Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T20:12:33.130Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6.1 - Arson

from Part VI - Special topics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

Jennifer M. Brown
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Elizabeth A. Campbell
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
Get access

Summary

Persons who commit arson attract a variety of clinical diagnoses, most commonly personality disorder, intellectual impairment, psychotic illness and substance use disorder. This chapter provides an overview of findings from both the investigative and clinical literature on arson. Arson can be can be used for financial gain, but it is also an act of interpersonal violence. Other motives include vandalism, anger, communication, psychosis, extremism (for example, animal liberation groups) or political motives. There are four distinct modes of arson, each with corresponding offender characteristics: adaptive, conservative, integrative, and expressive. In recent years a number of private and publicly funded secure hospitals within the UK have developed and run specific treatment programmes for persons convicted of arson offences. In the absence of recidivism data, an alternative approach to measuring intervention success is offered by recent literature on 'offence paralleling behaviour'.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×