| In 1998 the communities of Jasper, Texas and Laramie, Wyoming were the location of vicious homicides that quickly drew national and international attention. The media, polarized interest groups, politicians, and high profile individuals descended upon both communities, creating a social crisis with potential civil unrest, negative stigmatization and polarization. Although neither community experienced destruction of property, both Jasper and Laramie fit many of the conditions used to define natural or technological disasters. Using natural disaster literature/theory and employing an ecological approach, each community was investigated via an interrupted time series analysis to identify how the community changed following the disaster. The social ecological perspective considered the communities in terms of crime, economic, health, educational, and social capital measures. Finally, interviews with residents identified how the community responded to the crisis and augmented quantitative findings with qualitative, field-informed interpretation.; Successful community response to a socially traumatic experience depended on frank and timely communication, appropriate management of the media, existing social group networks and inter-personal/inter-group trust (social capital), unified leadership, and commitment to community well-being over other potential competing interests. The extreme social events, similar to natural disasters, changed various aspects of the communities. Several social components, such as media coverage and interest group positioning, proved to aggravate the impact of the crisis. While there were many differences between communities, generally speaking, post-crisis communities displayed higher crime rates, fewer home sales, and higher divorce rates. Not all changes were negative, however, as hospital admission levels fell and several economic measures indicated growth. Most of the variables indicated no change. Communities, accordingly, appear to be quite resilient in the face of extreme events, and these events can provide an opportunity for community cohesion, self-definition and realization of community capacity. |
