Hurricane Looting Rains Its Lessons Left and Right

When nature goes on a rampage, we accept the devastation as an act of God. But when human beings go on a rampage of looting and destruction, we properly ask why. And when similarly situated people do not react violently, we ask: why not?

On two groups of Caribbean islands, separated by only a few miles of water, behavior in the wake of devastating Hurricane Hugo was worlds apart. The U.S. Virgin Islands, particularly St. Croix, were racked with looting and other lawlessness, even by their own National Guard troops. The nearby British Virgin Islands, the largest of which is Tortola, remained orderly despite taking a similar blow from the hurricane. The British islands were so quiet they went unmentioned in most news accounts.

Why the difference? It seems impossible to account for as coincidence or chance.

The culture, history and politics of the two small island groups provide more likely explanations. Both were discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1493, both freed their slaves several years before the United States, yet their development has been entirely different.

Back in the 1850s, the British plantation owners in the BVI (many of whom were Quakers who had fled religious persecution in England) left the islands because of a major hurricane followed by a drought and a riot over a cattle tax, thereby leaving the land in the hands of the recently freed slaves. This local black ownership gave the British islanders independence and sense of dignity not found elsewhere in the Caribbean. Today the same families (the Stoutts, Romneys, Rhymers, etc.) still own most of the land and successfully run the government.

In contrast, after the slaves were freed in the U.S. islands, the land did not become theirs to own, but merely to work. The Danes--and later the Americans--by and large own the land and the businesses. Poverty and ostentatious wealth stand side by side, with little in between--a disparity all but guaranteed to breed unrest and violence.

There is also a great difference in population. The U.S. Virgin Islands have allowed uncontrolled land speculation and unlimited commercial growth, while the British Virgin Islands carefully control both development and land speculation. St. Thomas of the USVI and Tortola are approximately the same size, but St. Thomas is home to almost 90,000 people, while Tortola houses but 9,000.

In addition, the legal system in the British islands is far less tolerant of criminal behavior than in the U.S. territories. In the BVI you can walk any town street at night safely; people still leave their keys in their cars and their homes open. In the USVI, a high rate of muggings, robberies and violence keeps most folks off the streets at night and their homes securely locked.

In the BVI, the custom for many years was to administer public lashings for convicted felons--and even today the possession of so much as a gram of marijuana brings a one-year jail sentence. In the USVI, conditions are far more permissive--criminals can play the odds, knowing it is unlikely they will be apprehended, tried and jailed for their crimes.

What, then, can we learn from this tale of two archipelagoes? I suggest that it proves that both liberals and conservatives are right when it comes to their theories of dealing with crime and social justice--and that their solutions are not mutually exclusive but interdependent.

Poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, drugs and crowded conditions all contribute to crime. The elimination of these conditions is high on the liberal agenda. Where liberals have gone wrong in the past is in excusing felonious behavior because of these societal conditions (“The devil made me do it.”).

Conservatives argue that crime must be punished speedily and severely. Where they have erred in the past is in rejecting improvement of society as the long-term preventative of criminal behavior.

Both liberals and conservatives now are changing their tune. Both realize that you need strict enforcement of the law and improvement of societal conditions to bring about fundamental change.

If we do not address the alleviation of poverty, the improvement of our educational system and the availability of decent jobs-- and if we remain lax in enforcing the law--the riots and looting and lawlessness we saw in the wake of Hurricane Hugo will become a social tornado sweeping through our land, causing death and destruction for years--even generations--to come.