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.