How do state penalties for bestiality vary (misdemeanor vs felony) and what enhancements are common across recent statutes?

1. The legal landscape: misdemeanor or felony — inconsistent tallies, consistent patchwork

Across the reporting, states split between classifying bestiality as a misdemeanor or a felony, but the counts vary by source and time: one table finds roughly 23 misdemeanors and 26 felonies depending on statutory language and severity qualifiers ^[1], while an earlier review reported 16 felonies and 15 misdemeanors among 31 states with explicit antibestiality laws ^[2], and another summary claims felony status in most jurisdictions with a conflicting figure for a handful of recently changed states ^[3]. Those discrepancies reflect a fragmented statutory landscape where some jurisdictions never had explicit antibestiality provisions and others have updated language, producing genuine uncertainty about a single nationwide tally even as the broad fact is clear that penalties range from fines and short jail terms to multi-year prison sentences ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

2. How states draw the line: conduct, harm and statutory wording matter

Whether an act is treated as a misdemeanor or felony often depends on how statutes define the prohibited conduct — for example, some states criminalize any sexual contact with an animal as a felony, while others tie felony status to aggravating elements such as serious injury to the animal, use of force, or the nature of the sexual act ^[1]. The historical arc of these laws shows older statutes framed as offenses against public morals or “crime against nature,” while modern reforms tend to carve out explicit antibestiality provisions, sometimes with gradations based on severity and animal harm that determine whether the offense is prosecuted as a misdemeanor or felony ^[1].

3. Common statutory enhancements: repeat offenders and aggravating circumstances

A clear, recurring enhancement in statutes is elevation of penalties for subsequent convictions; many states convert a later offense into a felony even if a first offense was a misdemeanor ^[1]. Aggravating circumstances commonly spelled out in recent statutes include causing injury to the animal, commission of the act in the presence of minors or involving minors, use of force or coercion, and concurrent offenses such as animal cruelty or obscenity charges — all mechanisms legislatures use to justify felony treatment or longer sentences ^{[1] [2]}.

4. Remedies beyond incarceration: treatment, forfeiture and other nonprison sanctions

Legislative responses increasingly include non-incarcerative or collateral sanctions: some statutes require psychological assessments or treatment for offenders and permit or mandate forfeiture of animals owned by convicted persons, while other jurisdictions tie convictions to broader animal welfare penalties or loss of custody of animals ^[2]. These provisions reflect an implicit policy aim to prevent reoffense and protect animals, and they appear in several modern statutes alongside traditional criminal penalties ^[2].

5. Recent trends, gaps and the politics behind reform

Reporting shows a wave of recent legislative activity: some states without explicit antibestiality laws have moved to ban the practice, and a handful of states reported as legal in older articles have since debated or passed new statutes ^{[4] [3]}. Sources also exhibit differing agendas and quality — advocacy or summary sites sometimes overstate national uniformity while academic or legal compendia stress statutory nuance ^{[5] [1]}. This produces two concurrent realities: a growing consensus that sexual contact with animals should be criminalized, and persistent variation in how seriously that crime is treated and what supplemental sanctions are imposed.

6. Bottom line and limits of the record

The bottom line is that penalties for bestiality vary state-by-state with misdemeanors and felonies both common, and with widespread statutory enhancements for repeat offenders, animal injury, involvement of minors, and related cruelty offenses; additional remedies like psychological assessment and forfeiture also appear increasingly in modern laws ^{[1] [2]}. The sources disagree on precise counts and current status in a few states, so pinpointing an exact national split requires consulting up-to-date statutory compilations or state codes beyond the reporting summarized here ^{[2] [3]}.