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A recent Newsweek editorial suggested that we should embrace Michael Vick’s return to the NFL, and a familiar straw man was used to make the point (or, used as the kindling that made smoke pour from my ears).
PETA, the “animal-rights group known for its rabid defense of animals,” has come in for its usual beating, and the author tars most of Vick’s critics with the PETA brush. The almost universally negative reaction of NFL fans, most presumably not PETA or ASPCA members, suggests that this is not a referendum on PETA.
As stated by the author, Vick will be playing, primarily because the NFL is another remorseless American business, and if Vick is judged to have a scintilla of his former talent he will receive the same opportunity that other NFL ne’er-do-wells have received. The NFL can’t, in the long term, keep Vick from playing—but that is far from a hearty endorsement, and most in and around the NFL seem less than enthused about Vick’s return.
The NFL Players Association, in a May press release on Vick’s pending return, played things low-key: “We are glad that Michael Vick is committed to rejoining the community as a contributing member. The NFLPA supports him and his family as he works to rebuild his life off the field.” At a July meeting with DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFLPA, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed that to win reinstatement Vick had not only to convince him, but the public that he is reformed. Post-reinstatement, Vick is off to a rocky start. Early reports—denied as “categorically false” by both Michael Vick and his attorney—had Vick celebrating his first night of freedom at a Virginia Beach strip club. Following on the heels of the recent video release of Adam “Pacman” Jones’ criminal misbehavior at a “gentleman’s club,” Goodell must be thrilled.
The NFL, as well as the NCAA, has struggled mightily to confine player violence to the football field—hopelessly naïve, considering the nearly endless flood of domestic violence complaints, gunplay, and criminal entourages prowling the nightclub scene.
You don’t have to be a “rabid” animal-rights activist to have an interest in the Vick case. His acts display a shocking lack of empathy, and given the high rate of recidivism for crimes of this nature it is fair to ask whether someone guilty of such crimes can ever be “cured”. If acts of sadism against dogs—among the most trusting creatures on the planet—aren’t enough to stoke your concerns, then consider a more self-interested approach (in the current culture, this is usually more persuasive). The work of criminal psychologists suggests that it’s not a logical leap from cruelty to animals to human-directed deviance. A 2000 study in the journal Clinical Psychology Review found that of the nine school shootings between 1996 and 1999, half of the shooters had histories of animal cruelty. A 2003 study in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology found that of 354 serial killers profiled, 21 percent were known to have committed animal cruelty—not accounting for unreported incidents of animal cruelty. These figures can be found—oddly enough—on the Humane Society’s Animal Cruelty and Fighting Campaign website—the same Humane Society that has argued most passionately for Michael Vick’s rehabilitation.
Teams have expressed an interest in Vick, most recently Green Bay. His return is either the first chapter in a wonderful redemption narrative or another footnote in the wider story of our confusion of punishment for justice.
My first link is to the Newsweek editorial that prompted this rant. The second link is to an animal rescue blog--the author does a great job reconstructing Vick's crimes.