In the last few years, animal cruelty cases in Massachusetts exploded, with the state trial court trying a more than 70% increase in such cases from 2019 to 2022.

Suffolk County will be taking a proactive approach at countering this sobering statistic with a newly formed task force to embolden prosecution.

“Anyone who has ever loved or owned a pet knows the joy and happiness they bring to our lives. All these pets ask for in return is to be sheltered, fed and cared for when they’re sick and hurt,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden, a dog owner, said in a statement ahead of an announcement of the Animal Cruelty Task Force at the Animal Rescue League of Boston Wednesday morning.

“Sadly, too many animals and pets end up getting hurt through malicious intent or conscious neglect,” he continued. “This task force will improve our ability to investigate, charge and prosecute these cases and, hopefully, reduce them.”

The various agencies involved in the Suffolk County task force — the State and Environmental police agencies, the ARL, the state Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the state Department of Agriculture, and the police and animal control departments of the four municipalities in the county: Boston, Chelsea, Winthrop and Revere — gathered on a stage at the ARL’s South End office flanked by two adorable dogs named Patches and Ben to announce the task force.

The task force will “centralize the various agencies involved in criminal animal abuse cases,” Hayden said at the announcement, in an effort to “streamline” the approach toward animal cruelty investigations and prosecutions — and with a goal toward favorable new state legislation.

As of right now, Massachusetts has only felony-level animal cruelty laws, but the task force has had conversations about introducing legislation to create misdemeanor-level laws to help effectively intervene “in cruelty cases before they get to the point of felony cruelty,” Ally Blanck, ARL Boston’s director of advocacy, said.

“Without those legislative changes … the cycle just continues,” added Neal Litvack, the president of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, an office that handled 684 investigations involving animal abuse last year.

Suffolk County alone saw 17 people charged with at least one animal cruelty-related crime last year.

Those cases included Tyler Falconer, of Burlington, who was charged last May with three counts of animal cruelty by a custodian and three counts of improperly tethering or confining an animal connected to his South Boston animal boarding business Falco K9. Prosecutors say that three dogs lost significant weight, one losing 20 pounds, or were injured during their stays there.

In November, Chelsea man Massi Ennis was charged with animal cruelty after neighbors complained of a strong odor coming from his Washington Avenue apartment. The building manager entered and found a dog dead in its crate with, as prosecutors described, “maggots and gnats around the mouth, indicating decomposition.”

In September was Don Algeni of Revere, who was charged in September with animal cruelty after stabbing and killing his dog so brutally that the animal was nearly decapitated, according to previous Herald reporting. Police say Algeni harbored homicidal and suicidal ideations and his roommate allegedly told police that Algeni had an ongoing anger problem and had told her “I’m going out and I’m not going out alone.”

And that last, horrifying incident is not isolated, as the experts on stage say that animal cruelty is “an early warning sign,” in the words of ARL Boston President and CEO Edward Schettino, for escalated problems between people.

MSPCA President Litvack said that there have been instances of couples who own pets “and when those two parties are at odds with one another, they very often take it out on the pets.”

Schettino said there are many cases that when investigators “go back and look into (the) history” of a domestic abuser, “there were horrible things that have happened earlier on with pets.”