The calm after the storm? Looting in the context of disasters

Abstract

We report the results of an agent-based model to study the strategies that policy makers can apply to prevent the escalation of de- viant behaviour in the aftermath of a disaster. Three policies are tested, namely: a reinforcement of the police power; an increase of the infor- mation available to the affected population and a combination of both policies. We test the effect of time in the implementation of these policies. The model shows that the policy which minimises deviant behaviour is the mixed one applied early after the occurrence of a disaster. Therefore, the outcome of this policy depends ultimately of the timing of their ap- plication, which is consistent with what has been observed in some real episodes.

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