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Full-Text Articles in Criminology
Copycat Firesetting: Bridging Two Research Areas, Rebekah Doley, Claire Ferguson, Ray Surette
Copycat Firesetting: Bridging Two Research Areas, Rebekah Doley, Claire Ferguson, Ray Surette
Rebekah Doley
Deliberate firesetting costs our community in destruction to property and lives. Public concern heightens when similar fires occur in a series, raising the specter of copycat firesetting. Difficulties associated with researching copycat crimes in general mean that not a lot is known about copycat firesetting. As an initial step toward filling this research gap, we explore connections between research on copycat crime and research into deliberate firesetting. The intention is to extract salient features from what is known about the phenomena of deliberate firesetting and copycat crime, map them together, and point out shared and unique characteristics. It is argued …
Assessment Of Firesetters, Rebekah Doley, Bruce Watt
Assessment Of Firesetters, Rebekah Doley, Bruce Watt
Rebekah Doley
Extract This chapter will equip readers with the information required to screen and assess arsonists effectively using a number of modalities. The appropriate tools are presented and discussed, along with the evidence base underlying them. The focus of the discussion is on risk assessment, recidivism and dangerousness. In particular, these issues are discussed with reference to mental health and psychiatric patients as arsonists. The terms ’arson’ and ’firesetting’ will be used interchangeably throughout this chapter; the term ‘arson’ is commonly acknowledged to have a legal definition, while firesetting describes the behaviour itself.
Power And Excitement In Arson: The Case Of Firefighter Arson, Rebekah Doley, Kenneth Fineman
Power And Excitement In Arson: The Case Of Firefighter Arson, Rebekah Doley, Kenneth Fineman
Rebekah Doley
Extract Perhaps more than most crimes, the crime of arson is often shrouded in anecdotal descriptions concerning what actually motivates the offender. Arson in any form is repugnant, but even more so when the individual involved is a serving member of the fire service. Fire department personnel and the community alike abhor incidents of this nature. Although the incidence of fire-fighter arson is low in comparison with the total number of currently serving fire-fighters, the impact on community faith and fire service morale is disproportionately great. The integrity of the service is demonstrated in the performance of its personnel. While …
Bushfire And Wildfire Arson: Arson Risk Assessment In The Australian Context, Troy Mcewan, Rebekah Doley, Mairead Dolan
Bushfire And Wildfire Arson: Arson Risk Assessment In The Australian Context, Troy Mcewan, Rebekah Doley, Mairead Dolan
Rebekah Doley
Extract Deliberately lit vegetation fires have the greatest destructive potential of any intentionally lit blaze. The ’Black Saturday’ bushfires of 7 February 2009 in Victoria, Australia, killed 173 people, injured 414 and destroyed 3500 buildings, including two entire towns (Teagne et al, 2010). Even before the fires had abated police and fire-fighters revealed that several had been deliberately lit (Silvester, 2009). The subsequent Royal Commission attributed four of the large fires to arson. These four fires caused 52 deaths and burnt approximately 2000 km2 of land, an area slightly larger than that of Greater London (Teague et aI, 2010). The …
A Snapshot Of Serial Arson In Australia, Rebekah Doley
A Snapshot Of Serial Arson In Australia, Rebekah Doley
Rebekah Doley
Studies into arson commonly have two underlying assumptions: 1) that arsonists are in some way different from non-arsonists; and, 2) that repeat arson offenders are quantifiably different from one- time arson offenders. In general these suppositions have remained implicit in the research, with few empirical investigations examining their veracity or otherwise against a sound theoretical model. The current project sought to establish how applicable these assumptions are in the Australian context. In the process a profile of Australian arsonists has been clarified and the concept that arsonists can be differentiated from each other and from other types of offender on …
Assessment And Treatment Of Fire-Setters, Rebekah Doley, Katarina Fritzon
Assessment And Treatment Of Fire-Setters, Rebekah Doley, Katarina Fritzon
Rebekah Doley
Extract: I am malicious because I am miserable. -Frankenstein, Mary Shelley Within clinical literature there has been an assumption that the above quote typifies a large proportion of individuals who deliberately commit arson. In other words, that psychological disorders of some kind can be found in the majority of such persons (Geller, Fisher, & Moynihan, 1992). For example, early conceptualisations of the condition pyromania meant that any individual who set more than one fire was considered to suffer from an 'irresistible impulse'- merely for the fact that they did not resist the impulse to set a fire. Now, however, a …