Abstract
A ‘disaster criminology’ is overdue. Disasters—more or less however we choose to define them—inflict great suffering, often have their origins in deeply ‘anti-social’ behaviour (which may, or may not transgress the law) and may involve profound psychosocial and material dislocation. In the preface to Toward a Criminology of Disaster Kelly Frailing and Dee Wood Harper indicate how their interest in a ‘criminology of disaster’ arose. As criminologists they were: interested in anti-social behaviour in disaster and there were plenty of anecdotal examples of crime in the wake of [Hurricane] Katrina. It was tempting, even for us as scholars, to look upon these examples and declare disasters to be criminogenic. (p. vii)
They go on to note that: property crime occurs in the wake of disaster […] [and] […] a variety of interpersonal violence occurs in the wake of disaster and it especially affects women and children. We know a number of crimes of fraud occur in the wake of disaster […] We know that organized crime is resilient against disasters. (pp. vii–viii)
This, as the authors emphasize, goes against some received wisdom in disaster sociology: that people generally behave pro-socially after a disaster strikes. Chapters focusing respectively on post-disaster fear, property crime, interpersonal violence, fraud, the resilience of crime and the resilience of communities are book-ended by discussions of the case for a criminology of disaster in Chapter 1, and culture and a criminology of disaster in Chapter 8. They combine to present an interesting challenge to the prevailing ‘pro-social’ consensus, seeking to ‘apply a number of criminological theories in order to move beyond description and explain the crime that has occurred in the wake of some disasters, including social disorganization, routine activity, and general strain theories, usually in combination’ (p. viii).
An important strand in the book is the importance of pre-disaster conditions to post-disaster outcomes. Social disorganization pre-disaster, for example, is likely to lead to social disorganization afterwards. Similarly the utility of ‘strain’ and ‘routine activity’ theories in anticipating or accounting for post-disaster crime will depend on how they are applied to the contexts within which disaster impacts. As Dynes (1994: 150) put it some years ago, in relation to disaster response rather than disaster crime, ‘the best predictor of behaviour in emergencies is behaviour prior to the emergency. Emergencies do not make sinners out of saints, nor Jekylls out of Hydes.’
More might have been made of this idea. For example, when discussing post-disaster drug crimes and violence there is little consideration of chronically ‘disastrous’ drug prohibition, or widespread US gun ownership (I don’t hold with the authors’ overall assumption that disasters are almost coterminous with acute crisis—disastrous harm can be and indeed usually is, chronic). More could be made too, of the problematic of ‘crime’ itself within criminology in general and in relation to disaster. A zemiological interrogation of ‘harm’—as an alternative to the more mainstream focus on state-defined ‘crime’ here—might have helped the authors towards their broader ambitions. Its absence may account for what is a limited view of what might be considered ‘anti-social’ or ‘criminal’. The behaviour of official agencies, corporate and political elites for example seem generally to be assumed to be pro-social, when there is plenty of evidence that this is frequently not the case. The disaster event itself generally seems to be taken as a given, rather than as a harmful event that requires criminological/zemiological explanation, maybe in terms of theories the authors use to analyse individual offenders: ‘routine activity’, ‘social disorganization’, ‘fear’, ‘de-civilization’, ‘failures in self-control’ or differential association with ‘delinquent peers’; or more broadly in terms of failed systems, system failures and structured inequality. Explaining disasters in themselves however, usually requires focus to be directed towards the top rather than the bottom of social hierarchies.
A disaster criminology would also need to critically reflect on its own focus. Property crime, violence and drug offences after Katrina for example, might well demand our attention, but when a thousand people are killed, largely through official ineptitude and institutionalized callousness, we need to take care that our emphases do not unwittingly victim-blame: focusing, with the popular media, disproportionate attention on individual (and sometimes desperate or justifiable) transgressions within disaster-affected communities while under-exploring social economic and political processes that cause, fail to anticipate, fail to mitigate or exacerbate mass human suffering.
A criminology of disaster is overdue as the authors rightly argue and this book is a welcome step towards it, thoughtfully examining conventional crimes after acute disaster. However, any disaster criminology also needs to expand its vision of what this criminology might mean and who it might serve. It requires a critical orientation towards disastrous harms, both acute and chronic, that may go beyond state defined crime. It needs to question the culpabilities of elites, states and corporations. It needs to ask itself what justice, as opposed to law, might demand in instances of disastrous harm. An important contribution of Frailing and Harper’s work is its clear implication that none of these questions can be answered without understanding the central significance of the continuity of everyday, normalized inequality and social injustice.