Hold juveniles accountable for animal cruelty in Maryland | GUEST COMMENTARY

In the coming days, the General Assembly is poised to pass a sweeping Juvenile Law Reform bill that would, among other things, restore jurisdiction to courts over juveniles ages 10 to 12 who commit certain offenses. Legislators have debated these provisions extensively, with the House and Senate diverging on whether animal cruelty crimes should be included in the final bill presented to Gov. Wes Moore.

House Bill 814, sponsored by Speaker Adrienne Jones and Judiciary Committee Chair Luke Clippinger, authorizes the Department of Juvenile Services to charge minors who engage in aggravated animal cruelty.  Unfortunately, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, chaired by William C. Smith Jr., stripped animal cruelty crimes from its version of the bill (S.B. 744).

In a case that made national news in 2009, two 17-year-old twin brothers were charged with soaking a dog named Phoenix in accelerant and setting her on fire. While the teens in the Phoenix case were ultimately acquitted, the torture of Phoenix put a spotlight on the issue of minors inflicting harm on animals. A year after Phoenix’s death, 10-year-old boys were found responsible in the beating death of an 8-week-old puppy, with belts and a tree branch at the Carroll Park Municipal Golf Course.

Such crimes prompted then-Mayor Sheila Dixon to create an Anti-Animal Abuse Commission in 2009 — which Mayor Scott has woefully abandoned — and led to the anti-cruelty campaign Show Your Soft Side, which strives to show youth, through influential role models, that compassion toward animals is a strength. In the aftermath of these high-profile cases, former Oriole Adam Jones, former Raven Jarret Johnson, and former MMA fighter John Rallo posed with their animals for posters and billboards across Baltimore with the provocative tagline, Only a Punk Would Hurt a Cat or Dog. The campaign spread nationwide, with ambassadors such as actor Jon Bernthal, rocker Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe, and country music singer Miranda Lambert championing the message.

These lay ambassadors knew intuitively what experts in criminology and psychology understand far too well: The torture of an animal, whether by fire setting, beating, mutilation or other means, is a violent crime.

The Senate version of the Juvenile Law Reform bill misses the mark by turning a blind eye to the seriousness of these offenses. In 2014, the FBI added animal cruelty crimes as a separate category to the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and began collecting data on these crimes in 2016. In 2018, the Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team, a collaboration of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center, recognized that animal cruelty, particularly when premeditated in nature, is a “novel aggression warning behavior” and that the reporting, investigating and prosecution of these cases may help minimize violent acts toward humans, including terrorism.  And finally, last year the National Sheriffs’ Association passed Resolution 2023-05, designating animal cruelty as a violent crime.

Childhood animal cruelty may indicate a conduct disorder and is linked to other antisocial behaviors, especially bullying. It may also be a sign that a child is a victim of violence, as children who engage in these crimes are more than twice as likely to have suffered abuse or neglect themselves.  Alarmingly, studies have examined the link between children who have been sexually abused and then proceeded to harm animals.  These children need intervention, and judges have great discretion to protect the juveniles who appear before them.

Conference committees in the House and Senate will now debate cross-amendments to these Juvenile Law Reform bills. In the final hour, the General Assembly must protect all victims from violence by restoring jurisdiction to our trial courts over young juveniles who abuse animals.

Caroline A. Griffin (cag@carolineagriffin.com) is the former chair of the Baltimore Mayor’s Anti-Animal Abuse Advisory Commission and the co-founder of Show Your Soft Side.