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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | February 27, 2024 02:23 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Ryan Warner |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Amend Title 18 (Crimes Code) to Create the Offense of Child Torture |
| In the near future, I intend to introduce legislation that amends the Pennsylvania Crimes Code to create the offense of child torture. Earlier this month, a couple in Fayette County were arrested after an investigated alleged they had beaten, starved, and locked their six-year-old daughter in a dog crate at night that was covered in urine and feces. Additional details alleged that the couple forced their young daughter to eat dog food, shot her in the legs with a BB gun and had not taken her to receive pediatric care in more than three years. The Fayette County District Attorney has stated that “the child was tortured, and we don’t really understand why.” Tragically, a child torture case such as this is far too common in Pennsylvania. In January of 2023, a woman was charged in Delaware County with allegedly torturing four minors by choking them with cords, hitting them bats, branding them with a hair-straightening iron and sexually abusing them. During the last two decades, child torture has been recognized as a severe and continuous form of child abuse by the medical and legal community throughout the country. Currently, Pennsylvania is one of just fourteen states that does not have a child torture statute. Although Pennsylvania law prohibits physically harming a child, gaps exist in situations where a child experiences only mental trauma or the torture does not result in serious bodily injury to the child. The new offense of child torture would be invoked when a person intentionally, knowingly or recklessly tortures a child under the age of 18 who is within their custody or control. Torture is defined as a course of conduct that includes at least one of a detailed list of common acts present in torture cases. This list includes physically or sexually abusing a child, restraining or confining the child in an unreasonable manner, restricting basic and necessary bodily functions, starving the child or terrorizing the child for the purposes of causing significant emotional distress. A person convicted under this new offense commits a third-degree felony if the victim does not suffer bodily injury which is punishable by up to 7 years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $15,000. If the victim suffers bodily injury, the offense is a first-degree felony which is punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $25,000. This legislation will help remedy inadequacies in Pennsylvania’s Crime Code related to child torture and ensure consistency with the overwhelming majority of other states. Most importantly, it will sufficiently punish those individuals who engage in the most severe and reprehensible form of child abuse. Please join me in cosponsoring this important legislation. |
Introduced as HB2181