Nicole Gelinas: A Perfect Storm Of Lawlessness

It's been a devastating week for New Orleans and a bad week for George W Bush.   It hasn't been as bad as the BBC had clearly hoped, however.  Bush-hatred at the BBC (and the Michael Mooreish Daily Mail) knows no bounds.  The Corporation's coverage has been truly abysmal in recent days but the American people have been less cruel.  The latest opinion poll showed that 46% approved of Bush's performance and 47% disapproved.  44% blamed Bush; 55% didn't.  Those aren't great numbers but they're not damning.  People understand that last week was a massive natural disaster.  I wonder how Britain would have coped in comparable circumstances?  If Bristol, say, had been engulfed with water?  'Not well' is my guess.  Britain's roads are unusable after a light snowfall.  Trains stop running when a few leaves litter a line.  Under Labour our armies - professional and territorial -  are close-to-emaciated.   

America's federal government was inadequate in its early response to Katrina - certainly.  Flood defences might have been better - probably.  But initial efforts were badly hampered by lawlessness.  And who is to blame for that?

An article for City Journal by Nicole Gelinas offers some answers to that question.  The looting and general lawlessness that so shamed New Orleans via the world's media is rooted in very weak criminal justice policies.  Ms Gelinas argues that New Orleans' "fragile civil infrastructure can’t control or contain its core criminal class in peacetime... failure to put violent criminals behind bars in peacetime has led to chaos in disaster."  "Katrina," she writes, "didn’t turn innocent citizens into desperate criminals. This week’s looters (not those who took small supplies of food and water for sustenance, but those who have trashed, burned, and shot their way through the city since Monday) are the same depraved individuals who have pushed New Orleans’ murder rate to several multiples above the national average in normal times."  Ms Gelinas compares New Orleans' murder rate of around 330 (a projection for 2005) with Boston's murder rate of 65 (a city of comparable size).

New Orleans briefly experimented with New York-style zero tolerance policing but didn't keep it up.  It failed because of corruption in the police force and an inadequate tax base for the necessary "professional police or prosecution force it needs".  Gelinas:

"Crime has created a vicious cycle, pushing out taxpayers who fund the police. Nor have the city and state cemented the command-and-control direction of financial and human resources that police, detectives, and prosecutors need to do their jobs."        

George W Bush has taken the flak for the disorder of last week but the seeds of that disorder were sown over many years by liberal crime policies.  One of the best gifts that America can give the new New Orleans is the resources to break the cycle of crime described by Ms Gelinas.

PS David Frum's Diary of 2nd September collects some bloggers' rebuttals of the most unfair attacks on the Bush administration.

Comments

[James Hellyer]

President Bush can't be held to blame for the incompetence of the Louisiana state government. This disaster has seen failures at all levels of government, but is being used as opportunity for Bush bashing by his enemies.

[Selsdon Man]

Yet another plea for more taxes (inadequate tax base). Police corruption is more relevant. It happened under alcohol prohibition and it is happening again under drug prohibition.

[malcolm]

I agree about the BBC coverage of the tragedy.But you should be aware that both ITV and Sky News have been pretty damning too (or at least they were last night).

[Selsdon Man]

Sorry, James but the aid was pathetically slow in arriving. The blame lies with both the federal government and the State of Louisiana. A lot of the potential resources (physical and intellectual)were deployed in Iraq.

[Bruce]

Last time I visited New Orleans I told my friends I wanted to see the magnificent vaults in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, just a couple blocks from downtown. I was told that the cemetery, like many other places in New Orleans, was a place you were crazy to visit unless you had a police escort. There's a reason so many residents have bars on their windows, or have moved to the suburbs.

[Bruce]

The murder rate is five times higher in New Orleans than Boston basically because of demographics. The murder rate among American Blacks is 6 times as high as the rate for Whites. Thus, an American city's murder rate is largely tied to the percentage of Blacks in the city's population. New Orleans is 2/3 Black, Boston is 20% Black, which largely accounts for the differences between the two cities.

[Selsdon Man]

Those are very controversial views Bruce. Is the economic wealth of the cities not a factor too?