[color:"orange"]Sorry =/ But banning them won't stop the problems[/color]
The problems stem directly from greed. Without the betting there would no incentive for most of the cruelty.
Regardless of whether the problem is a few people or systemic, the threat of a ban may be necessary to force the industry to actually clean up its act, rather than just concentrate on public relations and write off any cruelty that gets media attention as isolated incidents.
I didn't read much of the media case summaries, but if cruelty is not a systemic problem in greyhound races, why did Alabama pass a law dropping the penalties for cruelty to greyhounds? Obviously somebody lobbied for this, since anyone wanting to actually stop the cruelty could have used the existing laws.
ALABAMA LAW REDUCES THE INHUMANE KILLING OF GREYHOUNDS FROM A FELONY TO A MISDEMEANOR David Whetstone, the Baldwin County District Attorney, who is prosecuting the Rhodes' greyhound-killing case, weighed in on the effect of a new law that passed through the Alabama legislature. Whetstone said his interpretation of the statute, a misdemeanor imposing escalating fines beginning at $500, is that it exempts racing greyhounds from a 3-year-old law that makes the torture of animals a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. "It's dog-specific. There's no doubt that it would exclude the "Gucci Law", or the Alabama animal cruelty law, as it applies to greyhound dogs," he said. "It effectively reduces the greyhound dog to a beast of burden... A junkyard dog has more protection than a greyhound dog under this statute."
Source: Mobile Register, June 26, 2004
