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The purpose of this study is to examine looting behaviour during natural disaster incidents. As a consequence, this study considers looting in the context of two case studies: a Tsunami and a Bushfire. The study offers an exploration into the types of and motivations for looting, as well as reflecting on prevention measures.

The methodological approach of a rapid evidence assessment (REA) is used to examine looting behaviour within the context of two natural disaster incidents, drawing on a thematic analysis, as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006) to support the presentation of findings.

The findings of the REA yield three themes. The first theme, Theme 1, focuses on the types of offenders – looters, while Theme 2 focuses on the motivations for offending behaviour – looting. The final theme, Theme 3, presents crime prevention responses: looters and looting. Each theme is further illustrated through a number of sub-themes, and while the two case studies centre on two distinct natural disaster incidents, there are similarities that exist between them offering insights for why looting occurs and consequently how to respond to looting.

Previous research has recognised how incidents such as bushfires enable and create opportunity for looting behaviour. Yet, arguably, little has been achieved in successfully preventing such behaviour. This study offers evidence for why looting occurs during natural disaster incidents and considers the prevention measures that can lead to a reduction in this offending into the future. The need for more detailed and primary research into looting during natural disaster incidents is a research implication engendered by the current study.

This study considers crime prevention approaches in the form of situational crime prevention and social development crime prevention that have direct relevance on crime prevention policy and practice. The practical implications are worthy of attention from law enforcement agencies and other first/emergency responders.

This study seeks to offer evidence for policy and practice initiatives that can increase public safety and reduce further threats to community safety during natural disaster incidents.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, a concerted effort for swifter and more effective responses to emergency management incidents has occurred. However, the focus of such responses has typically overlooked looting during natural disaster incidents. This study goes some way in addressing that gap in the literature and connects the current scientific knowledge to prevention strategies, informing future policy and practice responses to addressing looting during such incidents. This study provides a stimuli for further research into looters, looting and natural disaster incidents.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the many reports of looting during the response operation in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and assess these reports against literature which suggests that looting during natural disasters is a myth.

Media reports of looting from the days following Hurricane Katrina's landfall in New Orleans are compared with previously published evidence of disaster mythology. Questions are raised regarding the legitimacy of these reports and the role of such reports is assessed along with the role that media agencies play in disaster planning and response.

Media reports of looting in New Orleans appear to be mainly repeated second‐hand accounts. It is likely that there was in fact no looting in the traditional sense. The paper suggests what really happened in terms of theft and poses potential reasons as to the cause thereof. A clear definition of looting is suggested for emergency managers to use in order to separate acts of survival from pure criminal acts.

The paper highlights the dangers for emergency managers in believing common disaster myths. It is a timely reminder of the existence disaster mythology against a recent disaster in a developed country.

This paper aims to examine the complex issue of the social cost of carbon. The authors review the existing literature and the strengths and deficiencies of existing approaches. They introduce a simple methodology that estimates the amount of “legal looting” in the fossil fuel industry as an alternative approach to calculate an unpaid social cost of carbon. The “looting amount” can be defined as society’s failure to charge fossil fuel firms for the damage that their activities cause represents an implied subsidy.

The methodology used in this paper combines decisions in the form of policymakers setting carbon taxes and rational investors investing in carbon emission markets.

The authors show that the unpaid social cost of carbon in the fossil fuel industry was US$12.7tn over 1995-2013, but may be as high as US$115.5tn.

Over the same period, the sum of industry profits, emission trading scheme carbon permit and carbon tax revenue totalled US$7tn, indicating the industry would not be viable if it was made to pay for damages to society.

The purpose of this paper is to explain why, as a matter of law and policy, loss suffered as a consequence of terrorism, insurrection and/or civil uprising is not generally compensable in insurance law. The paper postulates that it is the duty of the state, particularly in small states, to compensate loss of this type.

The paper achieves this objective by studying the attempted coup d'état by Muslim fundamentalists in Trinidad and Tobago in 1990 and the devastating property losses suffered during the attempted coup as a consequence of looting and arson. The standard terms of two main policies then in use are meticulously set out and examined in the context of the relevant case law and textbook learning on the subject of losses of this type.

The paper demonstrates that losses occasioned as a consequence of activity of the type under reference – that is terrorist activity, insurrection and civil uprising – cannot be dealt with by insurance companies and that it falls to the state as the guardian of national security and as an honest broker in the development of the economy to ensure even development by compensating losses occasioned as a consequence of terrorist activity, insurrection and/or civil uprising.

The paper for the first time puts in context losses of the type now being experienced in many parts of the world and explains the limitations of the traditional insurance law principles to treat with these losses. The solution of state compensation as a last resort to compensate innocent victims in these circumstances is advanced as a possible solution.

As of November 2021, six out of the 12 United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations are in Sub-Saharan Africa, spread between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Western Sahara, Mali, Central African Republic, Abyei, South Sudan and Darfur. When considered alongside other recent conflicts in Liberia, Angola, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Mozambique, many of these conflicts are driven and sustained by resource looting of oil, minerals, timber, gas and fertile land and sand. Although other factors, particularly colonialism, the creation of poorly governed states, ethnic polarization, greed and extremism contribute to violence, the author argues that resource looting is central. Taking the DRC as the case study, the purpose of this paper is to examine why traditional UN peacekeeping, grounded in the international liberal order, has failed to efficiently deescalate wars and armed conflicts that are driven by resource looting and how alternative homegrown peace strategies can be more effective.

Deploying peacekeeping, peacebuilding and resource governance and theories, this paper examines the current UN peacekeeping efforts to increase our understanding of how alternative peacekeeping strategies found in African cultures, particularly indigenous epistemologies can be used to engender sustainable peace and security. The second argument is that sustainable peace and security cannot be solely exogenous, without integrating African cultural heritage, specifically African indigenous knowledge systems or epistemologies, a factor that is consistent with people’s right to self-determination and agency.

Peacekeeping that is exogenously enforced has failed to create sustainable peace and security in the DRC.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is original, based on the research conducted in the DRC. Following the academic writing norms, the data is backed up by literature.

Rioting and looting can take several forms and can be enacted at different levels of society and be subjected to a range of criteria; war is a form of looting and rioting, but is blessed with, and condoned by, every institution of the State. Commercial looting and rioting — although devoid of flame and physical violence — has much in common with its other sisters and also tends to gather impetus at specific times; further, it can manifest itself in areas lacking sophistication. As we write, the country is in partial recession and a new technical epoch is dawning; the Government (quite rightly) is persisting with its crusade against inflation and we live at a period in which we are actually encouraged to flaunt our impediments (commercial and personal) for money. Contemplating this hotch‐potch of phenomena the commercial entrepreneur, his more staid institutional brethren and the imperative technical arms in support of them both, must harness all their joint talent if they are to remain solvent. But for what purpose? The paint revenue cake — perhaps a little stale at this point — is still here for those eager to slice it.

The historian can provide quite a different explanation, other than the currently held views, for the emergence of the Red Terror in 1918.

The purpose of this paper is to inform individuals that the looting and destruction of Iraq's cultural heritage was an attack on the rich culture of humanity itself.

Published works, both recent and ranging back to the middle of the twentieth century, such as articles, books, Congressional Bills/Parliamentary Acts, and United Nation reports were examined. By reviewing various pieces of literature and legislation, this paper reveals the long and difficult road to preserving a nation's cultural heritage.

In the wake of the USA's and coalition's invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraq's National Library and Archives, National Museum, and other significant cultural heritage sites were pillaged by looters and thieves. This paper discusses the response by librarians and archivists to the destruction of Iraq's historical collections and the actions taken. The safeguards, which have, over time, developed to preserve a nation's cultural identity, were not enforced during or after the invasion of Iraq. This paper examines a few examples in the twentieth century of nations' repositories that were purposely destroyed.

This paper identifies key pieces of legislation and events that will allow individuals to comprehend to the fullest the danger to libraries and museums from modern warfare.

The “Rotis not Riots” group is an online discussion forum formed during the August 2011 riots in England to facilitate feminist dialogue aimed at making sense of these unprecedented events.

The founders use roti (a type of unleavened bread) as a symbol to focus attention on the importance of sharing different perspectives. This reflective paper draws on the group's exchanges, exploring: the complexity of the ways in which gender intersects with the riots and their aftermath; the role of consumerism and race; the ways in which the media has framed the riots in news stories; and the ways in which criminal justice system responses have been received by both the media and the general public.

The paper concludes by examining some of the group's ideas about how Britain might move forwards through responses that are constructive rather than punitive, aimed at ensuring that all citizens feel they have a stake in both their local community and British society as a whole.

The focus of this paper is on fostering positive collective action and dialogue that involves people of all ages and backgrounds.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of poor drug users and sellers who remained in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to identify their special needs and the unique challenges they present to disaster management.

Semi‐structured, open‐ended interviews were conducted with 119 poor, predominantly African‐American, drug users and sellers. Their stories in their own words provide a mosaic of drug‐related experiences from the period immediately preceding the storm through evacuation and reveal the motivations behind their behaviors.

Many drug users placed partying, maintaining their habits, and making money ahead of personal safety and evacuation. Drug use and sales led many not to evacuate before the storm, to use drugs in congregate shelters, to avoid shelters, to roam through flooded debris‐strewn streets, to loot stores and homes of drug dealers, and to use violence or the threat of violence to achieve their drug‐related aims.

During a disaster, many poor drug users place risks on themselves, their families, their communities and ultimately on rescue workers. The conclusion presents pragmatic and humanitarian guidelines for successfully addressing this additional challenge. The recommendations are consistent with other suggestions concerning the special needs of indigent populations.