ANIMAL CRUELTY
Promoting the humane treatment of animals should be a priority for district attorneys and for everyone. It is not only critically important to stand up for creatures without a voice, but animal cruelty is a predictor of (or occurs hand-in-hand with) domestic violence in the home as well other violent crimes that are currently increasing in New York City due to the pandemic, unemployment, lockdowns, and the recession.
What will Lucy do?
Empower and educate. Lucy will commit to empowering the animal advocacy community and educating the public on these important issues.
Support legislative reforms. Lucy will support much of Bella’s Bill. Moving animal fighting, animal cruelty and animal torture laws from the Agriculture and Markets Law to the Penal Law makes good sense. Lucy also supports recategorizing animal fighting and abuse felonies to Class D felonies. These crimes are real and serious, and they deserve to be categorized as such.
Centralize cases in the Office’s Investigation Division. Lucy will centralize the function of animal cruelty cases in the Office’s Investigation Division to ease coordination with a diverse group of agencies and because many cases often involve some form of criminal enterprise and frequently have economic drivers.
Commit to using all tools available. Prosecuting animal cruelty cases requires going beyond prosecutions under provisions of the Agriculture and Markets Law and looking to other areas of law, like “white-collar” Penal Law provisions and the Environmental Conservation Law, to hold humans and business entities responsible for their conduct that harms non-human animals and violates the laws that exist.