Confronting Animal Abuse presents a powerful examination of the human-animal relationship and the laws designed to protect it. Piers Beirne, a leading scholar in the growing field of green criminology, explores the heated topic of animal abuse in agriculture, science, and sport, as well as what is known, if anything, about the potential for animal assault to lead to inter-human violence. He convincingly shows how from its roots in the Irish plow-fields of 1635 through today, animal-rights legislation has been primarily shaped by human interest and why we must reconsider the terms of human-animal relationships. Beirne argues that if violations of animals' rights are to be taken seriously, then scholars and activists should examine why some harms to animals are defined as criminal, others as abusive but not criminal and still others as neither criminal nor abusive. Confronting Animal Abuse points to the need for a more inclusive concept of harms to animals, without which the meaning of animal abuse will be overwhelmingly confined to those harms that are regarded as socially unacceptable, one-on-one cases of animal cruelty. Certainly, those cases demand attention. But so, too, do those other and far more numerous institutionalized harms to animals, where abuse is routine, invisible, ubiquitous and often defined as socially acceptable. In this pioneering, pro-animal book Beirne identifies flaws in our traditional understanding of human-animal relationships, and proposes a compelling new approach.

Confronting Cruelty is a sociological study of the animal rights movement in the United States, England and Australia. Social movement theory is used to analyse animal cruelty and how and why activists seek to end it in their various campaigns.

Animals and War: Confronting the Military-Animal Industrial Complex is the first book to examine how nonhuman animals are used for war by military forces. Each chapter delves deeply into modes of nonhuman animal exploitation: as weapons, test subjects, and transportation, and as casualties of war leading to homelessness, starvation, and death. With leading scholar-activists writing each chapter, this is an important text in the fields of peace studies and critical animal studies. This is a must read for anyone interested in ending war and fostering peace and justice.

A collaboration between an attorney and an animal protection advocate, this work utilizes the extremely controversial and high-profile "crush video" case, US v. Stevens, to explore how American society attempts to balance the protection of free speech and the prevention of animal cruelty. Starting from the detailed case study of a single prominent ruling, the authors provide a masterful survey of important issues facing society in the area of animal welfare. The Stevens case included various "hot topic" elements connected to the role of government as arbiter of public morality, including judicial attitudes to sexual deviance and dogfighting. Because it is one of only two animal rights cases that the US Supreme Court has handled, and the only case discussing the competing interests of free speech and animal cruelty, it will be an important topic for discussion in constitutional and animal law courses for decades to come. The Stevens case arose from the first conviction under 18 USC § 48 (Section 48), a federal law enacted in 1999, which criminalized the creation, sale, and/or possession of certain depictions of animal cruelty. The US Congress intended Section 48 to end the creation and interstate trafficking of depictions of animal cruelty in which animals are abused or even killed for entertainment's sake. Proponents of Section 48 predicted that countless benefits to both humans and animals would flow from its enforcement. Opponents of the law argued that it was too far-reaching and would stifle protected speech. Critics of Section 48 appeared to have prevailed when the US Supreme Court struck the law down as unconstitutionally overbroad. Although a law tailored to address the Supreme Court's concerns was quickly enacted, the free speech/animal cruelty controversy is far from over.

Evidence is mounting that animal abuse, frequently embedded in families scarred by domestic violence and child abuse and neglect, often predicts the potential for other violent acts. As early intervention is critical in the prevention and reduction of aggression, this book encourages researchers and professionals to recognize animal abuse as a significant problem and a human public-health issue that should be included as a curriculum topic in training. The book is an interdisciplinary source book of original essays that examines the relations between animal maltreatment and human interpersonal violence, expands the scope of research in this growing area, and provides practical assessment and documentation strategies to help professionals confronting violence do their jobs better by attending to these connections. As an outgrowth of the Latham Foundation's 1995 training manual, Breaking the Cycles of Violence, this book is a historic step in helping professionals from these disciplines, as well as the general public, recognize the cyclical and insidious nature of family violence and provides training in recognizing peripheral forms of family violence outside a family's immediate purview. It encourages cross-disciplinary prevention and intervention strategies with an ultimate goal of reducing the levels of violence which is such a great societal and cultural concern today. This book brings together, for the first time, all of the leaders in this emerging field. They examine contemporary research and programmatic issues, encourage cross-disciplinary interactions, and describe innovative programs in the field today. Also included are vivid first-person accounts from survivors whose experiences included animal maltreatment among other forms of family violence. Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, and Animal Abuse provides professional communities of psychologists and child welfare specialists with a deeper, higher, and more encompassing awareness and understanding of the crucial linking of caring for animals and children in human experience. The combination of careful research, documentation, and compelling narrative accounts are blended into a rich resource to help professionals, concerned citizens, and parents understand how the ethics of caring are not bounded by species.

Described by Jeffrey Masson as 'the single best introduction to animal rights ever written, ' this new book by Tom Regan dispels the negative image of animal rights advocates perpetrated by the mass media, unmasks the fraudulent rhetoric of 'humane treatment' favored by animal exploiters, and explains why existing laws function to legitimize institutional cruelty

How can we make sense of acts of cruelty towards animals?

Until the last decade of the twentieth century, the abusive or cruel treatment of animals had received virtually no attention among academicians. Since then, however, empirical studies of animal abuse, and its relation to other forms of violence toward humans, have increased not only in number but in quality and stature. Sociologists, criminologists, social workers, psychologists, legal scholars, feminists, and others have recognized the myriad reasons that animal abuse is worthy of serious scholarly focus. In his overview of contemporary sociological understanding of animal abuse, Clifton Fly.

The staggering rate of environmental pollution and animal abuse despite constant efforts to educate the public and raise awareness challenges the prevailing belief that the absence of serious action is a consequence of a poorly informed public. In recent decades alternative explanations of social and political inaction have emerged, including denialism. Challenging the information-deficit model, denialism proposes that people actively avoid unpleasant information that threatens their established worldviews, lifestyles, and identities. Environmental and Animal Abuse Denial: Averting Our Gaze analyzes how people avoid awareness of climate change, environmental pollution, animal abuse, and the animal industrial complex. The contributors examine the theory of denialism in regards to environmental pollution and animal abuse through a range of disciplines, including social psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, cultural history and law.

As animal exploitation increases, animal liberation issues are of growing concern, as seen through the rise of veganism, academic disciplines devoted to animal issues, and mainstream critiques of factory farms. Yet as the dialogues, debates and books continue to grow, the voices of "street level" activists--not academics, journalists or vegan chefs--are rarely heard. This volume broadens animal liberation dialogues by offering the arguments, challenges, inspiration and narratives of grassroots activists. The essays show what animal advocacy looks like from a collective of individuals living in and around Minnesota's Twin Cities; the essayists, however, write of issues, both personal and political, that resound on a global scale. This collection provides a platform for rank and file activists to explain why and how they dedicate their time and what is being done for animals on a local level that can translate to global efforts to end animal exploitation.