Burnin' Down the House: The 2007 Recession and the Effect on Arson (original) (raw)

The Economics of Residential Arson: Theory and Evidence from a Panel of Cities

2004

Residential arson is important in human and economic terms, accounting for hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damages each year. Even so, arson in general and residential arson in particular have received only scant attention in the economics literature. This paper presents the first fully specified economic theory of residential arson and tests the theory using data from a panel of 30 U.S. cities over the years 1991-1995. We find strong evidence that arson activity increases significantly when house prices fall, when houses are insured for larger amounts, and when homeowners encounter financial distress (as reflected in a rise in the local unemployment rate). We find mixed evidence that arson activity is greater with higher levels of non-wage wealth and lower levels of permanent labor income. There is also some evidence that another measure of financial distress, the change in nominal interest rates, has a significant positive effect on arson.

Enticing Arsonists with Broken Windows and Social Disorder

Fire Technology, 2011

In criminology, it is well understood that indicators of urban decay, such as abandoned buildings littered with broken windows, provide criminals with signals identifying neighborhoods with lower crime detection and apprehension rates than better maintained neighborhoods. Whether it is the resident population's sense of apathy, lack of civic pride, or fear of confrontation that causes criminals to perceive an easy mark, it nevertheless emboldens them to strike. Previous research of wildland arson hints that broken windows (e.g., areas of criminal activity) are partly responsible for arson outbreaks within the wildland-urban interface. We model the incidence of wildland and non-wildland arson ignitions in Michigan from 2001 to 2005 as a function of constructed Broken Windows indices. Our results suggest that crime prevention and urban revitalization programs may be as valuable as fire suppression, fuels management, and law enforcement in limiting incidence and the damage from both wildland and non-wildland arson.

Time to Burn: Modeling Wildland Arson as an Autoregressive Crime Function

American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2005

Six Poisson autoregressive models of order p (PAR(p)) of daily wildland arson ignition counts are estimated for five locations in Florida (1994-2001). In addition, a fixed effects time-series Poisson model of annual arson counts is estimated for all Florida counties (1995-2001). PAR(p) model estimates reveal highly significant arson ignition autocorrelation, lasting up to eleven days, in addition to seasonality and

The Impact of Macroeconomic Conditions on Property Crime

2011

This paper examines the impact of inflation, (un)employment, and stock market growth on the rates of larceny, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and robbery. The study uses U.S. data for the time period 1948 to 2009. We employ an unobserved component approach to circumvent the problems associated with omitted variables. We find that the three macroeconomic variables have a statistically significant impact for most of the property crime rates. However, taken together the macroeconomic variables explain no more than 15 percent of the surge in property crimes from the 1960 to the 1980s and their subsequent fall during the 1990s. Among the macroeconomic variables, almost all of the explanatory power is provided by changes in the inflation rate.

Reevaluating Foreclosure Effects on Crime During the “Great Recession”

High rates of foreclosures during the "Great Recession" raised concerns about the potential harmful effects of the housing crisis not just on the economy, but also on levels of crime. Grounded primarily in theories of social disorganization and incivility, a growing body of empirical research has been directed at exploring whether the foreclosure crisis stimulated higher crime rates in America than would otherwise have been experienced. Many studies have now reported a significant association between rates of foreclosure and crime during the recession, but we are skeptical of whether this represents a causal effect because it is unclear whether the traditional regression approaches applied in most of the extent research account sufficiently for preexisting differences present in areas that experienced varying levels of foreclosure. We advance the literature on foreclosure and crime by employing a propensity score matching (PSM) technique to better account for such differences, evaluating whether U.S. counties that received larger "doses" of foreclosure during the recent recession experienced higher levels of property crime than comparable counties in which rates of foreclosure remained relatively low. Our analysis shows that, once prerecession differences between counties with high versus medium-to-low foreclosure rates are removed, there is no evidence of a significant association between rates of foreclosure and crime.

Opportunity and rationality as an explanation for suspicious vehicle fires: demonstrating the relevance of time, place, and economic factors

Crime Science

Opportunity theories of crime emphasize the non-random spatial and temporal patterning of criminal events. Such theoretical development has proven useful when extended beyond traditional applications to crime event data. This study continues to explore the wider utility of such criminological theories by examining the spatio-temporal patterns of vehicle fires through an opportunity lens. Specifically, we explore the patterns associated with different types of vehicle fires, and consider longitudinal socio-economic trends that may influence the perceived costs and benefits associated with crimes committed with the intention of escaping debt, such as vehicle arson. Data for this study were obtained from Surrey Fire Services (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) and contain information about all vehicle fires occurring in Surrey, British Columbia (BC), Canada. Post-fire incident reports were used to group the fire data into non-suspicious and suspicious categories. Both categories were analyzed for local and global spatial clustering, hourly, daily, and monthly temporal patterns, and changes over the study period. Findings indicate that suspicious vehicle fire events concentrate in both space and time, and these patterns are distinct from non-suspicious vehicle fires. Further, suspicious vehicle fires events are significantly related to unemployment and interest rates, whilst non-suspicious vehicle fires are not. These results demonstrate the relevance of opportunity theories of crime to understanding vehicle fire patterns. By extension, this provides an important opportunity to connect such patterns with targeted crime (and fire) prevention policy and practice.

Unemployment, Economic Theory, and Property Crime: A Note on Measurement

Drawing on rational choice theory, this study considers how best to measure unemployment within the context of the unemployment–property crime relationship. Specifically, we use ARIMA techniques to examine the relative efficacy of using the conventional Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) unemployment rate and two alternative measures of the demand for labor as predictors of monthly counts of U.S. property offenses for the years 1982 through 1996. The bivariate time series analyses indicate that while the BLS unemployment rate exhibits null effects, the number of individuals unemployed for 15 weeks or more and the capacity utilization rate significantly affect the level of property crime. The implications of these results are discussed.

Differentiating arsonists: A model of firesetting actions and characteristics

Legal and Criminological Psychology, 1998

It is hypothesized that there will be behavioural consistencies in the actions of arsonists when committing a crime that characterize them. The themes underlying these observable differences can be used to help us understand the nature of the offence. With arson, one such observable difference is hypothesized to relate to the target or focus of the attack. The study tested whether consistencies could be found that distinguish person-oriented from object-oriented arsons. A second proposed facet of arson actions relates to the motivational category underlying the act, being either instrumental or expressive. It was also hypothesized, therefore, that there would be a distinction in the arson actions between fires set for a clear instrumental purpose, and those which may be regarded as emotional acting-out. The hypothesis that these four themes would differentiate arsonists was tested by analysing 175 solved arson cases from across England. The case files were content analysed to produce 42 behavioural variables taken from both the crime reports and witness statements. In order to test the hypotheses of differentiation a smallest space analysis was carried out.

Combatting the crime of arson: Detection, arrest, and conviction

Journal of Criminal Justice, 1983

The criminal aspect of arson, traditionally perceived as a firefighting rather than u law enforcement problem, has become of critical interest in recent years. Data are presented reflecting the escaluting trend in arson fires which has developed over a five-year period in four cities in the southern Culifornia area. The ubility of the law enforcement community to combat this trend effectively is discussed by focusing attention upon the innovative efforts of a multijurisdictional arson control project opertrting in southern California. Improvements in the detection, urrest, and conviction patterns in the project area for the crime of arson are also discussed.