 |
What is it about fire? We can take it all the way back to our formative years: Why do kids, especially little boys, like to play with matches? It's a rite of passage, something parents dread and expect, almost as routinely as they do nose-picking and name-calling. There is definitely a sense of power that comes from burning something, and you can sense that whether you're seven or seventy. Maybe it has to do with the experience of creating and destroying at the same time-the dual experience of making the fire and destroying the fuel. Not to get too philosophical, but of the many kinds of crimes I've investigated, arson is one of the most interesting.
What to Burn
Someone commits arson when he deliberately sets fire to property. The FBI reported that for 2004, only 44.6% of all arsons involved structures. That may surprise you, but 30.2% of all arsons involved the burning of automobiles. The remaining 25% was made up of fires involving agricultural crops, forests, and other types of property. Most people don't think of car-burning as a problem, but it is a common crime.
Man's Most Important Tool
The best way to begin categorizing arson is by motive. The type you are probably most familiar with is the one from the movies, where the guy torches his failing business for the insurance payoff, or burns down his rival's shop. We call this Profit-Motivated Arson. Then, there is the arson motivated by extremism, which is perpetrated to cause a disturbance, intimidate, and draw attention to an agenda. This type of motive runs the gamut from hate (as in the many racially motivated fires set by bigots in the Civil Rights era) to religious agendas (as in the burning of an abortion clinic). We refer to this as Extremist-Motivated Arson. There are also fires that are set to hide the evidence of another crime, from burglary to murder. We've all seen dozens of T.V. dramas playing on the theme of a body found burned beyond recognition, identifiable only by dental records. We call this Crime Concealment Arson. And there is Revenge-Motivated Arson, in which the someone sets fire to someone else's property for revenge-the jilted wife burns her ex's car, for example.
These motives make sense to us. We can understand them, even if we would never commit those crimes for any reason. For perpetrators of these types of straightforward crimes, the fire is a tool, a means to an end. But for some arsonists, fire is more than just a tool. It can be an outlet for feelings that the offender can't express otherwise, an escape, and a way to live out a violent fantasy.
Juvenile Offenders
Arson isn't an easy crime to solve. For one thing, most of the evidence is usually consumed in the fire. Nationwide, though it varies from year to year, only about 17% of arson cases are solved. In 2004, 40.2% of the cleared cases involved juveniles alone. Why is that? In part, it's a function of age. As mentioned, firesetting is something kids, especially boys, are simply drawn to. Sometimes juvenile arsonists set fires unintentionally, just by striking matches around a lot of fuel (like dry grass or old newspapers). You probably recall the 1,800 acres of Florida brush that were burned back in April; allegedly, one of the four fires that became the giant conflagration began with three teenagers playing with matches.
While most kids experiment a little bit with matches or maybe a magnifying glass and some ants, there are many juveniles who find firesetting an outlet for their anxieties and aggression. They are typically kids with few good friends, who exhibit other antisocial behaviors and have trouble relating to kids of the opposite sex. They have trouble at home, and their parents tend to be either disconnected and unaware of their problems or abusive. For these kids, setting a fire is a way to be in control of something, and that something has a destructive allure that can unleash the revenge fantasies of a particularly antisocial teen. Some of these kids even become hypnotized by the blazes they set. Juvenile arsonists usually don't think through what they're doing. Their intentions are pretty limited. They might vandalize property in other ways, from taking out mailboxes with bats to spray-painting their school. Setting fires takes that behavior a step further. But because they tend to be disorganized criminals, another reason juvenile arsonists make up a high percentage of cleared cases is they provide more evidence for authorities.
But what about the adult arsonist, whose motives don't fall into any of those neat categories I detailed earlier, who knows what he's doing, and who can't stop?
Burning Desires
There are those who set fire for the excitement of it, and who do so repeatedly. These are the serial arsonists. They are like serial killers in that they have a compulsion to commit their crimes, which often occur after a cooling-off period and after they have experienced a significant stressor in their lives that brings the compulsion to a breaking point. As I've often said, I don't believe in the "irresistible urge" theory that many defense attorneys have employed. Violent serial criminals just repeatedly reach a point where resisting their particular dark urge appeals to them less than not resisting it, and they decide to act on it. Committing their crimes and reliving them later is what these guys want to do.
Unlike serial killers, of course, serial arsonists target property-usually structures, from residences to public spaces, like parks. They often strike in areas where they live or work or frequent for other reasons because they can select the right targets and their presence in the areas won't be questioned. They like to watch the fire burn. They set and watch it because it is a release, a compulsion, and they often find a sexual thrill in executing the fire and watching it burn; some even masturbate while watching. The targets are not usually chosen for any personal reasons, but the fires are a source of pride.
Thomas A. Sweatt
You may recall the serial arsonist who terrorized Washington, D.C., for more than two years, beginning in March of 2003. I followed this case closely in the Washington Post, particularly because it's fairly close to my own family's home. When Thomas A. Sweatt, a 50-year-old fast food restaurant manager, was finally caught, he admitted in his guilty plea to setting 45 residential fires, one of which resulted in the smoke-inhalation death of an 86-year-old woman.
Sweatt was caught only after forensic evidence (including DNA
evidence found on an unlit jug of gasoline and a pair of pants
found near the scene of a fire) linked investigators to him
through evidence from a prior investigation. Sweatt has said
he could not stop setting the fires; if it weren't for that
evidence, he may not have. Like most serial arsonists, he chose
his targets at random. Though he wasn't out to specifically
hurt anyone, he often set the fires in doorways and set one
in the lone stairwell of an apartment building, though he knew
that people at home in these places would have difficulty escaping.
Typical of a serial arsonist, Sweatt hasn't provided much of a motive, other than being unable to stop setting the fires. That kind of explanation doesn't do much good for the victims or their families, but violent serial criminals never have much to say that helps people deal with their crimes.
Gender and Serial Crime
In all my books and lectures, I refer to the serial criminal in general as a man. He lives out his fantasy. The mementos he takes from his victims help him relive the crimes. Obviously, this is because nearly all violent serial criminals are men. Why is that? I'll address this, and other topics, in a newsletter coming soon.
|
|
|
