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Pennsylvania State Senate
06/13/2024 12:59 AM
Pennsylvania State Senate
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?SPick=20230&chamber=S&cosponId=40321
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Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2023 - 2024 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: March 27, 2023 02:42 PM
From: Senator Katie J. Muth and Sen. John I. Kane
To: All Senate members
Subject: The Animal Welfare Cooperation Act
 
In the near future, we will be introducing legislation to grant the Attorney General concurrent jurisdiction on animal cruelty. This legislation is a reintroduction of a bill by Representative Isaacson last session, and is identical to SB1073 from the 2021-2022 session. It was cosponsored by Senators Street, Fontana, Brewster, Costa, Yudichak, Santarsiero, Comitta and Collett.

Pennsylvania took enormous bi-partisan strides to crack down on animal cruelty in passing Libre's law, finally creating felony level penalties for egregious acts of animal cruelty.

The FBI has started tracking animal cruelty crimes as a risk factor for future violence against humans, and many studies have shown the link between animal cruelty and domestic violence. Pennsylvania taking animal cruelty seriously is an important first step in protecting our most vulnerable citizens, however, we must make sure to do all we can to ensure its enforcement.

In a budget hearing last year, then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro stated that he would welcome concurrent jurisdiction on animal cruelty. It would permit the assistance of the Attorney General in prosecuting large scale animal cruelty cases in counties which have had little experience in doing so. The Attorney General's office would be able to both prosecute cases and train assistant district attorneys and humane police officers. Currently, the Attorney General is only able to step in on cases as referred by the District Attorney due to conflicts of interest.

This legislation has been endorsed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s Animal Protection Caucus, a bipartisan coalition of legislators from both chambers working on legislation to protect the domestic, equine and farm animals in our Commonwealth.

Please join us in cosponsoring this important legislation.


Introduced as SB758