What Makes This Population Vulnerable?

What makes this population vulnerable?  

Vulnerability is described as the reduced capacity of a given group of people to expect, survive, avoid and heal from the effect of a natural or man-made disaster (Wei, Fan, Lu & Tsai, 2004). This concept is quite often usually linked to poverty. However, it is something that can also come from isolation, insecurity and lack of defense during risk, stress or shock. It has been established that physical, social, economic and political factors determine the level of vulnerability of a given group of people (Yoon, 2012). It also determines their ability to resist and recover from a specific hazard. The prisoners are a vulnerable population. In fact, prisoners are regarded as the most vulnerable population because of various reasons that combine to enhance their level of vulnerability. 

Firstly, prisoners are quite vulnerable to natural hazards because of the kind of seclusion they are put in within the prisons. They remain in isolation and cannot access the external assistance in the event of a natural or artificial disaster (Cannon, 1994). The prisons, in which they are put, are located in potentially hazardous places that are isolated from the rest of the world. Moreover, it is not easy for anyone, willing to assist the prisoners in the course of a disaster, to access the prison premises. 

It was learnt in this syllabus that vulnerability is mainly driven by poverty. Poor people cannot resist and recover quickly from a disaster. The level of vulnerability for the poor people is, thus, quite high. Prisoners are socially marginalized hence deprived the access to economic opportunities, healthcare resources and the interpersonal association. All these factors are critical in reducing the level of vulnerability of a group of people to hazards. Furthermore, prisons lack the assistance of government and the prisoners are forced to stay in highly inhuman conditions within the jails. It is a condition that also enhances their level of vulnerability. 

It is important to note that the magnitude of disasters is never predictable. There are many disasters, both natural and man-made, which have happened around the world and exceeded the planning models, assumptions and simulations put in place to deal with them. The normal practice of emergency management organizations is always drawing scenarios of potential disaster and planning the effective response techniques (Savilonis, 2014). In this regard, the emergency control agencies have been dealing with the response plans for critical places like schools, public offices, hospitals and major events. However, no such plans have been done for the possible manmade and natural disasters in the prisons. This lack of plan for response to disasters in prisons has left prisoners the most vulnerable population across the world. Possible disasters in prisons include communicable disease outbreaks, earthquakes, hurricanes and riots among the prisoners. 

Lack of resources within the prisons is something of critical concern to many people. The poor standard of care for the prisoners is a factor of great concern. Moreover, the fact that there are even staffing shortages to manage the overwhelming number of people within the prisons, leaves the prisoners vulnerable to disasters. The inefficiency of resources needed to carry out critical operations at the correctional facilities as well as those necessary to make protective action decisions during the response and recovery phases. The high population of prisoners within the prisons of this country makes them even more exposed to major risks. 

Primary case study of disaster: Galveston County correctional facility during Hurricane Ike 

The primary disaster chosen is the Galveston County correctional facility during Hurricane Ike, which happened in the year 2008. As this particular hurricane gained its strength offshore, a Country Judge gave an order that declared a state of disaster in Galveston (The Texas Civil Rights Project, 2009). The judge advised that there was an urgent need of taking extraordinary measures in order to alleviate the suffering of people. In fact, it was clearly stated that any person who remained within the county would face certain death. Therefore, the country emergency management officials complied with this advice by starting to evacuate people. Interestingly though, they did not consider evacuating the prisoners within this correctional facility. Sadly, the facility had over 1000 prisoners (The Texas Civil Rights Project, 2009). Apparently, those carrying out the evacuation did not consider these prisoners as human beings who also needed to be evacuated. They were left in the jail and exposed to the danger of certain death at the time of the hurricane. 

It is vital to know that the County Jails like Galveston, only house the prisoners who have minor offenses and cannot afford the bond charge imposed on them by the courts. All the state jails projected to be within the path of Ike were evacuated before the hurricane took place. This evacuation exercise saved close to 7000 prisoners (The Texas Civil Rights Project, 2009). However, the same was not done for the Galveston County Jail. 

During the hurricane, most detainees were frightened. They could feel the storm engulfing the jail, but had nothing to do. They even heard air conditioning units ripping off and banging outside the dorms. Water entered the jail dorms through a holes left by the ripped off air conditioners on the ceiling. At this point, the reaction of the prisoners was placing a large outdoor garbage can underneath the stream of water. However, this particular can was filled by the stream of water in a matter of a few hours and started overflowing. The ceiling tiles on the jail dorms changed to brown color because of the saturation (The Texas Civil Rights Project, 2009). These brown tiles fell into the units as the rain became heavy. Even the walls and floors were soaked by rain water. Although the jail building did unexpectedly survive the hurricane, most inmates were subjected to suffering, a scenario the County Judge wanted avoided, as far as the spirit of the order given is concerned. 

In this disaster, there is no plan that worked best for the inmates. In fact, there was no plan for protecting the prisoners from the adverse impact of this hurricane. Prisoners were left to suffer on alone. There was lack of plan to evacuate these prisoners. It really terrified these people in the jail and made them have an uncomfortable stay within the facility. Everything worked worst for the prisoners. The only thing that can be commended was the strong walls that withstood Hurricane Ike. 

Second case study: Ohio State Penitentiary, which suffered from a large fire 

The second case study chosen is the Ohio State Penitentiary, which suffered from a large fire . This fire disaster killed 320 inmates (Surette, 2016). Most of the inmates simply burnt to death because they were not unlocked from the cells. This disaster is ranked as one of the worst disasters in the history of the United States. At the time of this fire, there were 4300 prisoners living in this jail. The fire broke out on the scaffolding used in the expansion construction. The affected inmates begged to be unlocked from the jail as smoke filled it, but guards refused to evacuate them from the rooms. 

Fire kept on rising and in a bid to ensure they saved their lives; the prisoners forcibly took the jail keys from the guards and began their rescue mission. This rescue effort saw 50 inmates manage to come of the jails. The roof of the jail rooms caved into the cells burning 160 prisoners to death. As fire-fighters dashed to the scene, they found difficulty accessing it because the irate inmates were pelting the guards and fire-fighters with stones (MacCormick, 1954). Consequently, many inmates died and a lot were injured in that inferno. 

No plan on the part of the emergency management worked in this ordeal since 320 people died. Additionally, the fire-fighters who came in to resist the fire arrived late when the massive damage had already been done. It is only the reaction of the prisoners that saved them. The decision of forcibly getting the keys and carry out evacuation mission, saved prisoners despite the deaths. 

Therefore, while in this second incident lives were lost, the first one did not experience any deaths. The reaction of the victims in this second case was quite useful than in the first one. Importantly, there was no elaborate resistance and recovery plan in both the two cases. 

Recommendation 

There is need for considering the prisoners as a population at risk in order to prioritize making plans for their safety. The other recommendation is that the emergency agencies must invest in necessary resources needed for the resistance and recovery efforts in the event of disasters within prison. 

The disaster management agencies need to apply the 5-step plan to decision making process. These steps include identification of the potential disaster within a given jail or prison. Information about the specific disaster has to be gathered and the real situation about it analyzed. The third step is identifying alternatives of responding to and recovering from the disaster as well as evaluating these options. The fourth step is selecting the most effective plan among the identified alternatives in order to deal with the issue of response and recovery during emergencies (Blaikie, Cannon, Davis & Wisner, 2014). The fifth step is putting the selected alternative plan into action when a disaster takes place within the jail. 

References 

Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., Davis, I., & Wisner, B. (2014).  At risk: natural hazards, people's vulnerability and disasters . London: Routledge. 

Cannon, T. (1994). Vulnerability analysis and the explanation of ‘natural’ disasters.  Disasters, development and environment , 13-30. 

MacCormick, A. H. (1954). Behind the prison riots.  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science ,  293 (1), 17-27. 

Savilonis, M. A. (2014).  Prisons and disasters  (Doctoral dissertation, Northeastern University). 

Surette, M. A. (2016). 5 Prisons and disasters in the USA.  Planning for Community-Based Disaster Resilience Worldwide: Learning from Case Studies in Six Continents , 91. 

The Texas Civil Rights Project (2009). Galveston County’s Refusal to Evacuate Detainees and Inmates at its Jail During Hurricane Ike. 2009 Human Rights Report . Retrieved from https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publications/texas_civil_rights_project_galveston_county_jail_refusal_to_evacuate_inmates_during_hurricane_ike_2009.pdf on 11/8/2017. 

Wei, Y. M., Fan, Y., Lu, C., & Tsai, H. T. (2004). The assessment of vulnerability to natural disasters in China by using the DEA method. Environmental Impact Assessment Review ,  24 (4), 427-439. 

Yoon, D. K. (2012). Assessment of social vulnerability to natural disasters: a comparative study.  Natural Hazards ,  63 (2), 823-843.