continued 2 - ROLES & MOTIVES OF FIRE SETTERS
Householder
Householders may claim that their actions are justified because of all the money they have paid out to insurance companies over the years and "never had a claim".
The householder resorts to burning to collect insurance money. The fires are usually amateurish and are usually put out before the house is totally destroyed. This is particularly noticeable with kitchen fires as advertising campaigns by insurance companies in the past have shown how easy it is to have a fire and how quickly they will replace "old for new".
- Where a house owner (may be a developer or a landlord who cannot get rid of tenants) cannot sell the property, and resorts to arson. The investigator should check with local real estate agents to see if the house was on the market and for how long. Whether there have been any problems with tenants.
- Valuables are usually taken away from the fire i.e. photographs, personal files, trophies, food from fridges etc. This is particularly noticeable in family homes where items such as wedding photographs are missing. Small items that have only sentimental value are often missing.
- The idea to burn may have come from previous successful, smaller property claims.
- Missing valuables that have been insured separately may indicate they have not been involved in the fire. They may be hidden elsewhere, sold or have been repossessed.
- The mortgage may be behind in payments and foreclosure proceedings may have begun.
- The fire may have started in an area where there appears to be no obvious legitimate reason.
Car owners
Consider the following motives:
- Insurance Fraud: the owner may sometimes substitute vehicle parts or even the entire car so as to keep the original item.
- Dissatisfaction with car i.e.,
- Mechanical problems
- Owner paid more that what it is actually worth - Car not suited to the needs of the owner (may have children and they now need a bigger vehicle but cannot afford a loan)
- The owner has become unemployed and cannot meet the payments
- Sickness in the family and mounting medical bills
- Gambling debts. With an increase in the availability of gambling (casinos, pokies etc.) this is becoming more of a problem in Victoria.
- Business failure
- The owner living beyond his/her means
- Unable to see his/her equity in the car and desires to liquidate the mortgage
- Fear of the adverse effect of repossession on his/her credit rating
- Domestic Problems, pending separation or divorce
- Husband or wife did not want the car in the first place
Car thief
Usually set fire to a vehicle to conceal a crime of theft of the car or parts from it. Recent information suggests that in Australia in 1999 approximately 130,000 motor vehicles will be stolen. 75% will be stolen for opportunistic purposes but many will be badly damaged. 25% will be stolen by professional thieves and nearly 20,000 will never be found. The vast majority of people charged with car theft will be young males aged between 14 and 20. Vehicle theft will cost motorists over $70 million in insurance premiums and many more millions lost by those without insurance. (National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council, 1999, The Investigator, p88, issue 1, Jan-March)
In an attempt to crack down on motor vehicle thefts, one Australian state made a decision for police to fingerprint all stolen vehicles. This caused a rapid rise in the number of cars that were burnt rather than stolen and just dumped. The thieves decided that burning the vehicles was an easy way in which to destroy fingerprint evidence. Western Australia now has a program in place to fingerprint ALL burglary scenes. It will be interesting to see if the arson rate rises along with the new program.
Group fire setters - psychological crime scene analysis
Non-Profit motivated arsonist -Disorganised Offender
Vandals - Often set in groups of two boys, one dominant, and the other submissive. With vandals, peer group pressure is an important factor. There is more excitement in lighting these fires rather than a desire for destruction. Australian research (Kocsis, 1997) showed that vandals fit the FBI Organised/disorganised Dichotomy profile of the"disorganised type" although he warns that this dichotomy can only be taken as a guide as there are a number of points where crossover in motives may be relevant.
| Crime Scene Indicators | Offender Characteristics |
| Primary target educational facilities | Juvenile offender |
| Predominantly sets single point of origin | Predominantly unemployed or students |
| Does not commonly use accelerants | Commonly without partner |
| Damage to targets tend to be less severe | Does not possess motor vehicle |
| Forced entry | Frequently has record of prior offences |
| Frequently leaves evidence | Commonly commits offence with accomplice |
| Does not displace personal effects | Lives with family - no property interest in home |
(Kocsis, R, Firepoint, Vol.8, No.4, December, 1997)
Associated with vandal fire setters is boredom, or a lack of recreational activities, or transport to recreational facilities in the area. Parental control is usually lacking.
Prime targets are areas of high housing density, schools, entertainment venues, and construction industry/sites. These areas account for 50% of the total areas lit by vandals.
Hotels, restaurants and clubs account for another 20% of vandalism fires.
Group fire setters (political)
Where fires are set for political causes they are premeditated, set in order to dramatise an issue, embarrass authorities or political opponents. There may also be intimidation for political purposes or self-immolation to get across a political protest or point of view, (Asian, Indian regions, Buddhist Monks etc). Terrorist acts may be directed at public authorities or large corporations such as in the bombing of the multi-story and multi-tenanted (mostly government authorities) building in Okalahoma City, U.S.A. (1995).
Group fire setters (Riots, civil disturbances)
Mob activity, set during outbursts of group violence. Occurs where there is tension and social unrest. Sometimes claimed to be spontaneous, but fire lighting equipment may be carried to the scene, not obtained at the scene as may be claimed. There is usually indiscriminate burning of businesses, homes and cars. It can be a spur of the moment revenge or spite attack, such as in the riots in Tyne-on-Wear, England (1992).
Criminal
Arson is to crime what sadism is to rape. It adds that extra dash of calculated cruelty or wanton destructiveness that reaches far beyond our normal expectations of human failings (Clifford, W. 1983, First National Conference on Arson, p.1).
Insurance fraud is a crime but for the purposes of this course, fire setting in criminal activity has been separated into a separate category. This is an area where a fire has been set with a specific criminal intent other than defrauding insurance.
With fires set under this category there are a number of scenarios. Where intimidation and extortion are involved, the fire may be a warning or punishment for lack of cooperation with criminal gangs or to "warn off" others.
A fire may be set to conceal crime of theft, murder, or embezzlement. A number of murderers have attempted to conceal their crime by setting fires that (hopefully) will destroy evidence. A number have set the fires in the vain attempt to make it appear that their victims died under different circumstances or that the victim´s body would be destroyed. The fire may be set to divert the attention of a security guard for burglary purposes, or to escape lawful custody. When investigating fires where there may be some suspicion of intimidation and extortion, look at business operations and competitors and check for previous threats. It is unlikely that the victim will volunteer information in this regard so check with associates, police, neighbours etc. Police presence may not be appreciated. The victim may be in fear and may falsely claim that the fire started accidentally. The owner´s nationality may have relevance i.e. ethnic protection rackets, or there may specific ethnic violence that is more tied into political causes.
Solitary fire setters
Revenge
We will start off with the most "simple" cases of the solitary fire setters. These are those who act alone and with an individual purpose for their fires. Where the motive for the fire is specifically revenge, the fire setter strikes, sometimes within hours or sometimes days, and may have felt slighted by the victim (although in a recent case in Melbourne, the victim had offended the perpetrator 16 years previously!). To the investigator and often the victim, the fires could appear to be without reason. The slight may not be one that the victim felt was sufficient to cause such a dramatic consequence. For this type of fire setter, the scene must be convenient and the desire to kill or damage predominates. They do not consider the damage that they may cause and the fire setter probably has been angry and thinking about doing the act for some time. He/she sets the fire alone. The perpetrator in the case above set at least 6 fires in the metropolitan area including two at the one address on consecutive days.
Investigations were still being carried out on the first fire at these premises when it was fire bombed again overnight. The woman living in the house had spurned the advances of the perpetrator and refused to marry him.
The vanity fire setter
The vanity fire setter starts fires for one purpose only, to feed a need for glory and recognition. It may be the security guard who needs to win the approval of his/her management, the fire fighter who gains personal glory from attending fire calls, or the person (usually male) who gains pleasure from seeing the dramatic results of his works. The flames and smoke, the flashing lights and the confusion. According to Barracato, this is the person depicted in the popular media as the "face in the crowd" returning to the scene of the crime, not the pathological fire setter. As we will see in later sections, the pathological fire setter is not interested in the fire once he/she has satiated themselves. The vanity fire setter usually does not set fires that can injure people but may be responsible for large and costly fires. He/she does not get a sexual thrill from the fire but an inflated sense of ego that results from knowing what they have done. It may be publicly acknowledged, as in the case of the fire fighter or it may only be known only to the perpetrator themselves. This person makes a conscious decision to light a fire and is fully aware of his/her actions. He/she may be an arsonist who deliberately sets fire to his place of employment, his own home or his neighbour´s home. Then at great personal risk, rescues people and combats the fire. The motive is to be seen or feel that he/she is the hero or has caused great disruption and borders closely on pyromania.
Suicides and mental illness
This is probably the most controversial group of fire setters. To start, off we will address those with a specific mental illness. Contrary to belief, very few fires are lit by people suffering from severe psychiatric mental illnesses. There certainly have been cases within Victoria where people with mental illness have lit fires but these are in the minority. Suicides are generally women, with a large proportion of Asian origin.
However statistics from the United States of America, and recent Australian figures tend to indicate that male suicides are becoming more prevalent. Those who commit suicide may suffer from severe depression and most always have a history of mental illness i.e. manic-depression. The fire is a cry for help. If it is a suicide, then it usually is an attempt at martyrdom. Men succeed at suicide more often than women do.
Pyromaniacs
When we talk of pyromaniacs we have to be very careful. Recent research has shown that there is a great deal of controversy in even defining what a “pyromaniac’ is. A true pyromaniac can be defined under DSM IV but many investigators, to some degree, make up their own “version’ of what makes up a pyromaniac. The following is a good example of one investigator´s opinions.
John Barracato of Aetna Life & Casualty in his book "Fire - Is it Arson?" has carried out research and written some interesting information relating to pyromaniacs. "Pyromania is a mental disorder that causes the affected person to ...light fires compulsively; with little or no appreciation for the results of their actions..." There is a lack of conscious motivation for the fire setting. They are aware of the actions and know that it is wrong. They believe that they cannot help themselves’ (Barracato, Fire is it Arson, 1979 P3.)
According to Barracato, pyromaniacs generally use areas of a building accessible to the general public as a point of origin for their fires. They usually will not set a fire to their own homes or places of employment.
They will gain pleasure from the excitement of the fire and the attending fire fighting appliances. The pyromaniac may gain sexual satisfaction from the act itself.
Most are men, and women pyromaniacs (according to Barracato) are nearly always homosexual, exhibit extreme masculine traits and gain the same type of sexual gratification as males (p4).
As a child, one or both of the parents may have been missing at times or all of the time. It is usually the father that is missing. Alcohol consumption can break inhibitions and release hidden desires.
Only a small percentage of arsonists fall into this category (6%), but they are responsible for a large percentage of all fires.
- They light a large number of fires in a short period.
- They are emotional fire setters.
- They will enjoy the result of the fire
- may be linked by a background of sexual offences, lighting fires, and
- may have been seen at other fire scenes.
Pyromaniacs do not burn for profit or to conceal a crime, although some may set fires for revenge or to satisfy some sort of resentment. They basically like fires.
As to where these people fit into the criminological arena depends very much upon what theory you ascribe to. Positivists (such as Barracato) would suggest that they are "sick" and that they need treatment whereas those who come from a Classical viewpoint would suggest they make conscious decisions therefore are very much responsible for their actions.
Copyright Trevor Pillinger http://salamanderconsultants.com