Arson Is a Seirous Problem in the United States - 1510 Words

Arson is a serious problem in the United States, being the number one cause of all fires, the number two cause of fire death and the cause of over one billion dollars of damage every year. Webster defines arson as â€Å" The crime of maliciously burning somebody else’s building or property or of burning one’s own to get insurance money.† Arson is thought of as an insurance concern, an invisible â€Å"paper lose† by the general populace, but for the firefighters who have been injured or killed responding to set fires and the hundreds of civilians killed each year in incendiary or suspicious building fires, arson looms as a significant issue that is anything but invisible. Arson is the malicious or fraudulent burning of property. A fire I a†¦show more content†¦The primary concern about fires set in churches is that they have been racially motivated. Of 230 church burnings in 1994 41% targeted black churches and 59% targeted white churches. In o ver 100 arrests, racial hatred was found to be a main motive for arson. Of those arrested 66% where white and 34% were black. In 1996 the problem of church arson increased sharply. As a result president Clinton formed the National Church Arson Task Force (NCATF), to coordinate the efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. Congress also then passed the Church Arson Prevention Act (CAPA), which expanded the options available to prosecutors when dealing with malicious acts aimed at houses of worship, since NCATF was passed the incidence of arson at houses of worship declined steadily. The most common motives for arson have been found to be: vandalism, excitement/attention seeking, revenge/spite, crime concealment, economic reasons, extremist/terrorism, and people with mental problems. Crime concealment is when arson is used to conceal another crime such as murder, burglary, or vehicle theft. There are some people that have been found to have an irresistible impulse to set fires. Economic Reasons may consist of insurance fraud, debt removal, direct monetary gain, elimination of unwanted ownership, and arson-for-profit. The profit may come in several forms: from insurance