By The Commercial Appeal Editorial Board

What has happened to pit bulls is a crime.

It's also a symptom of something poisonous in the culture that glorifies violence, encourages criminal acts and activates macho posturing to destructive ends.

But please don't blame it on the dogs. As The Commercial Appeal's Cindy Wolff reports in today's Viewpoint cover story, pit bulls' role in society through history has alternated between the cute, cuddly family pet and the star player in crude, merciless blood sports.

Now it is going through a phase that has made it a status symbol in neighborhoods where violence and intimidation are valued, cooperation and generosity are signs of weakness and guns and gangs are rampant.

Even the very young have been infected with the attitude that intimidating others with an angry animal on the end of a leash is a way to acquire respect.

And that attitude has bred a seamy underground market for pit bull pups that can produce easy money, dangerous animals and a lot of strays.

In Memphis, where a no-adoption rule is in place, about 40 are put to death every week in a desperate attempt to control the spread of this urban plague.

The animals are flagrantly mistreated and secretly deployed in illegal dog fights to satisfy a strange human craving for violence that has existed throughout history.

In many communities across the country, it's illegal to keep pit bulls. But many experts question the effectiveness of bans.

Many breeds can be taught to be menacing, and the problem lies with the people who train and use dogs the way pit bulls are being trained and used now.

The Tennessee General Assembly's efforts to make it easier for police and prosecutors to hold owners of vicious dogs criminally liable represent a better approach to the problem than targeting problem breeds.

Although pit bulls are responsible for more attacks than any other breed, it's important to note that they also outnumber other breeds. As is the case with any other crime, going to jail for raising and failing to maintain control of a dangerous dog should be an effective deterrent, if the punishment is sure and swift.

Action on the legal front is timely in the wake of the brutal attack on James Chapple, a 59-year-old Memphis man who lost a hand Feb. 9 in a nightmarish attack by two pit bulls.

As state Sen. Jim Kyle, D-Memphis, reminded last week in a Viewpoint guest column, one of the reasons he co-sponsored new laws dealing with the topic was because police were unable to charge the owner in the Chapple case.

Middle Tennessee has the recent case of a 60-year-old Franklin County librarian who was killed in an attack by two dogs. In the Bon Aqua community in Hickman County, a constituent persuaded state Sen. Doug Jackson, D-Dickson, to sponsor vicious-dog legislation after an attack that required 85 stitches.

If the occasional newsworthy attack case is not persuasive, there are the 7,000 Tennesseans who need medical treatment for dog bites each year, according to the state Department of Health.

But while stronger laws can serve as deterrents, getting beyond the symptoms to the cause of the pit bull craze is complicated.

That involves elevating the importance of education. It involves creating meaningful jobs for urban youth.

It involves providing a reason to believe that the means of achieving status isn't bristling with anger at the end of a leash.