Laws in favor of reporting of animal cruelty
2024 U.S. Animal Protection Laws State Rankings
Social Service Worker Reporting of Animal Cruelty
◼︎ Required ◼︎ Permit and/or grant immunity◼︎ No reporting law
Veterinary Reporting of Animal Cruelty
◼︎ Required ◼︎ Permit and/or grant immunity◼ No reporting law
Cross-reporting refers to laws which explicitly permit or require cross-reporting between various animal and human welfare organizations, such as requiring humane officers to report suspected child abuse, or requiring elder protective service workers to report suspected animal cruelty. These laws recognize and respond to the link between animal cruelty and interpersonal violence. In 2024, Massachusetts expanded its existing cross-reporting law, ensuring that social service workers may report suspected animal cruelty at any time during an investigation. As of December 2024, only 15 states plus DC require or explicitly permit social services workers to report suspected animal cruelty.
Veterinarians are often the only witnesses—other than the perpetrator themselves—to the signs and symptoms of animal cruelty. They also have the education and experience to identify those signs when they see them. Veterinary reporting, as the name suggests, refers to laws requiring veterinarians to report suspected cruelty, and/or giving them civil immunity for reporting in good faith. Such immunity is necessary to protect the veterinarian from retaliatory lawsuits. It’s important to note that even if a state does not explicitly have a law permitting veterinarians to report suspected cruelty, veterinarians are still free to do so in all 50 states. In 2024, Tennessee enacted a law explicitly permitting veterinarians to report suspected animal cruelty and granted them civil immunity for doing so in good faith, and Utah clarified their existing law granting civil immunity to those veterinarians for animal shelters and rescues who report suspected cruelty.
Animal victims can’t speak for themselves, so it’s absolutely vital that those frontline workers who are most likely to witness animal cruelty in the community — like veterinarians and social service workers — are not only empowered, but required to report animal cruelty to the authorities,” says Lora Dunn, Director of the Criminal Justice Program. “We’re thrilled to see more states taking the important step of not just allowing, but mandating that these stakeholders report animal abuse and neglect, for the sake of the animal victims.
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