Examining the Association Between Hurricane and Crime Engagement in Louisiana

Abstract

Natural disasters have become a lot more widespread in the United States of America, whereby a lot more attention is warranted toward the resulting social ills and the subsequent crime rates, a degree that has spawned an overabundance of studies, including this particular publication. Meanwhile, the effects that natural disasters usually have on an economy are not very well understood by society. Instead, it is generally assumed that economic growth, and businesses, for example, declines shortly after the occurrence of a particular disaster, while crime slowly increases to pre-disaster and post-disaster levels over time. The study used secondary sources of data between the years of 1995 and 2015 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s - Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Following the ravaged caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and in an attempt to prevent a similar occurrence in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette,  in the future, this study tends to examine the association between hurricane disasters and crime in general. The analysis of the crime data in the midst of Hurricanes from 1995 to 2015 has underscored that there is a high association between Hurricanes (i.e. natural disaster) and crime in general. This may be attributed to insufficient adequate preparedness towards natural disaster. Above all, the study recommends that the State of Louisiana should come out with a comprehensive urban design for restoring Louisiana from flood or Hurricane disasters. Such a comprehensive crime defensive urban design must incorporate a workable public policy for the benefit and satisfaction of the people as well as to ensure care for the environment.

Keywords: Hurricane, Disasters, Storm, Crime, and Growth

DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/87-04

Publication date:July 31^st 2019