Few animal harassers are sentenced to prison - now the punishment can be sharpened

The maximum penalty for animal cruelty or violation of the Animal Welfare Act is two years in prison, but the vast majority are sentenced to a fine.

"It is extremely difficult to get the courts sentenced to prison," says Lena Jacobsson, preliminary investigator at the animal welfare police.

The longest sentence that has been sentenced for animal cruelty is 15 months. A man had tortured his dog by, among other things, hanging it in a hook and giving repeated blows. Finally, he had strangled the dog to death and dumped it in a garbage bag in the forest.

The verdict fell in 2011. Since then, in 2012-2018, only eleven people have been sentenced to prison for animal cruelty, according to statistics from the Crime Prevention Council. At the same time, around 1,700 cases are reported annually.

There has long been criticism that the punishment for animal cruelty is too mild. Therefore, the government appointed an inquiry last year to review the punishment. Special investigator is Councilor Lars Wallinder.

- Back in time, it was mostly very serious, intentional and in some cases even torture-like cases that led to prison. But they have been quite few, he says.

According to Lars Wallinder, these are mainly two main issues they look at in the investigation.

- The first is whether to sharpen the punishment by, for example, introducing gross animal torture with a stricter penalty scale than violations of the normal degree. The second is whether to decriminalize certain crimes that are fined and may go to administrative penalties instead of criminal penalties.

By January 31, 2020, the results of the investigation shall be reported to the Minister responsible.