Offender and crime characteristics of female serial arsonists in Japan

This study of Japanese female serial arsonists examined their crimes and background characteristics. The data were a sample from the national police register containing arson cases resulting in charges in Japan between 1982 and 2005. Serial arsonists were 6% of the arson offenders and 12% of these were female, resulting in 83 female serial arsonist data sets. The mean age was 37.6 years and 43% were unemployed. Nearly half were married. Only 28% had a documented history of mental problems and 22% had a prior arrest, usually for theft (19%). Female serial arsonists are characterised by going to a place near their home with a lighter and setting fire directly to combustible materials. Non-metric multidimensional scaling was used to analyse 33 variables related to the offences. The arsons could be differentiated in terms of either expressive or instrumental sources of action. Expressive arsons were opportunistic and impulsive acts, motivated by emotional distress. The fires were mostly set close to home. Expressive arsons were characteristic of 66% of the females. Instrumental arsons were often motivated by revenge and involved planned and goal-directed behaviours. They were committed by 13% of the females. Instrumental arsonists tended to travel further from home. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.