Arson

Curiosity and Accidents

A common cause of juvenile fire setting is a combination of curiosity and lack of proper supervision and instruction on the dangers of fire. Curiosity toward fire can first be observed in children as young as 3 to 5 years of age. Usually by age 6, a child will have developed either fire-risk or fire-safe behaviors. A natural curiosity about fire along with a child's tendency to explore the environment may result in an instance of fire play. Fire play, a common phenomenon that often precedes arson, typically involves playing with matches and is most common in children under 7 years old.

Psychological Problems

Juvenile arsonists have more psychiatric symptoms and mental disorders than do other juvenile offenders. In addition, juvenile arsonists suffer from a mental illness as much as adult arsonists (Räsänen, Hakko, and Väisänen, 1995). The most common psychiatric diagnoses include conduct disorder and attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity. Conduct disorder involves the emerging antisocial personality traits, which are commonly seen in adult criminals. The more severely disturbed offenders often come from abusive families, and their pathology is evident in their disorganized and abnormal thinking patterns. Pyromania is a common term associated with fire setting, yet it is extremely rare and a term usually reserved for adult offenders who experience conversion and dissociative symptoms. Juveniles with these problems are generally categorized as pathological fire setters whose behavior results from mental disturbances.

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