This paper reports on the embedding of vegan criminological content within the Open University's criminology degree programme, and the creation of an online interactive course about veganism and anti-speciesism for Open Learn, the Open University's online platform for free public educational materials. Framed within a social harm perspective, these materials problematise legal-but-harmful violence against nonhuman animals, perpetrated within the animal-industrial complex. As such, the materials frame speciesism in terms of social structures and discourses, and therefore veganism as a social movement in opposition to speciesist structures and discourses. This approach avoids individualising the choice to be vegan or not and instead helps learners understand that our shared speciesist structural-discursive context is not of our own choosing, regardless of our individual practices. These materials aim to empower learners with skills to deconstruct speciesist structures and discourses and to recognise speciesism as a structural-discursive problem. Taken together, these resources assert the legitimacy of vegan criminology, and therefore of nonhuman animals as legitimate subjects of criminological concern.

Welfare harms associated with horse racing have been documented through undercover investigations by NGOs like PETA and in academic discourse on animal-based entertainment. Use of the whip continues as a safety tool and encouragement to horses, albeit one that by definition constitutes a form of animal harm, especially where excessive whip use breaches regulations. In addition to the animal welfare harms that occur in training racehorses and the deaths that occur during, and because of, racing, this paper contends that (regulated) violence is an integral part of racing.

Animal victimology posits that nonhuman animals should be viewed, and responded to, as victims of crime. This may be from a legal perspective, in relation to policy and procedures, or in terms of research and criminological scholarly activity. Having its origins in critical conceptions of victimology and green criminology, the victimization of animals is viewed not just in relation to criminal offences, such as animal abuse or illegal trafficking, but from a zemiological or social harm perspective. This broader scope highlights an even greater range of behaviours that require the attention of victimological scholarship beyond those currently prohibited by criminal law.

This paper considers UK horse racing from an animal victimology perspective, with a particular emphasis on use of the whip (a regulated behaviour) to facilitate a more focused application. Elements of the three key areas of victimology are discussed: (1) the extent and patterns of horse victimization in racing; (2) the consequences of victimization, focusing on the harm and suffering of individual horses; and (3) responses to harm in horse racing and the extent to which horses' interests are considered in these processes and outcomes. We conclude that despite regulation and the existence of animal welfare legislation there is a need to review and update horseracing’s animal protection processes.

In the UK in recent years, there has been growing attention paid to dog ‘theft’, from both a policy and legislative perspective and a small but insightful body of academic research. However, this focus has been on sentencing, statistics, and the impact on pet caretakers (‘owners’). There has been little consideration of the impact of abduction on the dogs themselves.

Taking a nonhuman victimological perspective, this paper presents what we believe to be the first research dedicated to exploring these impacts. We present the findings of qualitative research undertaken with the caretakers of companion animals who were abducted and subsequently recovered. The research focuses on what would be currently categorized as dog theft (although we use the term abduction), reporting on the findings of unstructured interviews undertaken to explore the circumstances of the abduction and recovery and, crucially, the perceived impact of the experience on the dogs themselves. We discuss the physical and behavioural effects reported by the participants and, in so doing, seek to elevate the abducted dogs to the status of ‘victim’, rather than mere property, whilst acknowledging the limitations of ‘giving voice’ to victim animals through their human companions.

This paper is part of the pre-arranged panel Criminology and nonhuman animals: New perspectives on nonhuman animal harms.

Adopting the Clausewitzean (1968) argument that the aim of war is the complete domination of the ‘opponent’, this paper makes the case that we are currently engaged in a species war against nonhuman animals. It argues that during this war, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity are committed against nonhuman animals: rape, forced pregnancy and ‘any other form of sexual violence also constituting a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions… or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity.’ Based on a reinterpretation of non-international armed conflict, as outlined by the International Committee of the Red Cross (2008), this paper offers practical and operational guidelines for protecting nonhuman animals from these acts of reproductive violence. Drawing on Article 53 of the Geneva Conventions - The Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949) - it argues that nonhuman animals should be treated as noncombatants during war, and that existing protections within International Humanitarian Law should be applied to them as ‘protected persons’, rather than the property of ‘protected persons.’ In sum, this paper advocates granting nonhuman animals legal personhood and replacing the human security framework with personhood security to protect nonhuman animals from the biopolitical violence(s) of industrialized slaughter and industrialized reproduction.