Puppycide by Gavel: How the Judiciary Uses the Police Killing of Dogs to Reinforce Justifications for Police Violence

Authors

Jeremy J. Smith, University of Tennessee

Abstract

"Police discharge their firearms more often at dogs than humans, and as a profession, kill thousands of dogs every year. The number of dogs killed by police during these encounters has government officials declaring that an “epidemic” is occurring within policing itself, with some commentators referring to this trend as “puppycide” or “canicide.” The purpose of this article is to examine how the judiciary rationalizes canicide, or the police killing of dogs, and the role canicide plays in the justification of police violence. To do this, the article provides a sociolegal and ethnographic content analysis of federal court cases and legal decisions on canicide, specifically focusing on the most important case to date, Brown v. Battle Creek Police Department. Results indicate that the same legal frameworks used to justify police violence against humans are also used to justify police violence against dogs. Furthermore, results suggest that the human-dog social relationship becomes paramount in transforming the dog into a threat to officer safety. Implications of these findings are discussed."

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Smith, Jeremy J. (2025) "Puppycide by Gavel: How the Judiciary Uses the Police Killing of Dogs to Reinforce Justifications for Police Violence," Qualitative Criminology (QC): Vol. 14: No. 2, Article 1.
Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/qc/vol14/iss2/1