University of Denver Professor of Law Justin Marceau will discuss his new book, Beyond Cages: Animal Law and Criminal Punishment (Cambridge University Press 2019). In Beyond Cages, Marceau critiques the alliance between U.S. animal welfare organizations and the prosecuting state. For decades, it has been argued by animal welfare groups that more prosecutions and longer sentences for individuals accused of animal cruelty are key to protecting animals and elevating their importance in society. Marceau calls out the hypocrisy of what he terms “carceral animal law”: the use of strategies including imprisonment, privatized prosecution, and deportation to target individual actors. He argues that the animal welfare movement must instead focus on systemic solutions, and offers new insights into how the lessons of criminal justice reform can be applied in the context of animal abuse cases. Justin Marceau is Professor of Law and Animal Legal Defense Fund Professor of Law at the University of Denver. He has been retained as an expert witness in the fields of criminal law and animal law, and has published leading articles in both disciplines. He is the inaugural chair of the Scholars Committee for the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, and the current chair of the Animal Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS).