Arson Over Thirty Thousand Structural

Arson Over thirty thousand structural fires are set annually at a cost of over three-quarters of a million dollars worth of damage and more than three hundred lives lost. Additionally over twenty thousand intentionally set vehicular fires occur causing more than one hundred thirty million dollars in damages and an additional two hundred lives lost. Arson is responsible for twenty five percent of all fires and is the second leading cause of all residential fire related deaths.

Arson has been an exceedingly difficult crime to solve, only about fifteen percent are closed by arrest and that only two percent lead to a conviction. Growing in number, juveniles now account more than half of all arson related fires (Arson). Fire is also a very available resource, a book of matches or a lighter gives anyone access to a potential murder weapon. This availability coupled with motives of revenge or greed, curiosity or mental imbalance makes fire a dangerous weapon.

The universal appreciation and fascination with fire as both the giver of warmth and comfort and the deliverer of pain and destruction have fascinated humankind throughout history. The compound fear and admiration for this element should certainly be an area of investigative research. What is arson? Arson, originally called fireraising, it is generally taken to mean setting a fire for a criminal or improper purpose. Until recently the public had viewed arson as the main concern of the insurance companies.

This is in regards to owners intentionally setting their properties on fire in order to collect the insurance money. It was mistakenly viewed as a merely a paper loss crime without any victims others than the insurance carriers and their losses. However, over recent years and more public attention to such crimes, the loss of property has increased insurance premiums and the loss of lives has caused more concern over this crime.

The public is beginning to realize that arson is among the most violent crimes that terrorizes, kills and injures many victims. One of the difficulties with arson is categorizing the reasons or motives behind the crime. Since motive is a major part of any criminal investigation this can cause some problems in solving the crime. Some is merely vandalism.

While others are methods of terrorizing neighborhoods or intimidating store and property owners, as well as tenants: owner and landlord Ulan Zinner has had over 2,000 outstanding violations lodged against these properties by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). In February, the NYC Fire Department (FDNY) was called to 225 West 146th Street in response to a fire in the adjoining alleyway. The subsequent FDNY investigation found that the fare was started due to an incendiary, which is evidence that arson was involved...

Vasquez [tenant] said the fires and the landlord's refusal to make quality repairs is direct retaliation against tenants for pursuing their rights in court. (Moore 15) The economic motives have already been addressed, but arson can also be politically motivated ranging from civil disobedience to hate crimes, "The reign of terror against rural Alabama churches appears to be over.

Three college men -- all honor students, and two of them students at a United Methodist school, Birmingham-Southern College -- have confessed to setting nine churches on fire" (Willimon 11) Arson is also a method of getting revenge for a jilted lover or bad partnerships of almost any kind, friends, business associates and the like. It can also be retribution for perceived injustices in many different circumstances. A youth in Arkansas used it in a most devastating way: You see, this is the community's school. It belonged to everyone.

Few residents of Hope were unaffected by this tragedy. It was heartbreaking to learn that the fire was a case of arson and even more wrenching to find out it was started by a student who had dropped out of school two weeks earlier. The troubled teen was convicted of burglary and arson in December 2005 and sentenced to 28 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

(Montgomery 31) Arson is also committed by someone who simply finds the fire itself to be very exciting and that is often his or her only motivation for starting it. These are termed pyromaniacs and will be discussed later. Other motives for arson include murder as well as suicide. And it is also utilized to conceal another crime, burning all evidence away in its wake (Peterson). This is also one of the main difficulties for the arson investigator.

Not only may arson be concealing the commission of another crime, but also the fire and destruction involved often make it difficult to discover proof of arson itself: The keys to an arson investigation are proving that a fire did occur, that its origins were intentional (willful or malicious), that a motive existed for the arson, and that there is sufficient proof against the defendant.

Some of the difficulties facing an arson investigation relate to the fire's ability to consume evidence that is proof of intentional fire, the further potential of the destruction of evidence by efforts made to put out the fire, weather (extreme hot or cold) problems, and ability to use a time-release device to start the fire while the arsonist is covered by an alibi elsewhere. (Peterson 112) As you can see from the picture to the right, fire leaves very little evidence in its wake.

However, in recent years computer and other scientific advancements have enhanced the art of the arson investigator. In fact this seems to be having a positive effect on the number of arson related crimes which has been on a steady decline since 2002, dropping from over forty four thousand cases that year to just over thirty thousand in 2006. This number has also decreased by more than half since 1987 (Arson).

The detection and prosecution of such crimes has led to slightly higher conviction rates for arson, but the louder message that it is sending is that the criminal cannot overcome detection as easily she or she had in the past. Another motive behind arson is something called "urban mining." This phenomenon is the direct result of another condition called "urban blight." Vacant properties have become a widespread problem in many U.S. cities over the past several decades.

Crumbling infrastructures and poor town planning combined with economic upheavals have all contributed to this problem. This has left hundreds of thousands of vacant properties abandoned by owners and landlords in many cities. Left to crumble they are often pillaged for any valuable property such as copper pipes, reusable fixtures and the like. These are the urban miners that are ransacking these dwellings and often the arsonist is left to destroy the rest, either from sheer vandalism or an owner trying to collect that insurance money.

(Peterson) One of the most troubling types of arsonist are termed "serial arsonist." Much like serial killers, their motivations are often difficult to discern and they commit their crimes for reasons only they are aware of. Usually they are described as having some conduct disorder in early childhood that has extended itself into their adult lives and also they may also suffer from anti-social personality disorder. Serial arsonists are also called "firesetters." They often randomly choose targets which are targets of opportunity rather than targets of revenge.

Serial arsonists fall into two categories: those who commit arson close to their homes, who are often less educated and leave more evidence at the scene, and those who travel more widely to commit their arsons and are organized, use more sophisticated devices, and leave little to no evidence at the scene. (Peterson 114) Of this set of arsonist there is also a very disturbing subset: One of the most egregious situations is when a firefighter betrays the public's trust and turns to arson.

The motives of firefighter arsonists often stem from a desire to experience the excitement that many firefighters feel in putting out fires. Related to this excitement is the opportunity to appear as a hero by successfully extinguishing a blaze (Peterson 114) This subset, and often the psychological profile of some firefighters, can fall into a further category, that of pyromaniacs. Pyromaniacs tend to be serial arsonist of a sense, although their motivations are often simply the thrill of the fire, the results are often just as disastrous to life and property.

Pyromaniacs are arsonists who do not appear to be suffering to any significant extent from formal mental disorder or to be operating from motives of gain or revenge. They appear to derive a pathological excitement from, and involvement in, setting the fire, attending the scene, busying themselves at it or having called out the fire brigade in the first instance. (Prins, Fire-raisers 253) The motives for pyromania are somewhat different than that of a serial arsonist, although the two share many traits.

These motives include: the deliberate and purposeful fire setting on more than one occasion; arousal and tension prior to the act; fascination with fire and its situational context; pleasure, gratification or relief when setting fires or witnessing or involvement in their aftermath; the activity is not accounted for by conduct disorder or anti-social personality disorder. (Prins, Fire-Raising) The increase in juvenile crime related arson is particularly troubling.

One theory suggest that undiagnosed and untreated conduct disorder in early childhood may be the progenitors in the creation of an arsonist: From a diagnostic perspective, firesetting is a strong predictor of the continuation of conduct disorder and, in field trials, was found to be the fourth most discriminating behavior for this diagnosis among 14 diagnostic criteria, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

On clinical measures, psychiatrically referred firesetters have been found to exhibit more pronounced delinquent and hyperactive behaviors more extreme externalizing symptoms (e.g., aggression) associated with conduct disorder, fewer internalizing symptoms and less social skill than their nonfiresetting peers, although some studies have not reported differences in aggression or general psychopathology (Kolko 191) However, it has been noted that many children who have started fires do not always show any signs of significant disturbance or other emotional trauma. Often they have simply been motivated by curiosity.

Several studies have indicated that in crimes involving young children less than twelve years of age, more than sixty percent of these have been found to only have been experimenting with fire (Grolnick, Cole, Laurenitis, and Schwartzman). In light of this information several initiatives have been engaged to correct these early childhood interest in firesetting. Fire safety education (FSE) and cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) are perhaps the most common approaches to intervention with firesetting children and their families (Kolko, 2002a).

FSE generally seeks to address the child's experience with, exposure to, and interest in fire, through instruction and practice in safety skills (e.g., Pinsonneault, 2002). In contrast, CBT frequently involves targeting individual forms of behavioral dysfunction and environmental conditions by enhancing prosocial skills and parent -- child relationships (Kolko, Herschell, and Scharf) Early intervention is certainly one of the keys to prevention. Left untreated, these curious children may develop conduct disorder habits that will lead them to experiment further with the tool of fire.

In adolescence these firesetters have set down behavior patterns that are much more complex to discern no less deconstruct. By this time the adolescent arsonist uses fire as a means to express misdirected anger and boredom leading from a lack of emotional impulse control and receiving the wrong attention when younger in regards to the firesetting activity. In this group different issues, both psychological and even biological, may need to be addressed regarding intervention (Lambie, Mccardle, and Coleman).

While debatable, the serial arsonist and his or her anti-social traits may stem from traumatic a childhood: When we examine youngsters who have been truants or who have been in trouble with the police for thefts or disorderly conduct, we frequently find an intimate relationship between their antisocial or criminal manifestations and their emotional and mental conflicts. We also find this intimate relationship in the neurotic person who commits a crime because of unconscious guilt feelings which make him crave punishment.

The criminogenic factors in arson and kleptomania too are undoubtedly allied to the emotional or mental abnormality of the offender, having their roots in the sensation of a thrill, which is sexual in nature. (Abrahamsen 109) However, the psychopathology of an adult arson usually includes an unstable childhood and often severe psychological disturbances. These certainly can be the precursors of many different posttraumatic maladies including conduct disorder and anti-social personality disorder.

In a child who has discovered firesetting as one way to express himself or herself, the adult seeking revenge can be a dangerous criminal, seeking retribution for either real or imagined wrongs (Prins, Offenders). The first steps in categorizing a fire as arson are often compromised by fire officials and law enforcement units that have not been professionally trained in detecting arson. These units may mistakenly rule that a fire is not caused by arson, while a trained investigator may spot evidence even in the worst of crime scenes.

More and more local police and even volunteer fire companies are being trained in detecting arson. The first key issues to be determined are the following: Evidence of incendiarism, as developed and identified by the expert investigator, generally includes one or more of the following: absence of all accidental fire causes, otherwise unexplained presence of a flammable liquid accelerant, presence of incendiary or delayed-ignition devices, presence.