Crime And Criminal Justice In Disaster

Crime and Criminal Justice in Disaster aims to answer two questions: Why do some people take advantage of the disruption that disaster causes and commit crime, and what can be done about it? The second edition of Crime and Criminal Justice in Disaster focuses on crime in the wake of recent disasters, including the Haiti and Chile earthquakes, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The authors of the essays in this volume, all talented sociologists, criminologists and law enforcement officials who have had direct experience researching and working in disaster conditions, have updated their original work to investigate the longer term effects that disaster can have on crimes such as rape, fraud and looting. They have also worked to explain the actions criminal justice and other systems can take in the short and longer-term disaster aftermaths to combat and prevent crime. Entirely new essays in this edition focus on hate crime in the aftermath of 9/11 and the role that local NGOs can play in the recovery process. The new additions to the revised edition of Crime and Criminal Justice in Disaster help bring us closer to a criminology of disaster and set the stage for new theorizing and research that can help us more fully understand the criminogenic effects of disaster and the best practices for criminal justice and other systems in preventing these effects.

This book puts forward a comprehensive criminology of disaster by drawing - and building - upon existing theories which attempt to explain disaster crime. Although antisocial behaviour in disasters has long been viewed as a rarity, the authors present ample evidence that a variety of crime occurs in the wake of disaster. Frailing and Harper's explorations of property crime, interpersonal violence and fraud during disaster reveal the importance of methodological approaches to understanding these phenomena. They highlight the need for the application of social disorganization, routine activity and general strain theories of crime in the development of disaster crime prevention strategies. An accessible and detailed study, this book will have particular appeal for both students and scholars of criminology, sociology, disaster studies and emergency management.

This work is a wide-ranging and sensitive examination of the lived experience of intimate stalking victimization. It explores how it feels and what it means to be stalked by a former intimate and how this situation creates dilemmas for victims and their advocates. What is it like to try to become a "victim" in the eyes of the law and then to remain one, when almost anything a woman does to manage the violent emotions of an ex-husband or ex-boyfriend can backfire and discredit her claims? The author draws upon a broad array of rich data, including a survey of college women, courtroom testimony, prosecutors' case files, interviews with victims and observations in a prosecutor's office and a stalking survivor's support group to illustrate the difficulties women face as they work to cope with danger - and to negotiate the hazardous terrain of legal systems - simultaneously. For some victims, Dunn shows, prosecution processes are more traumatic than the events that brought them to seek legal help and her analysis of the historical, cultural and gendered frameworks in which stalking victimization and prosecution takes place accounts for the additional trauma. Definitions of situations and identities are contested rather than given in these arenas where lives and self-concepts rest in the balance. The ways in which we socially construct and confer meaning upon intimate violence and its victims profoundly shape what happens to ordinary women facing extraordinary circumstances. "Courting Disaster" illuminates what we can learn from their experience, whether we are working in these arenas or theorizing about how they do, and sometimes do not, work.

In 1992, a preventable explosion at the Westray Mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, killed twenty-six miners. More than a decade later, the government enacted Bill C-45, commonly known as the Westray bill, to hold organizations criminally liable for seriously injuring and killing workers and the public. In Still Dying for a Living, Steven Bittle turns a critical eye on the Westray bill, revealing how legal, economic, and cultural discourses surrounding the bill downplayed the seriousness of workplace injury and death, effectively characterizing these crimes as regrettable but largely unavoidable accidents and in the process obscuring their underlying causes.

The Impact of Natural Disasters on Systemic Political and Social Inequities in the U.S. examines how natural disasters impact social inequality in the United States. The contributors cover topics such as criminal justice, demographics, economics, history, political science, and sociology to show how effects of natural disasters vary by social and economic class in the United States. This volumestudies social and political mechanisms in disaster response and relief that enable natural disasters to worsen inequalities in America and offers potential solutions.

Deals with important social-science issues of law and legal control pertaining to disasters and hazards in a variety of contexts. This title includes: legal controls pertaining to disaster prevention, response, and mitigation; regulations and policies concerning hazardous conditions; and crime and the control thereof in post-disaster situations.

Social media has spread rapidly on the global stage, driving consumers’ attention and influence, both consciously and subconsciously. Whilst this type of platform may have been initially designed as a tool for open communication and expression, it is also being utilized as a digital tool, with widescale use cases. The intelligence explosion, information overload and disinformation play a significant part regarding individual, group and country perceptions. The complex nature of this data explosion created an increasing demand and use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), to help provide ‘big insights’ to ‘big data’. AI and ML enable the analysis and dissemination of vast amounts of data, however the ungoverned pace at which AI and autonomous systems have been deployed, has created unforeseen problems. Many algorithms and AI systems have been trained on limited or unverified datasets, creating inbuilt and unseen biases. Where these algorithmic tools have been deployed in high impact systems, there are documented occurrences of disastrous decision making and outcomes that have negatively impacted people and communities. Little to no work had been conducted in its vulnerability and ability to exploit AI itself. So, AI and autonomous systems, whilst being a force for societal good, could have the potential to create and exacerbate societies greatest challenges. This is a cohesive volume that addresses challenging problems and presents a range of innovative approaches and discussion.

This study explores the 'imaginary of disaster' that appears in popular fictions about the apocalyptic breakdown of society. Focusing on representations of crime, law, violence, vengeance and justice, it argues that an exploration post-apocalyptic story-telling offer us valuable insights into social anxieties.