Protective orders for animals in Maine

The New York Times reports on a new law in Maine, "believed to be" the first of its kind, which expands protective orders to include animals. (Hat tip: Animal Ethics.) Such a law was, to our knowledge, first proposed in a student note in the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism. For those of you with Westlaw/Lexis, check out Dianna J. Gentry, Including Companion Animals in Protective Orders: Curtailing the Reach of Domestic Violence,Yale J.L. & Feminism 97 (2001).

Readers of HC&B know that we have questioned policies targeting animal abusers which are motivated solely by the possibility of future abuse to humans, e.g., residency and occupation restrictions. This criticism is motivated both by our disapproval of such policies' anthropocentric priorities and by the lack of evidence that animal abuse leads to human abuse. See Mainer Piers Beirne's recent article in Society & Animals for a review of the literature on "progression thesis." The Maine law, however, recognizes the more well-established phenomena of violence against humans occurring in the same households as violence against nonhumans, without asserting any causation between the two, and without minimizing the suffering of animals. (The sound bite from the Maine Governor, however, focuses solely on human survivors of violence.) As the example in the Times article indicates, animals are used by abusive people (mainly men) as to way to hurt other humans. The Maine law has the potential to deter such cruelty in a way that prosecutions after the fact can not.

Update (4/5/06): For all y'all statuteheads out there, the bill is LD 1881, which allows a court to enter "an order concerning the care, custody or control of any companion animal or companion livestock owned, possessed, leased, kept or held by either party or a minor child residing in the household" in addition to the other relief allowed in protective orders under Sec. 4007 of Maine's protective order statute. As far as we are aware, "companion livestock" is a fairly novel legal idea.

Update (9/6/06): Thanks to Anne Jordan, who notes in the comments below that the law signed covers "any animal owned, possessed...." etc. Here's what we think is the final version.

Comments

[Anne Jordan]

Good afternoon- I'd like to clarify something recently posted on your site about Maine's new law. The final version of the law that was signed by the Gov. can be found at Chapter 510. It does not differentiate between pets and companion livestock. The law simply refers to "an animal". The companion livestock definition was orignally included as Maine's law counted such animals as horses, rabbits, ferrets and others as livestock and only considered dogs and cats as pets. During the legislative process our law was changed to include all animals. Anne Jordan