October 2005

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Katrina Aftermath: A Flood of Injustice

Jamie Bissonnette is the coordinator of AFSC-New England's Criminal Justice Program.

On the fifth day after Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans, there was scant clean water for the survivors, hardly any food, and only a few buses to help with evacuation, but armored personnel carriers patrolled what few streets were passable, their occupants carrying automatic weapons. Their orders: "Shoot to Kill."

President Bush proclaimed that the "criminal justice system" was "almost in place." Yet the court houses in eight parishes and three circuit courts in New Orleans were under water, their records destroyed, evidence lost, untold files giving the status on civil and criminal cases gone. One third of the State's lawyers had lost their offices. Two thirds of the municipal court system's budget came from parking tickets in the heavily trafficked tourist district of the city. As the pumps slowly drained the city of water, there was no mechanism to pay lawyers to do their job. Witnesses were now refugees.

No, the "criminal justice system" that the President referred to was simply the first institutional structure to be created in post-Katrina New Orleans -- a makeshift jail -- wrought from the parking lot of the Greyhound Bus Station. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Burl Cain, the warden of Angola prison, boasted, "This is a real start to rebuilding this city, this jail." Prisoners sweltered in razor-topped pens on the blistering asphalt.

The actual jail in New Orleans was filled with water, its roof blown off. The prisoners were evacuated days after the jails were submerged and endured over three days without food and water.

After receiving reports of wholesale abandonment of prisoners, Human Rights Watch interviewed prisoners from the Orleans County Jail. These prisoners were dispersed among different county prisons. They had no opportunity to consult with each other before being interviewed.

Yet, all reported the same startling story. HRW reports that prisoners were left in the prison with no custodial staff at all for 2 to 4 days. Those imprisoned on the ground floor were up to their necks in water. Prison officials said that evacuation began when water was chest high. Prisoners report that some prisoners did drown. The final list of people who were evacuated from the Orleans County Jail did not include 517 names of known prisoners. It will be months before we know what happened to these men. HRW closes their report with the following, "Many of the men held at jail had not even been brought before a judge and charged, much less been convicted."

After evacuation, prisoners were held captive on a bridge that was barricaded at both ends. Next, they were shipped to other jails in neighboring states with no paperwork -- so prison officials had no way to know whether they were awaiting arraignment or trial or if they had been sentenced. There was no way to know what crimes any of the prisoners had been convicted of or whether they were held simply because they could not make bail. One receiving jail administrator told the New York Times, "We have no idea who these people are or why they are here."

On the other hand, the people caged in the Greyhound bus parking lot were imprisoned for looting; mostly of towels, diapers, food, water, and -- yes, a few for televisions, cars, and guns. New Orleans is a large city with chronic drug and alcohol abuse problems. The "safety" described by the President did not include any strategy for addicts or alcoholics; they were left to detox alone -- in two-story deep water. Others were imprisoned because they refused to leave their homes. These men and women will face up to 10 years in prison because they could not bring themselves to leave the little piece of land deep under the putrid water that they used to call home.

Some who decided to leave were denied entry at the borders of surrounding suburbs by police officers who fired warning shots in the air to signal "no access" to these empty middle class communities (Please see the related story on page 12). They were empty because most middle-class citizens were able to get in their cars, lock their doors, and drive away.

When evacuees arrived at the Otis Airfield Base in Massachusetts, their new home was prepared by the Massachusetts Department of Corrections (DOC). DOC personnel along with prisoner work crews prepared the site. The MA DOC web site dubbed the project "Operation Helping Hand" -- a "mission" of the special operations unit. Prisoner work crews were to be used for set up and clean up, food services, laundry assistance, housing and reception. The DOC is to provide security for Massachusetts' guests. The ultimate irony is that even though these prison work crews will do a good job serving this vulnerable population, the Massachusetts CORI laws make it impossible for them to get jobs in human services once they are released, and they will experience great difficulty accessing the very services they are providing others. Meanwhile, the evacuees have extremely limited mobility and are able to receive only government approved visitors to the military reservation.

In the United States, those who are poor, particularly those who are poor and Black, are left with few options: they suffer forced removal through the criminal justice system that has swelled US prison population into the millions, or through gentrification that results in displacement of whole populations. To escape this, they are told to join the armed forces. Katrina offered a new possibility: they could become refugees in their own country, isolated on far-flung army bases. Despite the compassion pouring in from all parts of the country, the reality is bitter.

To help with an effort to call on the United Nations to both investigate human rights violations and to take over the reconstruction effort in the disaster area, please contact the People's Institute West, POB 9334, Berkeley, CA 94709 peoplesinstwest@hotmail.com, 510/540-9400, <www.pisab.org>.

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