SALT LAKE CITY — In response to high-profile and horrific incidents involving abused children in Utah, lawmakers will advance a bill to make "child torture" a first-degree felony crime.
The bill by Sen. Don Ipson, R-St. George, was heard before the Utah State Legislature's Interim Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday. It would not only create a specific crime of "child torture" but set a minimum mandatory prison sentence.
"It's really unfortunate but over the last couple of years, really since the pandemic, my colleagues and I have been seeing an unexplained increase in the number of cases of really extreme child physical abuse that doesn't meet the normal that we've been seeing in the past," said Dr. Toni Laskey, the medical director for Children's Justice Centers across the state. "And it really crosses into a type of abuse that's been medically defined as child torture."
The bill is being run following the convictions of YouTube influencer Ruby Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrant on child abuse charges in Washington County. Evidence released by police showed children who had been tied up and malnourished. In Weber County, prosecutors are pursuing charges against relatives of 12-year-old Gavin Peterson, whom authorities said experienced malnutrition to the point where his organs had, "shut down completely."
In an interview with FOX 13 News, Washington County Attorney Eric Clarke said such a bill would help prosecutors in the future.
"Right now under the sentencing guidelines, if you’re a first-time offender? The recommended sentence for child torture is zero days of incarceration. That’s crazy," Clarke said. "Nobody’s going to defend that. That’s some loophole, some flaw in the system. We need to fix that because obviously if you’re torturing children? You need to spend time behind bars."
The bill will be considered by the full Utah State Legislature when it convenes in January.
