Abstract
This chapter focuses upon the construct of the deserving victim, as seen in the context of natural and man-made disasters, as well as in other social welfare contexts. This concept is applied at the community scale as well, with the onus being placed upon the community to prove its deservedness. The chapter seeks to integrate findings from fields such as psychology and sociology relative to individual and cultural discomfort with the notion of allowing individuals to “cheat,” with the literature around disaster recovery. In other words, the chapter interrogates the underpinnings of the extensive focus on fraud that has characterized post-disaster assistance and aid dating back to the creation of those mechanisms and contrasts it with the assumption of corporate deservedness—as shown by the typical failure to question high corporate profit models and the unwillingness to hold corporations to account for anything less than the most egregious violations.
Keywords
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- 1.
A more robust description of the various programs and policies will be provided in Chap. 4.
- 2.
These biases are seen in media portrayals of protest as well, with people of color advocating for justice in the face of events such as police violence or environmental injustice (such as the indigenous protests of pipelines), portrayed as criminals, and their actions shown as meriting a militarized response.
- 3.
Documentation of ownership is required at the time of the damage inspection, a necessary step in order to access FEMA disaster assistance (FEMA 2018).
- 4.
An additional challenge was in the ability to verify identity, which is typically done through social security numbers. When social security numbers cannot be verified via an automated public records request, additional documentation is required (FEMA 2018).
- 5.
Although many Latino workers did not experience harms directly from the hurricane, they did experience several adverse impacts during their role in disaster recovery, including long-term health impacts. It can therefore be argued that they constitute disaster victims as well.
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Jerolleman, A. (2019). Deserving Victims and Post-Disaster Fraud. In: Disaster Recovery Through the Lens of Justice. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04795-5_2
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