Horse Maiming in the English Countryside: Moral Panic, Human Deviance, and the Social Construction of Victimhood

Abstract

The societal reaction to a series of horse assaults in rural Hampshire during the 1990s was a rare example of a moral panic about crime and deviance in which animals other than humans occupy, or seemed to occupy, the central role of victim. This paper explores how the nature of the relationships between humans and animals is revealed through authoritative utterances about offenders and victims by the mass media, the police, and the humans who felt they had a stake in the horses' well-being. Analysis of how and when victimhood is ascribed to animals helps to uncover the invisible assaults routinely inflicted on them -in the name of business or pleasure, for example -and against whose human perpetrators the categories of criminalization are almost never applied.

Horse Play in the Canadian West: The Emergence of the Calgary Stampede as Contested Terrain

“…These concerns are also echoed in the work of Yates et al (2001) who argue that racehorses competing in Britain routinely face stress, harm, or death. This Is illustrated by the alarmingly high rates of fatalities associated with flat racing and steeplechases.…”

“…Tliey discuss the societal reaction-what they call a "moral panic"-to a number of horse attacks which took place in Hampshire, England, throughout the 1990s. In particular, they describe the amplified public response resulting from news of horse attacks which, they argue, represents a broader shift in public attitudes toward rhe mistreatment of animals which have historically been seen merely as the chattel of humans and have thus occupied a less important "master status" (Yates et al, 2001;Deutschmann, 2007). However, Yates et al argue that despite individual-level changes toward the treatment of animals, compelling institutional-level changes have yet to be made in many societies, suggesting that horses continue to be considered principally as objects with diminished social worth and value.…”

Interspecies Violence and Crimes of Dissent: Communication Ethics and Legitimacy in Message Crimes Involving Wildlife

“…How civil, and by extension, how justified is harming or killing animals as a form of conscientious political communication (assuming that there is anything civil or justified at all about using animals to make a political point)? In the case of harm against domestic animals, the property-owner relationship commonly attributes to the human owner the status of ''victim'' in cases of wrongdoing to the animal (Yates et al 2001). But, by contrast, wildlife crimes are more difficult to parse, especially as message crimes.…”

Toward a Less Speciesist Sociology of Sport

“…While racing greyhounds are not intentionally killed for the sake of entertainment, their bodies and lives are subjected to a variety of forms of control and constraint, many of which cause the animals discomfort, stress and risk. Perhaps more than any other animal setting, the institutionalized abuses inherent in horse racing and other equine sports have been widely studied (cf., Yates, Powell and Beirne, 2001;Herzog & Golden, 2009), and equally widely mediated. Gerber and Young's (2013) critical review of horse participation at the Calgary Stampede cites numerous cases of abuses in rodeo and other horse sports.…”