Abstract
In recent years there is increasing public attention for dog fighting in Europe. This article focuses on this phenomenon in the Netherlands: its organisation, various actors, modus operandi and possible involvement of organized crime. This qualitative research is based on semi-structured interviews, analysis of police files, observations and online methods. As the result of criminalisation, dogfighting in the Netherlands went underground, creating an illegal market and a sub-culture of dogmen and dogwomen involved. Reputation, status and trust are among the most prominent features of this sub-culture, which is manifested in their analysed communications.
Highlights
There is no single clear explanation as to why dogfighting1 continues to be such a popular phenomenon all over the world despite strict legislation and the threat of punishment
Dog fights are often linked to organized crime, especially illegal gambling and money laundering
Conducting ethnographic research on this phenomenon is an important task for criminologists who wish to explore the connection between organized crime and dogfighting
Summary
There is no single clear explanation as to why dogfighting continues to be such a popular phenomenon all over the world despite strict legislation and the threat of punishment. That dog fights were being held in the Netherlands at which the animals would inflict serious injuries on each other, an Advisory Committee on Aggressive Behaviour of Dogs was set up by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries on the 1 0th of June 1988 This Committee concluded in their report that criminal law and the laws on gambling did not provide a good basis for legal action against dogfighting. This trust can form the basis for long-standing relationships or friendships, while social media facilitate and spread fascination with dogfighting (Harding 2012; Harding and Nurse 2015) They provide a wide range of possibilities to form relationships, observe battles from up close, join in with evaluating the participating dogs and keeping up-to-date with international events, both online and offline (Smith 2011; Lawson 2017). Cassidy’s respondents ascribed male dominance in betting shops to ‘a natural preference by men for activities that involve calculation and deduction and to the absence of this preference among women’ (Cassidy 2013: 18)
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