Expanding the Criminological Agenda: Natural Disasters, Conflict, and Insecurity

• In Event: Avoidable Disasters and Harms, Failures of Justice, and Human Rights

Abstract

Disasters represent one of the most significant security threats in the 21st Century. Yet for all the concern that criminologists raise about human security, the subject of natural disasters has escaped dedicated criminological study. There are a few exceptions, of course, like when issues of looting or sexual violence emerge in the aftermath of catastrophes as they did with 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. However, these analyses are limited in their criticisms of individual unlawful behavior and victimization. There is less understanding of how endemic conflicts and insecurities precipitate disasters as risk drivers and pose collective, long-term security threats. This includes, for example, an understanding of the linkages between ongoing warfare in Sri Lanka and the 2004 South Asian Tsunami; between chronic poverty in Haiti and the 2010 Port-au-Prince earthquake; and between environmental degradation and recurring landslides and typhoons throughout the Philippines. Accordingly, the goals of this paper are twofold: (1) to illuminate the ways in which conflict and insecurity aggravate disasters and the mass harms they cause; and (2) to advance this relationship as a subject of criminological inquiry. Ultimately, this paper serves as a call to action to expand the criminological agenda consistent with global efforts in disaster risk reduction.

Authors

• Jaclyn T. San Antonio, University of Toronto

• Adam Bouloukos, The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction