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This essay was inspired by Natasha Tretheweys Beyond Katrina. During the last section of the book, Trethewey focuses on the experiences her brother, Joe Trethewey, had in prison. Reading about Joes experience and the others he encountered in prison inspired me to explore what kind of crimes might have gotten them there, how they were treated and what became of prisoners during Hurricane Katrina. The Effect of Natural Disasters on Crime and Prisoners There are areas that are constantly in distress. Areas where homes have cardboard windows and some others might consider its low-income tenants lucky. Areas with high poverty and crime rates. Natasha Trethewey, author of Beyond Katrina, grew up in an area like this; her home New Gulfport was referred to as Little Vietnam(Trethewey 86). As poverty rates increase, crime rates increase. A natural disaster increases poverty rates as it strips towns beyond Little Vietnam of its glittering landscape and wealth. Natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina expand the area of destitution beyond places such as Little Vietnam and as people are made desperate, crime rates increase. Through Hurricane Katrina, not only do we see the role natural disasters play in increasing crime rates, we are shown just how little attention and respect society is willing to give to the imprisoned. The panic and devastation brought by natural disasters has been proven to have an effect on the nature of crime, law-enforcements reaction to certain crimes and those who commit crime. We are here, We have a Gun, We will shoot is written outside of a boarded up home post-Hurricane Katrina (Trethewey 104). Make note of the messages initial threat to possible invaders: We are here. Most thieves and burglars have no violent intention and will only enter an empty home. This is because thieves are not characteristically violent; they are often desperate people from desperate conditions. Natural Disasters like Hurricane Katrina make

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people desperate. It was observed that burglary rates in New Orleans for three different hurricanes-one being Hurricane Katrina- increased up to fourfold in the month following the disaster(Barnett, Barnett, Kent and Leitner 247). This increase in burglary comes from people trying to survive devastating conditions as well as people seeing opportunity to take from evacuated homes and places of business. This is how natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina change the nature of crimes like burglary; the necessity of burglary for immediate survival causes moral quandary among law enforcement. Natural Disasters can muddy an understanding of what is and is not a crime and it can be hard for police officers to separate thieves from survivors. To combat burglaries and looting in the Gulf Coast, police issued warnings that if anyone was caught... they would receive a mandatory 5-year jail sequence(Trethewey 104). At the same time as the issued warning, police began allowing Katrina victims to take whatever food and water was necessary to survive (Tretheway 104). Hurricane Katrina created mass desperation and changed what could be considered a crime and who could be considered a criminal by blurring the line between looting and surviving. Natural disasters can reveal a societys priorities by putting it a state of panic. Hurricane Katrina revealed Louisianas indecent lack of concern for the downtrodden and impoverished prisoners. In August, 2005, a great injustice was done to the men, women, and children imprisoned or detained within Louisianas Orleans Parish Prison. Prisoners of Parish prison were left to starve as Hurricane Katrina lifted sewage water up to their chests. Prisons are not where men are meant to be forgotten or treated as an irrelevance.HELP NO FOOD DYING pleaded prisoners through signs (National Prison Project Union 86). Prisoners had been forgotten. The National Prison Project Union states that most of the prisoners at [Old Parish Prison]...had not been convicted of any crime(83). The lives and well-being of these untried detainees were

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treated with disrespect when guards abandoned their posts. Days without out food, water and medical attention had gone by before Angola state penitentiary officers began evacuation (National Prison Project Union 87).The disregard for prisoner well being is made more outrageous considering every prisoner brings in from $22.39 to $43.50 per day in government funding(The Christian Century 5). After the evacuation, the mistreatment of prisoners continued as their needs were ignored and were being detained with excessive force . The tragic abandonment and mistreatment of prisoners during Hurricane Katrina had made prisoners feel as though Guards did not care about [them](National Prison Project Union 88). The blatant disregard or care for the lives of prisoners (especially in a natural disaster) has a massive impact on the prisoners trust of the guards put in charge of them. In Sharon Dolvichs Two Models of the Prison, Dolvich expresses the importance that trust, communication and mutual respect between prisoners and their supervisors is essential for creating a safe and healthy community (1036). Places of rehabilitation are meant to make their visitors feel as safe as possible. Prisoners who have been treated harshly by their superiors and feel abandoned are less likely to rehabilitate. How can prisoners be expected to better themselves if they are busy trying to protect themselves? Natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina can reveal the lack of respect and attention forgotten and downtrodden prisoners receive. In addition to this, the can The abandonment of prisoners did not end with the tragedy at Orleans Parish Prison; Hurricane Katrina caused many detainees with pending trials to be legally abandoned. Natural disasters make a mess of society and the plights of the poor and unrepresented prisoners are often forgotten. Before Hurricane Katrina, many suspects arrested for misdemeanors and felonies were imprisoned within Orleans Parish Prison. Pamela R. Metzger of the Tulane Law Review reported

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that a significant percentage of detainees were illegally detained, held past their lawful release dates (Metzger 3). It is no surprise that these illegally detainees were able to fall through the cracks of the Louisiana prison system. Cindy Chang of the Times Picayune has called Louisiana the worlds prison capital claiming that it imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S counterparts. A state with such a high number of misdemeanor imprisonments is bound to leave its prisoners forgotten and unrepresented. In the case of Orleans Parish Prison, the phone lines were cut forty-eight hours after the storm, causing some detainees to never contact proper legal representation (Metzger 2). With sheriffs receiving a higher paycheck for every person imprisoned in a for-profit jail, there is no doubt that Louisiana has had long standing flaws in its prison system, but the panic that Hurricane Katrina caused exaggerated and exposed systematic failures (Metzger 20). There were prisoners who would have been unjustly left in prison whether or not Hurricane Katrina hit. While Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy that caused an overwhelming amount of prisoners great distress, there is a silver-lining: Hurricane Katrina turned the eyes of a greater public towards the injustices caused to Louisianas forgotten and underrepresented prisoners. Trethewey writes that outsiders viewed the denizens of Little Vietnam as dangerous or insignificant(Trethewey 86). The panic caused by poverty and devastation could drive anyone into the desperation required to turn to crime. Most crime comes when people are desperate and feel that they are without choice. Most of those imprisoned come from low-income, povertyridden backgrounds. Natural disasters can reveal many of a society's flaws when we observe a societys reaction to devastation, increased crime-rates and increased poverty. Observations of Hurricane Katrina showed many of the ways society is prone to panic, ill-prepared, and divided during a natural disaster. Natural Disasters change the very nature of crime and those society

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considers criminals. Increased crime rates during and after Hurricane Katrina showed the desperation natural disasters can cause. The tragedy at the Orleans Parish Prison showed the revealing power of a natural disaster and the lack of respect for the lives of the downtrodden prisoners of Louisiana. The forgotten and unrepresented prisoners that Hurricane Katrina caused to be illegally over-detained revealed one of many ways that natural disasters can cause society to overlook the plights of legally abandoned prisoners. Natural disasters turn societies on their ears and disrupt the lives of many average citizens. It is important that society attempts to understand the plights of its prisoners and the motivations of their committed crimes. Attaining this understanding can lead to keeping innocent people out of prison and prisoners healthy and on their way towards rehabilitation or release.

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Works Cited Abandoned And Abused: Prisoners In The Wake Of Hurricane Katrina. Race & Class 49.1 (2007): 81-92. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. Chang, Cindy. Louisiana Is the Worlds Prison Capital. NOLA.com. The Times- Picayune, 13 May 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. Dolovich, Sharon. "Two Models Of The Prison: Accidental Humanity And Hypermasculinity In The L.A. County Jail." Journal Of Criminal Law & Criminology 102.4 (2012): 965-1117. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. Leitner, Michael, et al. The Impact Of Hurricane Katrina On Reported Crimes in Louisiana: A Spatial And Temporal Analysis. Professional Geographer 63,2 (2011):244-261. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. Metzger, Pamela R. Doing Katrina Time. Tulane Law Review 81. (2007): 1175. LexisNexis Academic: Law Reviews.Web. 13 Apr. 2014. Settles, Tanya, and Bruce R. Lindsay. Crime in Post-Katrina Houston: The Effects Of Moral Panic On Emergency Planning. Disasters 35.1 (2011): 200-219. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. Trethewey, Natasha D. Beyond Katrina: A Meditation On The Mississippi Gulf Coast/ Natascha Trethewey. n.p.: Athens, Georgia : University of Georgia Press, 2012., 2012. Georgia Perimeter College GIL Catalog. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. The Prison Business. Christian Century, 123.20(2006):5. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.

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