No animal is immune from becoming a victim of human abuse and cruelty. Whether wild, or domestic, animals unfortunately often suffer at the hands of humans. This chapter explores how the criminal justice system, specifically within the confines of Colorado law, aims to hold animal abusers accountable and provides an overview of applicable statutory provisions and case examples. Written from one Colorado prosecutor’s perspective, this chapter asserts that the prosecution of animal cruelty offenders is essential for three primary reasons. First, the pursuit of criminal charges can be the impetus for the removal of the victim animal from the defendant-abuser’s custody (and thereby helps to safeguard the victim animal). Second, the levying of criminal charges sends a strong message to both the defendant-abuser and society as a whole that the proper and humane treatment of animals matters. Third, the imposition of a sentence upon conviction – whether punitive, rehabilitative, or a combination thereof – serves as an intervention and helps to ensure that the conduct is not repeated

This chapter offers reflections from the point of view of an anti-domestic violence activist, attorney and legal scholar on several key parallels between the trajectory of the battered women’s movement and the animal rights movement. The animal rights movement appears to be relying increasingly on criminalization of abuse as a strategy to decrease abuse, much like the anti-domestic violence movement did a couple of decades earlier. The chapter argues that a number of unintended, and possibly irreversible, consequences in the anti-domestic violence movement should give serious pause to the direction of animal rights activists’ current course. These are the crowding out of community-based solutions and necessary social services to keep victims safe; the harms – including increased rather than decreased danger to victims - that mandatory arrest has caused; the problem of police as perpetrators of abuse, both human and animal; and the erosion of activists’ initial vision and goals for structural change. Overlaying all of these is a larger, deeply troublesome parallel: the indifference of both movement’s white leadership to the treatment of people of color by law enforcement. The chapter concludes with regrets about relying on law, and particularly criminal law, as a solution to the problem of abuse.

In this chapter, we explore how LGBQTNB people are affected by intersections of human- and animal-directed violence. We start by outlining how research in the field of human–human domestic violence has long recognised the relationship between such violence and human–animal cruelty in the domestic sphere but argue that rarely, however, has research on ‘the link’ focused on LGBQTNB people. From the international survey and interview data considered in this chapter, what is evident is that many LGBQTNB people see animal companions as uniquely able to recognise and honour human diversity. As a result, the threat of animal cruelty strikes a particular chord for human LGBTQNB victims of domestic violence: It speaks to the very point of identification that produces a sense of being uniquely recognised and honoured. As we have argued elsewhere, the idea of ‘rescuing’ animals from dire situations is always paired with the potential that animal companions will help to rescue humans from their own dire situations. In a broader context of discrimination, the recognition and honour seemingly accorded by animals offer lifelines to many. Yet, in the context of violent human–human relationships, the lives of humans and animals are at risk. How the survey and interview participants account for this enmeshment of risk and rescue thus sits at the very heart of this chapter.

In this chapter, we explore how LGBQTNB people are affected by intersections of human- and animal-directed violence. We start by outlining how research in the field of human–human domestic violence has long recognised the relationship between such violence and human–animal cruelty in the domestic sphere but argue that rarely, however, has research on ‘the link’ focused on LGBQTNB people. From the international survey and interview data considered in this chapter, what is evident is that many LGBQTNB people see animal companions as uniquely able to recognise and honour human diversity. As a result, the threat of animal cruelty strikes a particular chord for human LGBTQNB victims of domestic violence: It speaks to the very point of identification that produces a sense of being uniquely recognised and honoured. As we have argued elsewhere, the idea of ‘rescuing’ animals from dire situations is always paired with the potential that animal companions will help to rescue humans from their own dire situations. In a broader context of discrimination, the recognition and honour seemingly accorded by animals offer lifelines to many. Yet, in the context of violent human–human relationships, the lives of humans and animals are at risk. How the survey and interview participants account for this enmeshment of risk and rescue thus sits at the very heart of this chapter.