About
About IROPO
IROPO, the International Registry of Pet Offenders, is an open-data animal-welfare project. It gathers public and official records about animal cruelty in the United States and beyond into a single, verifiable source of truth for advocates, shelters, rescues, journalists, policymakers and the public.
Mission
Give the public and the animal-welfare community a reliable, well-sourced record of animal cruelty that supports accountability, safer adoptions and informed advocacy.
Vision
Become the standard reference that shelters, rescues, journalists and policymakers check before making decisions about animal welfare and animal cruelty offenders.
Why it matters
Animal cruelty data already exists, but it is scattered across thousands of agencies, incompatible formats and systems that are hard for the public to use. Since 2016 the FBI has tracked animal cruelty as its own offense, but its data lives in large spreadsheets and technical APIs. IROPO turns those sources into something anyone can explore, with the sourcing visible at every step.
The United States and beyond
IROPO covers the United States today. Beyond the US, its scope is limited to the only countries with more people: China and India. The three are the world's most populous countries.
Every country has its own laws on animal cruelty, court records and personal data, and many are much stricter than those in the United States. Each new country is a major undertaking, so the list stays short. China and India will be added only after a legal review and an evaluation of their official sources, and any listing there will follow local law. Other countries are outside IROPO's scope.
What IROPO is
- A public, open-data project run by volunteers
- A consolidated view of official animal cruelty statistics for every US state
- A directory of the law enforcement agencies that report them
- A carefully designed foundation for a future registry of adjudicated cases
What IROPO is not
- A government agency or an official registry
- A place to report suspected cruelty. Contact local animal control or police, or call 911 in an emergency
- A source of allegations about individuals
- Legal advice
Values
Accuracy before speed
Every figure is traceable to an official source, and nothing is published faster than it can be verified.
Public and official sources only
IROPO uses records published by governments and courts, never rumors, social media posts or tips.
A path to correction
Anyone can report an error. Future listings will carry a dispute and removal process from day one.
Privacy and legal care
The project minimizes personal data and treats defamation, privacy and jurisdictional rules as design constraints.
Open by default
Code, data, methods and decisions are public, and everything is dedicated to the public domain.
How IROPO will be sustained
The core registry and statistics will always be free and public. The business plan outlines how the project will fund itself without compromising that:
- Grants from animal-welfare foundations, once fiscal sponsorship or nonprofit status is in place
- Donations and crowdfunding tied to concrete milestones, such as a verified public beta
- In-kind support such as nonprofit cloud credits and pro bono legal review
- Institutional data access for shelters, rescues and researchers who need bulk or structured data
Legal and ethical considerations
Because this project concerns identifiable people and alleged or adjudicated harm to animals, contributors work conservatively: data must come from public, official or otherwise reviewable records; accuracy, verification and provenance matter more than speed; any listing needs a correction or removal path; and contributors stay mindful of privacy, defamation and jurisdiction-specific legal risk.
These points are not legal advice.
License: CC0 1.0 · Community: Code of conduct · Code: GitHub