Date of Award

Fall 12-2007

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Administration of Justice

Committee Chair

Dr. Thomas Payne

Committee Member 2

Dr. Philip Carlan

Committee Member 3

Dr. Donald Cabana

Committee Member 4

Dr. Lisa Nored

Committee Member 5

Dr. Joseph Molyneux

Abstract

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, a category 3 storm, with sustained winds of one hundred and twenty miles per hour and a twenty-eight-foot tidal surge, roared into the city of New Orleans. The tidal surge caused several breaches in the levee system, which resulted in the flooding of eighty percent of the city. This disastrous storm debilitated the entire criminal justice system. This research project is a case study that will explore the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) emergency response to Hurricane Katrina. While this exploratory study has no formal hypothesis, it seeks to examine the relationship between the independent variables, identified as training, communications, leadership, higher education, and hiring standards, and the dependent variable which has been identified as the NOPD emergency response to Hurricane Katrina. In this study, structured interviews served as the primary source of data and the participants were asked 15 significant questions. The personal interviews revealed that there is a significant relationship between training, communications, leadership and hiring standards and police performance during critical situations such as a natural disaster. However, the participants indicated that police experience was more important to police performance than a higher education. In addition, this study revealed that training and proper emergency planning are vital to any police emergency response to a critical situation.