A growing public perception of animal cruelty and new resources have led the law enforcement arm of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to Prevent Cruelty to Animals to a more than 400% surge in arrests since 1999, the agency reported.

In the past seven years, the private agency purchased a live dispatch system and built a high-tech headquarters in Long Island City. It increased the number of special agents in 2006 to 19 from about eight.

Last year, the agency arrested 103 people in separate cases, including several on felony charges. In 1999, the agency arrested 20 people, statistics show. ASPCA agents have been empowered to carry weapons, make arrests, and execute warrants since New York aristocrat Henry Bergh founded it in 1866.

The television show “Animal Precinct,” which features ASPCA agents investigating animal cruelty cases, has helped bring in more serious calls about abuse, its supervisor of special investigations, Annemarie Lucas, said.

“The public is getting educated,” she said. “Not only about who to call, but about the dangers of animal abusers to other people.”

Since New York State passed a law that made some instances of animal abuse a felony crime in 1999, more people convicted of abuse have been serving longer prison sentences, Ms. Lucas said while holding Lana, a longhair Chihuahua that was a victim of abuse.

In one recent case, ASPCA agents spent the last year and a half investigating the abuse and killing of a household cat in the Bronx.

Two teenagers were walking by an apartment building at 1055 Morris Ave. in the University Heights section of the Bronx in June 2005 when they spotted a calico cat sitting on the windowsill of a first-floor apartment, an ASPCA spokesman, Joseph Pentangelo, said.

A surveillance video shows the men taking the cat out of the window and throw it to their two pet rottweilers, he said. When the dogs refused to attack the cat, they began beating it with chains and a leash, eventually killing it. One of the men, Douglas Boateng, was charged with a felony count of aggravated cruelty to animals as well as burglary, because the law considers a pet private property. The other man is in prison on another crime and hasn’t been charged for animal abuse, Mr. Pentangelo said.

Since taking over the law enforcement arm of the agency in 1999 Vice President Dale Riedel, a former NYPD captain, has forged closer ties between the agency and his old police partners. All cadets in the police academy now receive a seminar on recognizing signs of animal cruelty. Guest instructors explain the correlation between animal cruelty and child abuse, serial murder, and school shootings. About seven agents and five managers are former New York police officers.

Because so many perpetrators of animal abuse are also involved with other crimes, ASPCA agents have been making other arrests in the investigation of complaints.

While investigating an allegation of a dog killing last month, Special Agent Richard Ryan arrested Dustin Gill, 28, for the rape of a 14-year-old girl whom Mr. Gill referred to as his “girlfriend.” Mr. Gill allegedly took the girl’s dog away from her during an argument, telling her later that he abused and killed it, Mr. Pentangelo said. That investigation is still ongoing.

“A lot of people we lock up have serious records: assaults, robberies, burglaries, rapes,” Ms. Lucas said. The condition of the animals is “usually a pretty good indication of what’s going on in a household.”

At the law enforcement headquarters in Queens, a few pets usually wander around, including Cane, a 3-year-old Cane Corso Mr. Pentangelo rescued from a lot in Brooklyn. The owner was using it as a guard dog, but refused to feed him for so long that Cane could barely walk, he said.

Ms. Lucas has six dogs and eight cats that she cares for with her husband, an NYPD detective.