Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

3-26-2016

SSRN Discipline

Economics Research Network; Legal Scholarship Network; PSN Subject Matter eJournals; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; Law & Society eJournals; Law & Society: Private Law eJournals; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Criminal Justice Research Network; Political Science Network; CJRN Subject Matter eJournals; Political Economy - Development eJournals

Abstract

In anticipation of Hurricane Gustav Mayor C Ray Nagin announced "Anyone caught looting in New Orleans will go directly to the Big HouseYou will go directly to Angola Prison and God bless you if you go there" In making that announcement Mayor Nagin undoubtedly had the events following Hurricane Katrina in mind Three years earlier Hurricane Katrina engulfed the city of New Orleans When the storm passed and the waters rose New Orleans was in chaos Media reports of people vandalizing and looting stores portrayed the image that the city had disintegrated into a state of anarchy Such reports depicted the looters as heartless criminals who wrongfully took advantage of the disasterstricken city But this negative mentality against looting in the aftermath of natural disasters is not reflected in the Louisiana criminal legislation The penal code establishes a less harsh punishment for looting that occurs after a state of emergency as opposed to looting that occurs in any other circumstance These are just two examples of the broad spectrum of how the law and society view the actual criminality of looting after natural disasters Although some people regard the looting of "luxury goods" as unconscionable others sympathize with and excuse looters who take only "necessity goods" Perhaps the conscious distinction has less to do with society's moral perceptions of looting and more to do with society's perceptions of ownership Professors Eduardo M Penalver and Sonia Katyal argue that society negatively views "property outlaws" because such individuals undermine the stability that property laws strive to produce Looters as a particular type of property outlaw contribute to the fracturing of that stable foundation Instead of dismissing property outlaws as rebellious subversive characters Penalver and Katyal suggest that society should embrace the property outlaw as an enabler of the "reevaluation of and at times productive shifts in the distribution or content of property entitlements" This Article demonstrates how after natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina society's reaction to looters depends upon the extent to which the looter disrupts the preexisting property rights under Louisiana property law To facilitate this discussion this Article uses a theory first articulated by renowned sociologists and group behavioral theorists Enrico Quarantelli and Russell Dynes "” what this Article terms the "Suspension Theory" This theory illuminates the causal relationship between property rights and societal reactions to looting in different situations

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