Animal rights extremism: Victimization, investigation and detection of a campaign of criminal intimidation
| Date | 01 January 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370812460609 |
| Published date | 01 January 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Criminology
10(1) 113 –132
© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370812460609
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Animal rights extremism:
Victimization, investigation
and detection of a campaign of
criminal intimidation
John Donovan
Metropolitan Police Service, UK
Richard Timothy Coupe
University of Cambridge, UK
Abstract
UK Ministry of Justice data and documents and police records are used to examine the crimes
committed by SHAC (Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty) activists against Huntington Life Sciences,
a company using animals for research. The police response and its effects on the animal rights
campaign are also considered. The study is distinctive in that it explores activists’ modi operandi
using case studies and the use of covert investigative techniques in policing offences against victims
of animal rights activists. The effects of SHAC’s leadership ‘decapitation’ are measured, not only
with offence numbers, but also by using sentence length to measure harm. The intelligence-led
investigation proved effective in providing evidence of an organized campaign of intimidation that
had very serious effects on families, employees and commercial profitability. Leadership removal
resulted in a marked offending drop, offset somewhat by increased seriousness, so that overall
harm fell, but less than expected from offence numbers. This counters the view that leadership
removal in organizations motivated by ideological principles is pointless or counterproductive.
Keywords
Animal rights extremism, victimization, fear, harm, policing, leader removal
Introduction
The objectives in this paper are to examine the campaign of intimidation organized by a
small group of animal rights activists against Huntington Life Sciences (HLS), a UK
Corresponding author:
Richard Timothy Coupe, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge,
CB3 9DA, UK.
Email: rtc23@cam.ac.uk
460609EUC10110.1177/1477370812460609European Journal of CriminologyDonovan and Coupe
2013
Article
114 European Journal of Criminology 10(1)
company involved in testing the effects of new drugs on animals. It considers the char-
acteristics of the offences committed by the supporters of SHAC (Stop Huntington
Animal Cruelty), the police response and its effects on offending. The policing of animal
rights extremism in the UK is distinctive in that, to deal with it, a special unit with
national responsibilities was created, manned by officers from CID (Criminal
Investigations Department) and Special Branch,1 a part of UK Intelligence Services. This
paper provides insights into how this unit collected and collated diverse data and drew on
sophisticated intelligence-based approaches to identify offenders, build a prosecution
case and arrest those who led and organized the campaign. It is notable that SHAC’s
activities switched targeting from premises to people (Huggett, 2008) and towards illegal
acts involving the use of blackmail and harassment to instil fear and terror. They pro-
vided a model for attacks by animal rights activists implemented in continental European
countries, and paralleled those undertaken in the USA (Marris and Simonite, 2005).
Modi operandi employed by activists targeting HLS, its suppliers and clients are high-
lighted, and the intimidation of employees and their families is examined and placed in
the context of existing work on victimization, harassment and fear of crime. The effects
of leadership removal on subsequent offending and the harm it caused to victims are
measured and evaluated in the light of existing studies of leadership ‘decapitation’ from
criminal or terrorist organizations (for example, Byman, 2006; Cronin, 2009; David,
2002; Jordan, 2009; Price, 2012).
Existing research
Animal rights protests have a long history in the UK (Henshaw, 1989), with Animal
Liberation Front (ALF) groups such as the Hunt Retribution Squad and the Band of
Mercy prominent in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s; some of their members, though not
fully active, were still regarded as influential in the 2000s. However, the early 2000s
marked a watershed in terms of the marked rise in incidents and a targeting switch from
attacks on premises where animals were farmed for fur or bred for experimental purposes
or where experiments were carried out, increasingly to the homes and families of employ-
ees of organizations engaged in research using animals (Huggett, 2008). Even though the
motives and aims were largely unchanged, the means some activists used to achieve
them had. They successfully targeted companies via their suppliers, customers and bank-
ers in order to damage profitability, making those with thin profit margins vulnerable
(Lutz and Lutz, 2008).
Animal rights activism can be viewed on a ‘protest, crime, terrorism’ continuum
(Walby and Monaghan, 2011), and Liddick (2006) draws parallels between eco-terror-
ism and animal rights extremism. The view of insurgency as the organized use of subver-
sion and violence by a group or movement that seeks to force change (Hauenstein, 2011)
appears to fit the actions of many animal rights groups. Where activities involve the
unlawful use of violence or threats of violence to create terror or fear as a means of coer-
cion to achieve ideological goals, it is reasonable to view them as comparable to terrorist
movements with religious or political aims (for example, Hillyard, 2010; Jackson et al.,
2011; Silke, 2003). Parallels may also be drawn between SHAC and other doctrinal
organizations that use ideology and dogma to justify terrorist actions (Long, 1990) and
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