After decades of economic restructuring, many rural communities are struggling to provide adequate fire and emergency services across their communities. Subsequent population loss, the ...destabilization of local tax‐bases, and an increased demand from work and family have left local fire departments at a loss for personnel and support. In this context, rural Georgia communities look to nearby prisons to provide incarcerated persons to work as local firefighters and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) to stabilize rural emergency services. In this paper, I examine the narrative accounts that officials who employ, manage, or work alongside incarcerated workers who are trained to respond locally as firefighters and EMTs and ask why incarcerated workers are looked to for this type of work in spite of the challenges associated with the program. Officials describe turning to the state prison system as the only viable option to make their communities and fire departments safe. These findings further illuminate the relationship between racial capitalism, carceral infrastructure, and emergency services as rural communities turn to the false promise of prisons and all‐hazard incarcerated firefighters to keep their communities safe.
Climate change is increasing the likelihood and magnitude of disaster impacts. The nonprofit sector’s ability to address disaster survivors’ needs will become an increasingly important aspect of ...adapting to a changing climate. Disaster recovery also provides time for nonprofits to affect community resilience to future disasters and climate change. This article analyzes a unique phenomenon of the sector during disaster recovery: Long-term Recovery Groups. These groups are increasingly encouraged by government and national nonprofits, yet little academic research exists on them. We assess the existence and location of groups, their missions and tasks, and their legal structure. We find heterogeneity in structure and location but similarity in stated goals of addressing failures of government and private sector recovery practices. These groups emerge, as expected, in areas with disaster losses and in areas with slightly greater social vulnerability. Most groups, though, miss the opportunity to include climate change as part of their mission.
Disaster impacts are on the rise, along with the costs to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from these events. Inmates housed in prisons are a source of low‐cost labor for various tasks ...before, during, and after disasters. However, little is known about whether states plan to use inmate labor for emergency management needs. This paper responds to this gap through a content analysis of the inclusion of inmates as a labor resource in U.S. state‐level Emergency Operations Plans. Results show a majority of states include inmates in their plans and that inmates are a source of labor throughout the entire life cycle of a disaster. Further, planning documents include 34 different tasks that inmates may be assigned. States’ disaster experience, rates of incarceration, rates of minority incarceration, imprisonment costs, and region related to the inclusion of inmate labor in these plans. This research raises questions about how inmate labor may offset against the rising costs of disasters during a time when mass incarceration is under increased scrutiny. Furthermore, prisoners, who are disproportionately poor and minority, may be exposed to undue risks from this labor if the plans are implemented as written—increasing their social vulnerability to disasters.
贯穿灾害周期的囚犯劳动
灾害影响正在攀升, 同时对灾害事件进行预备、响应和恢复所需的成本也在增加。美国和全球的应急管理机构可能会依赖关押在矫正机构的囚犯, 将其作为灾害前、中、后期不同任务的廉价劳动力供应。然而这一实践还未被全面研究。本文通过对美国州级应急行动预案中对囚犯的安排和描述进行内容分析, 从而填补了该研究空白。研究结果显示, 大多数州都期望囚犯劳力在整个灾害周期内进行协助, 而不仅限于应急响应期间。此外, 囚犯还要参与应急管理四个阶段中的34项任务。各州的灾害经验、关押率、弱势群体关押率、关押成本、以及地区位置都与应急预案中对囚犯劳力的安排相关。本研究对“大量囚犯被监视力度加大期间, 囚犯劳力作为一种应对不断攀升的自然灾害成本的补偿手段”提出疑问。此外, 那些尤其贫困和弱势的囚犯可能会在劳动期间暴露在过多的风险之下, 进而增加其面对灾害的社会脆弱性。
Trabajo penitenciario en todo el ciclo de vida de los desastres
Los impactos de los desastres van en aumento, junto con los costos de preparación, respuesta y recuperación de estos eventos. Las agencias de manejo de emergencias en todo Estados Unidos y el mundo pueden depender de los reclusos alojados en instituciones correccionales como suministro de mano de obra barata para diversas tareas antes, durante y después de los desastres. Esta práctica, sin embargo, no se ha descrito exhaustivamente. Este documento aborda esta brecha a través de un análisis de contenido de la inclusión y descripción del trabajo de los reclusos en los planes de operaciones de emergencia a nivel estatal de los Estados Unidos. Los resultados muestran que la mayoría de los estados esperan que el trabajo de los internos ayude durante todo el ciclo de vida de un desastre, no solo durante la respuesta de emergencia. Además, los reclusos apoyan 34 tareas diferentes en las cuatro fases del manejo de emergencias. La experiencia de desastre de los estados, las tasas de encarcelamiento, las tasas de encarcelamiento de minorías, los costos de encarcelamiento y la ubicación regional se relacionan con la inclusión del trabajo de los reclusos en estos planes. Esta investigación plantea preguntas sobre el trabajo de los reclusos como una compensación contra el aumento de los costos de los desastres naturales durante un momento en que el encarcelamiento masivo está bajo un mayor escrutinio. Además, los presos, que son desproporcionadamente pobres y minoritarios, pueden estar expuestos a riesgos indebidos a través de este trabajo, lo que aumenta su vulnerabilidad social a los desastres.
Individuals leading nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) often lack adequate training to best serve their communities' needs during disaster recovery even as they are often tasked with filling in ...gaps left by governmental and private resources. Thus, it is essential that education and training initiatives address NGO efforts specifically. This paper identifies training and education needs as proffered by organizational representatives that have themselves been involved in long-term recovery efforts following disasters in the past 10 years across Texas.
Qualitative interviews with nearly 100 local NGO representatives, government officials, and regional and state-level NGO representatives were conducted using purposive and snowball sampling. The participants conducted recovery activities in six different locations in Texas since 2008.
Many respondents noted that they had little experience in disaster recovery and a lack of understanding of what recovery involved. Interviewees identified needs for training including how to coordinate recovery tasks among multiple organizations and agencies (eg, who to involve, what skillsets are needed, what group structure should be formed), how to distribute financial and nonfinancial resources (eg, how to prioritize needs, how to distribute funds, who should receive funding), and how to manage media and external organizational attention.
This paper provides recommendations for augmenting existing NGO training and educational activities and developing new training schemes offering practical advice from recovery leaders who have been on the frontline of recent disasters.
Population evacuation is an important component of emergency management planning for a variety of hazards, especially hurricanes and tropical storms that threaten coastal communities. This study ...examined previous evacuation decisions and evacuation intentions across 13 southeast Louisiana coastal parishes. Overall, the results indicate that most people will evacuate from strong storms, especially when ordered to do so. Future evacuation intentions correlated with previous evacuation decisions and corresponded to storm strength and official evacuation orders. Demographic factors had varying effects on behavior and intentions, with gender and race having the most consistent effects. The effects of income, education, homeownership, and housing type varied by storm strength and had different effects for intentions than previous behaviors. Previous flooding and wind damage had minimal effects on evacuation intentions. Risk perception, especially perception of the safety of one's own home, had strong effects on evacuation intentions. Qualitative results support the quantitative findings showing that people continue to rely on storm strength, especially Category or wind speed, as an indicator of risk and that persons who would not evacuate felt their homes were safe or had jobs that required them to report for duty. The results call for more research into how predictors of actual behaviors and intentions vary even while behaviors and intentions are correlated and how individuals determine that their house is safe.
