Vox Future Perfect 2024: More animal rights activists will be sentenced to jail or prison?
2
5
90
2025
43%
chance

This resolves to Vox Future Perfect's judgement of this question.

This past November, animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung was convicted and sentenced to jail time for his role in mass actions at two California factory farms in 2018 and 2019. The group Hsiung co-founded in 2013, Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), has fueled a resurgence of the radical wing of the animal rights movement, with risky tactics including trespassing at factory farms and rescuing animals suffering there.

Hsiung’s jail sentence was the first one ever for DxE, and I think there will soon be more. This year, he and two other activists, Eva Hamer and Paul Darwin Picklesimer, will face trial in Madison, Wisconsin, for entering a facility that breeds beagles for animal testing and rescuing three of the dogs in 2017.

I think at least one conviction and jail or prison sentence is more likely than any other individual outcome (the others include acquittal, conviction with no jail time, a deadlocked jury, or the case getting dropped or delayed by prosecutors), though my confidence is quite low because jury trials can be very unpredictable. In October 2022, for example, Hsiung and Picklesimer were acquitted for rescuing two piglets from pork giant Smithfield Foods in a historic trial in a very conservative Utah county. Madison (where I live!) is ultra-progressive by comparison, and it’s adorable beagles, rather than food animals, that are at the heart of the case. I’ll be watching the trial closely and will definitely keep readers apprised. —MB

Vox's prediction was "40 percent"

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