continued 3 - ROLES & MOTIVES OF FIRE SETTERS
Barracato's studies in America have found the following personality and traits associated with pyromaniacs:
- Usually dressed conservatively Neat hair, clean-shaven
- Will not look directly at you Provokes you, invites hostility during interview
- Hesitates before answering questions Initially appears considerate
- Will make an immediate initial denial
- High school education Usually employed below his ability
- Often left handed Bad penmanship Pessimistic Stutters when excited
- Intelligent but lacks commonsense Has difficulty in admitting mistakes
- Initially appears considerate Reared in distressing and pathological environment
- Father absent from home Mother domineering
- Poor academic progress Below average intelligence Emotionally and psychologically disturbed Social and sexual maladjustment
- Unmarried Feelings of inadequacy and insecurity
- Cowardice
He may wear or feel women's underwear prior to setting the fire. It is not uncommon for the pyromaniac to have a background of sexual offences such as "snow dropping" (stealing women's underwear from clotheslines) or flashing. It could be suggested that, as these offences are non-confrontational, just like lighting a small fire and masturbating, there are some similarities. The offender does not like to directly confront the victim.
The pyromaniac may also be responsible for numerous calls to the fire brigade involving fires or false alarms. This has certainly been the situation in a number of notorious cases both here and overseas.
They nearly all tend to graduate to lighting larger fires to satisfy the compulsion.
Barracato's studies were done in America and on (according to him) the many fire setters that he interviewed. Although from a personal viewpoint, the above characteristics fit not just fire setters but also any number of criminals who have been caught for any number of offences and appears to be very strongly slanted towards a positivist standpoint. It would appear to deny the offender any agency in the offence and does not allow for the offender who cannot be fitted into the profile. Criminologists would suggest that this "all encompassing" profile neither allows for the varied influencing factors nor encompasses those who have not yet been caught.
Serial arsonist
According to recent research, there appears to be a difference between the pyromaniac and the serial arsonist. This difference stems from not the number of offences a person commits, but the psychological propensity to continue to commit a series of similar offences. A serial arsonist may only light one fire and is then caught, whereas a multiple fire setter may light a number but not be caught. The difference is the psychological basis behind the offence.
Kocsis and Irwin have conducted studies which suggest "...serial murder, serial rape and serial arson can be described as specific behaviours evidenced in the crime scene and style of victimisation" (Kocsis and Irwin, 1998, p197).
They have suggested that autoerotic stimulation (frequently found in serial murders and arson) is “consistent with the view that sexual stimulation or excitation may be derived through the commission of these crimes”. They state that “masturbation at the scene of serial arson offences (also) confirms the view that serial arson might not be simply a property crime; rather, there is a an important class of serial arson that is motivated by psychosexual factors” (p205). Their paper on “Defining Serial Crime” suggests that there may in fact be a distinct difference between a “multiple arsonist” and a “serial arsonist”. Whereas in conventional arsons, the victim has some relationship with the perpetrator, in the case of the serial arsonist there is typically no link. The important issue to the serial arsonist is the fantasy or disassociation with the event that drives him (according to these researchers no female has yet been documented which fits their “serial criminal” profile)
They have summarised their findings in a profile of the serial offender as:
“marked by a distinctive complex of psychopathic, narcissistic, sadistic, paraphilic and fantasy prone tendencies. Psychopathy frees the offender from the injunctions of society against narcissistic and sadistic behaviour. Narcissism defines the primacy of self-gratification in the offenders lifestyle and fuels the sense of superiority by which the offender self-justifies sadism and psychopathic behaviour. Both sadism and paraphilic tendencies serve to give form to the anti-social self-gratification and pursuit of superiority and dominance…The offender’s impelling fantasy has a virtual addictive quality, cycling through a progressively increasing compulsion to enact the fantasy, the achievement of temporary satiety through commission of the offence, and a period of respite before the fantasy takes hold once more.” (P208)
They have also suggested that the serial arsonist fits the following indicators:
- Destruction of property in addition to fire damage
- Sexual activity at the crime scene (eg. masturbation)
- Offender "signature" intentionally left at the crime scene (eg. graffiti, faecal matter or urine, token object)
- Intentional stylised activity either in fire initiation or in other activities at the crime scene.
John Douglas of the FBI’s Investigative Support Unit (criminal profiling department) reports that David Berkowitz, New York’s “Son of Sam” serial murderer lit more than 2000 fires in the Brooklyn-Queens area, which he documented in meticulous diary notes (Douglas, J. 1995, Mindhunter, Random house, UK.).
Female fire setters
People in this category include:
- Suicide and self-mutilators - more often women, more often of Asian descent, i.e. India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong
- Fires aimed towards employers or dominant males.
- Symbolic fire setters Sometimes will light fires on the bed, burn her wedding dress, wedding photos, the marital bed, etc. and may also burn her husband´s or her own clothes which indicates an unhappy domestic situation - feelings of being trapped.
- A female will seldom set fire to her children´s belongings.
- Their fires are supposedly less aggressive than males - there are increasing doubts about this theory in Australia.
- Where there is the destruction or damage to the home the female is unhappy with their lifestyle and wants a change of scenery. They believe that insurance will provide money to redecorate or replace home.
Anxiety over menstruation, menopause or difficulty coming to terms with puberty is also suggested as a cause for firesetting,. There is some suggestion from those who medicalise behaviour that fire setting is a form of deviance in which hormonal imbalances play a part. This once again is a Positivistic approach and does not allow for individual agency and feminist literature would suggest that this is denying females the capability of committing a “male crime”. Patricia Pearson talks about a “vocabulary of crime” and how writers such as Colin Wilson have dismissed female aggression on the basis that “ (It) seems unlikely that female crime will ever be a serious problem” (in 1988, The Mammoth Book of True Crime, Robinson Publishing,p.175). Pearson has suggested generally that women have the same propensity to commit aggressive acts, but that often these acts are dismissed, misunderstood , attacked by Feminists as being caused by alternative influences or medicalised. “
…. Perhaps above all, the denial of woman’s aggression profoundly undermines our attempt as a culture to understand violence, to trace its causes and to quell them.” (Pearson, When She Was Bad. How women get away with Murder, 1999, Virago Press, p.243).
Further information on the motivations of fire setters can be found in NFPA921 Guide for Fire Explosion Investigations (NFPA Current Edition 2004) At http://www.interfire.org/ or through http://www.firearson.com the International Association of Arson Investigators web site.
Copyright Trevor Pillinger http://salamanderconsultants.com