Policing In Natural Disasters

When natural disasters and emergencies strike, the short- and long-term effects of these events on first responders—the very people society relies upon in the midst of a catastrophe—are often overlooked. Policing in Natural Disasters provides a comprehensive analysis of the major challenges faced by law enforcement officers during extreme crisis events. Terri Adams and Leigh Anderson examine the dilemmas police departments face as well as the impact of the disasters on the professional and personal lives of the officers. Case studies explore the response and recovery phases of emergencies including Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Santiago, Chile, and the Superstorm Tornado Outbreak in 2011. Policing in Natural Disasters was inspired by the personal accounts of triumph and tragedy shared by first responders. It provides an understanding of first-responder behaviors during disasters, as well as the preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery policy implications for first responders and emergency managers. As first responders must frequently cope with stress, uncertainty, and threats to their health and safety during high-consequence events, Adams and Anderson provide lessons from first-hand experiences of police officers that can lead to better management in times of crisis.

This brief examines proactive steps police can take to lessen the potential for disaster, improve preparedness for disasters that do occur and enhance our ability to respond to and recover from them. Featuring several countries across the globe as case studies, it illustrates the predictability of various natural and manmade disasters and the need of the local police organizations to develop contingency plans to save lives and structures. With disaster losses and the human toll reaching staggering rates, and even more destructive events projected for the future as the climate shifts, there is a need for action by police and the local communities together. This volume offers a proactive plan that needs to be put in place for future crises, based on the projected predictability of reoccurring events. The brief can serve as a template for other countries and police task forces that have and will face similar crises situations in the future.

Properly addressing a crisis requires more than just guesswork and a reaction; it requires a properly structured approach supported by good information. With the rapid evolution of information systems and information technology, including hardware, software, the internet, and communications capabilities, there are abundant opportunities to apply these technology capabilities and resources to support and improve responses to and management of crisis situations. Approaches to crisis response and management include the design, development, implementation, and application of systematic methodologies on how to respond, as well as how to apply information systems to enhance and extend responses to crises. Information Technology Applications for Crisis Response and Management provides a multi-disciplinary perspective on current and cutting-edge research exploring and extending our understanding of the use of information systems and information technology to support responses to crises of all kinds—accidental, intentional, and acts of nature. The chapters in this book focus on the design, development, implementation, use, and evaluation of information system technologies and methodologies to support crisis response and management, as well as technology management-related issues for crisis response and management. While highlighting technical, cognitive, organizational, and human-focused issues within the field, this book is ideal for policymakers, IT specialists, government officials, crisis response teams, managers, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the use of information technology and information systems to support diverse types of crises.

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.

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.

With renewed interest in both emergency management and homeland security, disproportionate attention and resources have been focused on terrorist threats. However, natural hazards pose a far greater risk of death, injury, and property damage to the typical American jurisdiction. Hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes cause billions of dollars in damage and substantial numbers of deaths and injuries each year. The aim of this book is to focus on these natural hazards and the linkage between law enforcement and emergency management. It draws from criminal justice, psychology, public administration, emergency management, public health, meteorology, leadership, and management in an effort to synthesize a wealth of knowledge to better prepare police officers to respond to the complete range of emergencies and disasters they encounter on the job. Emergency Management for Law Enforcement: Strategies, Operations, and Tactics will help to better integrate law enforcement officers with other first responder agencies as they work together to resolve critical incidents. It pulls together important information obtained from empirical research and disaster experience. This knowledge is designed to help law enforcement officers deal with disasters and emergencies more effectively as important players in emergency management. Learning these evidence-based practical applications will assist police officers in making better decisions in order to take more effective actions at critical incident scenes.

This book examines the role and involvement of law enforcement agencies across the spectrum of homeland security and emergency management. Contributions from expert practitioners and academics are organized around the mission areas of mitigation/protection, prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.

Major natural disasters in the past 3 years, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, have heightened attention to the nation's ability to respond to these types of emergencies. Police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical service personnel are often the first to respond to a crisis or emergency. This book looks at issues faced by first responders.