Is Looting OK?

“The truth is, a terrible tragedy like this brings out the best in most people, brings out the worst in some people. We're trying to deal with looters as ruthlessly as we can get our hands on them.”- Haley Barbour, Mississippi Governor

There is an opinion piece by Author Rebecca Solnit that I have mixed feelings about. Her book, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster describes how charity prevails and people mostly cooperate during natural disasters. In a recent opinion article entitled, When the Media is the Disaster, she lambastes the media for focusing on the negative human events during disasters, looking for crime and abuses and making things sound much worse than they are for publicity’s sake. Think back on Hurricane Katrina the horror stories of murders, gangs, rapes, etc published by the media; now known to be false.

I’ll agree that the media will do anything for profit and making mountains out of molehills is their common stock and trade. But the gist of her article focuses upon “looting”, a word Solnit would like to see banned. She points to “looters” carrying dehydrated milk or bolts of cloth, who are trying to help their families under extreme circumstances. Fair enough. But she chooses not to see the looters who are grabbing TV sets and other high-priced items from stores.

Years ago when I was a teenager, I decided to go on a hike up a “mountain” on the spur of the moment, completely unprepared. When I reached a building at the top I was extremely thirsty and desperate for water. I did not see any people, or a water facet, but I did see a glass of bottled water. I knew I had to have that water but stealing is wrong. So I compromised and left some money behind in place of the water.

It would be nice if looters returned after a disaster to recompense shopkeepers. I hope this has happened but I’ve never heard of such a thing. Lack of preparedness (i.e. no food storage) can force one to take extreme steps. But where does one draw the line? If it’s ok to steal from a store to feed my family, how about stealing from another family? Would you kill another to save your family? What price will you pay for survival?

Bottom Line

I’m reminded of Les Misérables where Jean Valjean spends nineteen years in prison: five for stealing bread for his starving sister and his family, and fourteen more for numerous escape attempts. The author, Victor Hugo, wants us to see the injustice of this, to have pity on the looter (who is afterall a very good man). But can we condone any crime done by the poor just because they are poor?

What are the alternatives? Food kitchens & homeless shelters? These are often shunned by the poor themselves as too dirty and dangerous, filled with drug users, alcoholics, etc who really do not want to take care of themselves. They feed the starving but don’t cure the problem.

I favor free education and training programs – the “teach a man to fish” philosophy. Also workfare projects like Goodwill or Deseret where the unskilled are fed and taught basic workskills.

This meshes with my uneasiness over the relief efforts in Haiti. Yes they need food & water now but what happens next year and the year after? People can feel virtuous that they gave clothes (which are not wanted by the way – too expensive to transport) but ignore the long-term poverty that has existed for years and will be even worse now. An entire infrastructure needs to be built in a country that was too poor or too corrupt to build one for itself in the past. I’d like to hear and see more attention paid to long-term recovery efforts for the country. Or will the world walk away after the Haitians are fed and leave them in their poverty?