Beauty and the Beast: Animal abuse from a non-speciesist criminological perspective

Although interactions between people and other animals play an important part in the social arena, this topic has until recently largely been neglected by criminologists. Recent developments in ethical theory on the moral status of animals require a reconsideration of speciesist attitudes and practices permeating our dealings with animals. Hence, a non-speciesist criminology is called for. The most evident topic that comes to mind from a criminological point of view, namely ‘animal abuse’, is dealt with from such a non-speciesist angle in this paper. In a review of publications dealing witth the link between animal abuse, domestic violence and child abuse, two points are discussed: the neglect or selectivity in giving a definition of ‘animal abuse’ and the one-sided attention of criminlogists for individual instances of cruelty to animals of animal abuse, neglecting institutionalised instances of animal abuse. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.