During the 2006 session of the Kansas Legislature, Humane Kansas will work to accomplish the enactment of a felony penalty for animal cruelty and abuse.  Kansas is one of only nine states that have no felony penalty available for the prosecution of severe cases of animal cruelty.

In 1997, a horrible case of cruelty, in which four men in Kansas City, Kansas, videotaped themselves setting fire to a 12 year-old Yorkshire Terrier named Scruffy, brought attention to the fact that Kansas had no felony penalty.  A bill has been introduced in every legislative session since and has repeatedly failed to pass. 

Humane Kansas has studied the record and determined that the repeated failures are due to two causes.  First, the bill that has been introduced is poorly drafted.  Second, the case for a felony penalty, and the fact that most Kansans support it, has not been effectively presented to the Legislature.

Humane Kansas has designed a bill that will address the objections repeatedly raised to previous bills.  Specifically, this bill will:

• classify the most serious acts of animal cruelty as felonies;
• mandate that offenders convicted of such acts be subject to minimum jail sentences and fines;
• mandate that offenders convicted of such acts be required to undergo psychological counseling or anger management programs;
• prohibit offenders convicted of such acts from owning an animal for a period of five years.