Looting

Looting is the forcible seizure of property, usually occurring during crises like war, natural disasters, or riots, when law enforcement is weakened or absent. The stolen goods are known as booty, loot, plunder, spoils, or pillage. For much of history, victorious armies considered wartime looting a customary right, but modern international humanitarian law changed that.

During armed conflicts, looting by winning armies has been common across recorded history. Ordinary soldiers saw plunder as a way to boost their low pay, and captured wealth became part of victory celebrations. In ancient Rome, displaying loot was central to a triumph, and Genghis Khan famously said the greatest happiness was defeating enemies and robbing them. The Greek historian Polybius described Roman rules for collecting war booty after capturing a city: depending on the city’s size, they would assign men from each maniple, or entire maniples, but never more than half the troops. The rest secured key points inside and outside the city, ready to intervene. In the Roman Republic, consular armies had two legions and two allied alae; those assigned to plundering brought their share back to their legion. Tribunes sold all the booty and split the profits equally among everyone, including soldiers who stayed on guard, guarded camps, were sick, or were on special duty.

After the Napoleonic Wars and especially after World War II, norms against wartime plunder became widely accepted. The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 explicitly banned pillage and looting, building on earlier European efforts to limit the practice. In modern conflicts, looting is a war crime under international law.

After disasters, police and military may be unable to stop looting because they are overwhelmed by humanitarian or combat needs, or because damaged communications prevent them from being called. During natural disasters, many civilians may be forced to take others’ property to survive. Governments often struggle with where to draw the line between unnecessary “looting” and necessary “scavenging.” In some cases, governments tolerate or even encourage looting for political, religious, social, or economic reasons.

Media reports of widespread looting after major disasters are often exaggerated, despite disaster research showing that post-disaster looting is more cooperative than criminal. Disaster sociologists argue that lawlessness narratives overstate looting and can reinforce stereotypes about affected communities. After Hurricane Katrina, many widely circulated reports of violent crime and mass lootings were inaccurate or overstated; many incidents involved people trying to get essential supplies like food or water. Researchers distinguish between opportunistic theft and survival-driven behavior when access to resources and emergency aid breaks down.

Perceptions of looting can shape emergency response and public behavior. Fears of widespread lawlessness have sometimes led authorities to prioritize security and policing over humanitarian aid. Studies after Hurricane Katrina found that exaggerated reports of violence and looting delayed aid and reinforced public misconceptions. Researchers generally find that solidarity and cooperation are far more common than panic or crime, contrary to media portrayals.

Some disaster researchers argue that reports of looting after disasters can reflect broader social racial tensions rather than actual crime patterns. Analyses of media coverage after Hurricane Katrina found that similar actions were described differently depending on the individuals involved: Black residents were more often called “looters,” while white residents were described as “finding” or “recovering” supplies. Scholars cite these differences as evidence that disaster narratives can reinforce social inequalities and shape public perceptions, potentially influencing political responses and resource allocation during recovery.