Public and Private Law and Order After Katrina.

This paper addresses the issue of law and order in New Orleans during and after Katrina and the ways in which public, private (privately hired and paid firms guarding private property) and public/private (publicly hired private security firms) "secured" the city. In a society where corrections and policing are increasingly privatized, Katrina provides a graphic illustration of the failures of public responsibility and the costs of private security. The major theoretical/political question of the paper is: what has been the impact of shift away from public law to private "law" on issues of democracy like racial justice and civil liberties. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]