Tough new prison sentences for animal cruelty only highlight society’s rampant speciesism
The Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill has received the Royal Assent paving the way for tougher prison sentences of up to five years for those convicted of unnecessary animal cruelty. Seen by many as complementary to Finn’s Law, which protects service animals such as police dogs, such laws are great news for some animals but not for most others reminding us once again that society still has a long way to go to overcome its speciesism.
The big news out last week from the UK’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) is that people convicted of committing the “most heinous animal cruelty crimes” can be imprisoned for up to five years from June this year, where previously the maximum sentence was just six months. The Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021 is fantastic news for people who believe in animal welfare legislation, and indeed it stands to reason that longer prison sentences would act as a deterrent and send a stronger message that animals are to be protected, but not a lot has really changed for the majority of animals subjected to exploitation at the hands of humans and the legally permissible harm we cause.
In 2019, Finn’s Law - essentially a change to the Animal Welfare Act 2006 (AWA) - was passed in response to the failure of the Criminal Prosecution Service (CPS) in convicting a 16-year-old of anything more than criminal damage after stabbing police dog Finn in the body and head with a knife. The issue was that people suspected of crimes, who injure police dogs during their capture and detainment, can claim “self-defense” when arguing against the crime of causing “unnecessary suffering to protected animals” under the AWA. Essentially, prior to Finn’s Law, a suspect when said to be defending themselves from the jaws of a police dog could also be said to be causing - at least in a sense or by implication - necessary harm that was a consequence of the service dog fulfilling their duties, and therefore not subject to the criteria for prosecution under the AWA. Isn’t the law a strange thing? Finn’s Law - more formerly known as Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Act 2019 - is a straightforward amendment to the AWA that effectively removes this self-defense loophole.
Again, great news for service animals - chiefly police dogs and any handled by uniformed authorities - but what about the other non-human animals who provide us with services above and beyond, the ones who give their lives in the countless millions each year? We are talking of course about farmed animals, whose suffering and death is somehow deemed necessary despite all the evidence that the vast majority of us can not just live but thrive on a diet free of animal products.
The new sentencing legislation only extends the prison time possible under the AWA, it does not change the definition of what is necessary and unnecessary or of which animals are protected and to what degree. The AWA remains essentially the same as always. Other than the possibly greater deterrent effect of tougher sentencing, farm animals are no more or less protected when most of the harm caused to them is permitted by law.
Dairy mothers and their calves will continue to be cruelly separated causing significant emotional harm that is certainly unnecessary when we don’t need to consume their stolen milk. Piglets raised in terrible conditions will continue to get sick and be “thumped” to death, their heads smashed against hard surfaces as a legally accepted form of euthanasia in many developed countries when no one needs to eat their flesh. Broiler chickens will continue to be raised to live miserable lives by an industry that knows full well that many will suffer terribly and unavoidably simply as a result of their perverted genetics. The list of morally unnecessary, but legally necessary, harm and suffering caused to animals within the farming industry is almost endless and is increasingly unjustifiable, yet the law and society as a whole continues to turn a blind eye.
In 2019, the RSPCA secured 1,432 convictions relating to animal welfare offences, claiming a 93.7 per cent success rate from all its cases. Yet only 43 of those convictions concerned farm animals, with the majority of cases involving dogs (810), cats (196) and horses (182). In its annual prosecutions report, the RSPCA made much of the convictions of workers at two pig farms - one resulting from an anonymous tip-off, the other following an Animal Equality investigation. These are just the farms we know about, and the implication is that these are the minority, the relatively few ‘bad apples’, and not the industry norm. This is clearly a false assumption. For the release of Animal Equality’s latest investigation into a pig farm Aberdeenshire run by the now-former chairman of Quality Meat Scotland, the animal rights organisation stated that it had filmed inside “10 UK pig farms in the last five years, finding severe animal suffering and flagrant disregard for animal welfare in every single one” yet not all will have resulted in convictions.
From our own experience of sending investigation footage to authorities, we know that the majority don’t get very far in regards to prosecutions, for many different reasons. Even if there was the will from authorities to enforce laws, the same problems that existed prior to the tougher sentencing will still be there. The RSPCA’s conviction rate will remain as it would have been without longer prison time, and even then the injustices that society says are fine to commit against some animals will continue unchecked.
Tougher sentencing under the AWA and the redefining of unnecessary suffering caused to police dogs - these are all well and good, but to celebrate them is to celebrate our speciesism. To truly move forward, we must reject the notion that some animals are more worthy of living without suffering and death than others, allowing us to bypass our compassion and commit unspeakable acts.
Why is speciesism such a problem? We’ll end this with a quote from Surge co-director Ed Winters, taken from his video What speciesism actually is:
“...the issue with a speciesist mentality is that it creates arbitrary distinctions between different species of animals. However, it also creates a mindset of discrimination that in turn can facilitate exploitation. It carries the idea of human superiority to the extreme of believing that trivial and needless human desires are morally permissible, such as skinning animals for a fur or leather jacket, forcing pigs into gas chambers for a bacon sandwich, or separating newborn calves from their mothers so that we can drink their mother’s milk.
“Speciesism has allowed us to create a world where trillions of animals are killed every single year, with tens of billions of them living an abject and horrific life, with their bodies mutilated; their reproductive systems abused and their babies stolen; their individuality and desire to avoid suffering ignored; and their lives ultimately taken from them by force.”
Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager for Surge.
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