is.... Animal cruelty.  I was thinking on my thesis statement being "Animal cruelty crimes need more harsh of punishments".  I have been brainstorming that I have come up with some major points to go under my thesis statement.  My major points will be the current law, states that have ASPCA, how animals or abused/ways they are abused, why people abuse animals, how to make the laws stricter, and ask the audience why this topic is over looked by Americans daily.  I believe that animal cruelty can be prevent but America is not doing enought to prevent it.  I think that it could be prevented by harsher laws, more animal cops, large fines, the public being aware, the public stepping up to report animal cruelty, and more volunteers to stop the animal cruelty.  I just do not understand how a person can look into an innocent dog or cat's eyes and then physically harm him or her.  It makes me sick.  I could never do any harm to any animal and I just wish that everyone else would do the same.  I think that if the public is scared of the punishments and knows that people are looking out for animal cruelty the number of abused and murdered animals will go down greatly.  I will bring in a number of statistics to my paper to really show how serious this topic is.  Animal cruelty is no joke!  We all need to do our part and crack down on the sick humans hurting all of the innocent animals.