| dc.description.abstract | As the frequency and scale of slow-onset hazards grow, carceral administrators must decide how best to protect their vulnerable population, inmates. Often, administrators are faced with two choices, shelter in place or evacuate. When the wrong decision is made, the consequences can be dire in terms of human suffering and/or unnecessary expense. Little is known about how these decisions are made, what collaboration is done, or the subsequent conduct of disaster operations. This study seeks to learn more about jail and prison disaster operations by conducting a critical evaluation of carceral facility preparedness for and response to routine, slow-onset disasters. This aim - and resultant study - is consistent with a pragmatic worldview where the focus is on solving problems and determining what works. Six research questions were developed as a guide for the study. To answer these, an inductive design informed 41 semi-structured interviews of carceral administrators and emergency managers who had experienced a slow-onset disaster during 2020-2021. These professionals came from the same jurisdictions and were sampled from three regions of the US where slow-onset disasters are common, namely the Gulf Coast, the Southwest, and the Pacific Northwest. Upon request, interviewees shared planning documents, disaster guides, and after action reviews which were subjected to document analysis. Audio files of recorded interviews were auto-transcribed using Otter.ai then reviewed for accuracy. Atlas.ti software was used to organize, code, compare, and analyze transcripts and documents. Thirteen categories and four overarching themes emerged, namely (1) Carceral facilities not seen as an EM concern, (2) Parallel but not synchronous collaboration, (3) Interoperability, and (4) Successful end-state which inform 31 posited recommendations for enhancing carceral disaster preparedness. These findings, which represent the study's theoretical and practical contributions, advance a framework to enhance the efficacy of carceral disaster operations and reduce inmate vulnerability during future slow-onset disasters. | |
