Twelve years ago, the Mahoning Valley took center stage in a successful statewide movement to significantly strengthen Ohio’s lame animal abuse laws. In the summer of 2013, Gov. John Kasich signed Nitro’s Law, named in memory of a Rottweiler that had been starved and neglected along with many others at a kennel in Youngstown.

Notably, it marked the first time in history that the Buckeye State would raise animal abuse and neglect to its rightful place as a serious felonious crime.

In the intervening years, however, it has become painfully evident that Nitro’s Law — and several other anti-abuse statutes enacted since then — did not go far enough. That 2013 statute made torturing, mutilating, cruelly beating, poisoning or needlessly killing a companion animal in the care of kennels a fifth-degree felony. Similar abuse outside of kennels remained subject to the same relatively toothless slap-on-the-wrist misdemeanor charges.

But that gaping and callous loophole may at last be closed for good.

That’s because state Sen. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, has rightfully responded to the passionate appeals of Nitro’s Ohio Army and other animal welfare groups and agencies in the state to considerably fortify our animal abuse laws and punishments under any and all circumstances.

Earlier this year, Cutrona drafted and introduced Senate Bill 64, legislation that would significantly expand the range for all animal abuse and neglect offenses and would codify much more severe sentencing guidelines.

Among its many praiseworthy provisions are these:

Harsher penalties for first-time offenders: Cutrona’s bill elevates most of those crimes from misdemeanors to felonies.

Mandatory maximum sentences: Courts would be required to impose the maximum prison sentence for anyone convicted of an animal cruelty charge, often a full three-year prison term.

Restrictions on animal ownership for offenders: The new legislation would ban those convicted of abuse from owning an animal for three years.

The need for such taut reforms is beyond irrefutable. Animal welfare agencies in the state, including the Animal Welfare League of Trumbull County and Animal Charity of Ohio in Mahoning County, have endured skyrocketing increases in cases of abuse and neglect in recent years to the point where shelters are overcrowded and their limited resources are spread far too thin.

The surge in abuse both in Ohio and nationally began several years ago, most notably during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. During that period of mass isolation, households in the U.S. took in 23 million new pets, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Many of the owners sadly were not prepared or willing to take on the responsibilities that come with fostering companion animals. Recent towering inflation and hard economic times have aggravated the abuse epidemic even more.

That criminal misconduct is gut-wrenching. Just last month, Animal Charity came to the rescue of three adult dogs, seven puppies, four adult kittens, and five newborn kittens hoarded in a Youngstown home and struggling for life amid feces and filth.

In Warren last month, the AWL worked to close a veritable puppy mill operation in which many dogs were stacked on top of one another amid filth and a menagerie of neglected horses, chickens, birds and dead puppies.

Sadly such horror stories have become the new norm for those on the front lines of animal rescue. Aggravating the crisis are overly lenient charges and punishments for insidious offenders.

To that point, a study from Ohio State University is enlightening. It collected data on animal abuse outcomes in 212 courts statewide and found 92% were handled as misdemeanors. As for punishment for their heinous crimes, 47% were dismissed outright, and among those receiving jail time, a full 70% of them had their sentences suspended.

Today with the ongoing surge in abuse cases showing no signs of slowing any time soon, overwhelmed and exhausted animal welfare agencies desperately need help, partially through public support through volunteerism and donations.

They also can be assisted via swift and nonpartisan passage of SB 64 in the Ohio General Assembly this fall.

As Jane MacMurchy, operations director for ACO, put it in a recent published report, “I have a mission this year in 2025. We are going to do anything we can to make sure that those penalties are enforced, that they are harsher, that they’re throughout this state and that we can get stronger laws because this (upward trend in abuse) is unbelievable.”

Legislators of all political stripes should make it a priority to accomplish MacMurchy’s mission in the coming session. In so doing, not only would it give our four-legged fur babies the stronger protections they deserve, it also would reinforce the Mahoning Valley’s proud legacy as ground zero for leadership in establishing justice for all companion animals.