Adult Deliberate Firesetting. Theresa A. Gannon

disorders. However, they are not simply hypothesised as features of broader disorders but also as vulnerability factors in people who set fires in the absence of diagnosed mental ill health. Much of the older research on which these hypotheses were drawn relied on small samples or samples without comparison groups. Few studies have directly explored whether these factors distinguish groups of individuals who have set fires from other justice-involved individuals or the wider community. Gannon et al. (2013) compared imprisoned men with and without firesetting offences on a number of variables, including anger. They found that those with firesetting histories appeared to be characterised by more anger-related cognition (e.g., rumination and hostility) and physiological arousal to anger and had more experiences of anger as a response to perceived provocation. Findings by Alleyne et al. (2016) suggested that apprehended women who had set fires reported being more able to regulate their anger relative to other imprisoned women, although the effect size for this difference was small. Comparing a small sample of women and men who had set fires, Nanayakkara et al. (2020a) reported greater impulsivity and affect dysregulation among the female sample. Impulsivity also differentiated women who had set fires from other women admitted to a secure treatment setting (Long et al., 2015). Taking a different approach, Dalhuisen et al. (2017) examined the evidence for different subgroups of firesetting individuals. They concluded that some clusters of these individuals were characterised by self- or emotion-regulation factors such as coping problems or problems with impulsivity. Finally, Gannon et al. (in preparation) found that self and emotional regulation among people who set fires may be characterised by a reliance on fire as a method of coping or as a means to send a powerful message to others. These factors differentiated apprehended individuals with a history of firesetting from both apprehended and community controls.

Communication problems. Within the M-TTAF (Gannon et al., 2012), communication problems that are thought to act as vulnerabilities for firesetting include social skills issues, emotional loneliness, and low assertiveness. As with other factors, early research implicated these as characteristic of people who set fires (see Gannon & Pina, 2010), but a few more recent studies have demonstrated whether they are uniquely characteristic of this population. Gannon et al. (2013) did not find group differences between imprisoned men who set fires compared with those who did not on either assertiveness or loneliness using self-report measures. Alleyne et al. (2016) found that these social competence measures of loneliness and assertiveness did not differentiate imprisoned women who had set fires from other imprisoned women or from the men who had set fires. In one of few relatively recent studies that examined the social skills of people who have set fires, Hagenauw et al. (2015) reported lower social skills among the small sample of firesetting individuals in their comparison of mixed-gender individuals in a psychiatric institution. In a study that compared men apprehended for arson with men apprehended for violent offences and who were treated in an outpatient treatment centre, Wilpert et al. (2017) found that those apprehended for arson were more socially isolated.

      Self-esteem. Self-esteem is conceptualised within the M-TTAF (Gannon et al., 2012; see Chapter 3) as a moderating factor, with intact or high self-esteem potentially protecting individuals against the deleterious effects of other psychological vulnerabilities that would otherwise place them at risk of offending. In this model, low self-esteem may exacerbate these risk factors. The best evidence of this relationship would demonstrate that self-esteem interacts with other risk factors preceding firesetting offending. However, evidence that individuals who engage in firesetting have lower self-esteem than comparison groups would provide partial support for this hypothesis. Two studies have reported significantly lower self-esteem among imprisoned men with a history of firesetting compared with imprisoned individuals (Duggan & Shine, 2001; Gannon et al., 2013). Analyses by Alleyne et al. (2016) has also suggested that while imprisoned women who set deliberate fires had lower self-esteem than men who set fires, they did not differ significantly from other imprisoned women (though see also Stewart, 1993). The possibility that gender may itself impact on a moderating role of self-esteem was suggested by Ducat et al. (2017).

      Relative to research on the psychopathological characteristics of individuals who set fires, research on psychological characteristics is less well-developed. There appears to have been a resurgence in this area of investigation following publication of the M-TTAF (Gannon et al., 2012). However, the lack of routinely available national or regional data (c.f., Anwar et al., 2011; Ducat et al., 2013b) on these psychological characteristics impedes the development of robust large-scale examination of these constructs and their potential role in firesetting. Despite this, the cumulative evidence is strongest in implicating fire interest (or facets of fire interest), self- and emotion-regulation problems, and low self-esteem as characteristics of men who have set fires relative to other justice-involved men. Fire interest also appears to consistently differentiate between people who have set deliberate fires and the wider population and between women who set fires and other imprisoned women. Other findings relating to women are less clear and require further research using robust designs. There is growing evidence to consider fire interest as multi-faceted and that firesetting may be underpinned by firesetting-supportive schemas and scripts, but these need further investigation.

      Characteristics of Subgroups of Adults Who Set Fires

The research on characteristics of adults who set fires is dominated by studies that imply a certain homogeneity in the life events and the psychological or psychopathological vulnerabilities of these individuals. In other words, research often pits a group of individuals who have set deliberate fires against a group of individuals who have not. This approach risks oversimplifying a nuanced and complex phenomenon. Both theory (e.g., Gannon et al., 2012) and research on motives or typologies in firesetting (e.g., Lewis & Yarnell, 1951) paint the picture of a much more heterogeneous population following varied offence pathways (see also Barnoux et al., 2015; Tyler & Gannon, 2017). Therefore, it is important to think beyond the very general characteristics of people who set fires and instead consider finer-grained distinctions within this population. We have already examined the interaction of gender and firesetting status in the earlier sections. However, researchers have also investigated the characteristics of specific subsets of individuals who set fires, including those who engage in repeated firesetting or high-consequence firesetting, as well as those whose firesetting may belong to specific typologies or trajectories.

      The rates of recorded firesetting recidivism are relatively low (Ducat et al., 2015; Rice & Harris, 1996; Thomson et al., 2018). Sambrooks et al. (2021) meta analysed studies looking at reoffending by untreated adults or children with a history of firesetting. They again found relatively low rates of reoffending (8%–10%) when considering reoffending as convictions (or arrests or charges in one study) for “arson”. Using a broader definition of firesetting, however, the reoffending rate was higher (20%). Doley et al. (2011) summarised a limited literature on the characteristics of individuals who set repeated fires. They also identified a number of promising target areas for future research on recidivism in this population. The following decade has seen publication of some robust examinations of repeat firesetting, though there remains a lot of potential for further research in this area. Synthesising this literature, the strongest evidence of characteristics of repeat firesetting includes having fire interest (Dickens et al., 2009; Tyler et al., 2015), more past firesetting incidents (Ducat et al., 2015; Rice & Harris, 1996), young age at first firesetting (Dickens et al., 2009; Rice & Harris, 1996), being criminally versatile (Dickens et al., 2009; Ducat et al., 2015), personality disorder (Dickens et al., 2009; Thomson et al., 2018; Wyatt et al., 2019), intellectual disability (Bell et al., 2018), and childhood adversity (Bell et al., 2018; Dickens et al., 2009).

      Dickens and colleagues (2009) highlighted the need to parse the dangerousness of firesetting from recidivism. They reported that few of their variables were able to predict the dangerousness of fires and those that did related to the firesetting behaviour itself rather than individual characteristics. However, building on this research Nanayakkara et al. (2020b) examined the characteristics of individuals who engaged in what they termed high-consequence firesetting (i.e., the setting of fires that resulted in fatality or high financial costs). They reported that high-consequence firesetting could be arranged into five types based on the clustering together