Criminal Penalties: Arson: Background and Arguments Essay

Introduction

Arson is a serious offense that endangers the lives of other people and causes damage to property. According to Burton, McNiel, and Binder, there are approximately 62,000 cases of arson in the US annually that result in more than 1 billion dollars of damage.¹ The penalty for arson is relatively small compared to other crimes, while being potentially more destructive than, for instance, burglary. Such prevalence of the issue defines the reason for an adequate response. Legal justice does not seem to be strict enough in this sphere of criminal activity, and such actions, especially the first-degree ones, should be punished by a minimum ten-year prison sentence.

Background

According to Florida Statute 806.01, there are two classes of arson.² Second-degree arson is a felony that only involves damage to property that is not normally occupied by humans. First-degree arson is a felony that implies setting on fire livable structures or any other property that can under reasonable circumstances be inhabited. The punishment for such offenses is inflicted in accordance with the amount of damage, intent, factual number of victims, and severity of their injuries. Arson is differentiated from accidental fire setting because Arson always implies a malicious intent. In addition, the amount of damage is often insignificant in the process of persecution. The mere fact of setting a fire is usually enough to classify a criminal act as arson.

The researchers often tend to believe that arson as an act is connected to curiosity, the superficial nature of young minds, who are often the main actors of such crimes.³ Another category of arsonist is anti-social persons, who are more often than not tend to violate the law. Poor education, unemployment, unskilled labor, and introversion are the indicators that are connected with the risk of committing an arson.⁴ Usually, a deliberated arson is committed with a history of previous threats of destroying property. Therefore, arson is often a crime of vengeance as it regularly attracts attention.

There is also a differentiation between an arsonist and pyromaniac. The first sets fire with criminal intent, while the second has a mental condition that attracts them to fire.⁵ Interestingly, researchers tend to believe that identification and prevention act effectively as factors that allow decreasing the incidence of arson crimes.⁶ However, there seems to be no hard evidence able to prove that point of view. An experimental research by Gächter, Renner, and Sefton, however, proves that a sufficient punishment in the long ring can significantly improve the state of security and safety in the society.⁷

Arguments

An inability of the law system to inflict justice on arsonists provides an incentive for recidivist criminal behavior. The fine for a first-grade arson constitutes only 1000 dollars, while damage to structures could exceed that sum significantly. Setting fire to public buildings such as schools or libraries even without fatalities creates a dangerous situation and harms the health and wellbeing of the massive amount of people. Many people that are charged with arson plead for insanity, which allows another path to escape justice⁸. The severity of a punishment measure may result in a more scrutiny of those cases, which will boost the capacity of the judicial system to produce an adequate sentence.

Another reason for increasing minimum criminal penalty is that damage to building and life of those who are inside is often not the only consequences of arson. Each case creates a precedent in a neighborhood, which may result in its loss of attractiveness. This leads to people moving out of a dangerous area in search for a safer one losing their social connections and resources. The state and the country also become deprived of a certain income as the economic activity in the real estate sector of such unsafe neighborhood drops. Given such severe consequences of arson, the act cannot be considered punishable enough if the legal penalty is only a 1000 dollars.

In addition, a minimum sentence of ten years will act as an additional preventive measure. If a fine seems bearable enough for a criminal, ten years in prison will surely avert a certain percent of crimes. Similarly, a death sentence to a certain degree helps prevent serious offenses⁹. It may not be as effective as other preventive measures but it does not have a significant intrinsic cost that could have slowed down its implementation, and the benefits from such legal update will be visible.

Burton, McNiel, and Binder argue that despite arsonists rarely tend to commit a second offence connected with setting objects on fire, the percentage of further crimes in other spheres is significantly higher than among other criminals¹⁰. This might be another indication of the insignificance of a current punitive measure. Escaping crime with only a fine apparently is disregarded as a signal to stop violating the law. It seems to give delinquents a sense of invincibility that tempts them to descend further into the criminal world. A real prison sentence can let the arsonist a time to reconsider his choices and probably incentivize them to seek rehabilitation. A prison sentence also seems to be a morally just punishment for destroying other people’s property. Victims of an arsonist are often left without a roof over their heads and seeing an arsonist walk away with a fine can aggravate social tension and undermine the level of trust to the judicial system.

Counterarguments

McEwan and Freckelton argue that those who resort to arson are often mentally ill and need treatment¹¹. Such people do not understand that they act maliciously and should be rather committed to a mental hospital then sent to jail. It is also noteworthy to mention that there are cases when there is no significant damage done with no human casualties. It can hardly be called justice if a person will be sentenced to ten years in prison. There seems to be little evidence of preventive qualities of long sentences as offenders rarely think of consequences when committing a crime. Above that, according to Burton, McNiel, and Binder about 80% of arsonists are never even arrested¹². Therefore, there is a greater necessity to concentrate efforts on prevention and police coordination.

Counterargument Refutation

The arguments against increasing the severity of the punishment for first-degree arson are rather strong, but they also do not fully reflect the needs of society in terms of tackling the issue of arson. Firstly, the mentally ill patients are not affected by this measure due to the fact that if they have a medical proof of their incapacity, they can plead not guilty even if there is a minimal jail time established. The main idea of a minimum sentence is to restore moral justice and set a proportional punishment for a first-degree arson. Presently, the fine of 1000$ does not seem enough for a sane person to feel that he committed a first-degree felony that endangered or ended the lives of people and damaged habitable property.

The cases when the damage is small indeed need a closer investigation. However, the insignificance of damage may result from lack of skill to set a building on fire or resistance of the latter due to excellent work of a fire protection system. The inferiority of this argument may be illustrated with a case of a terrorist whose bomb did not go off at a crowded place. Technically, he did not inflict any injuries to anyone and did not cause any damage, but if he did, the consequences would have been terrible. The same rule applies to arson. If I person who just attempted the first-degree arson is allowed to escape a sentence, there is nothing stopping him from having another attempt.

Preventive qualities of a sentence are indeed small, but they are far greater than those of a 1000-dollar fine. Again, the main idea of changing the measure of punishment is to serve justice in accordance with the severity of a crime. The last counterargument about concentrating on prevention possesses a rational kernel. However, in terms of resources, increasing a minimum sentence costs less than the establishment of proper patrols, surveillance, informing the population, and other preventive measures. Therefore, a minimum ten-year sentence could be a starting point, and it does not any way contradict the idea of prevention.

Conclusion

All things considered, despite minimum sentence can be not as effective as proper prevention measures it can serve as a measure to restore the justice gap that is currently presented in the form of a 1000$ fine for the first-degree arson. It will also help ensure that fewer arsonists resort to other crime by isolating them from society. In addition, the measure is relatively cheap to introduce and even has a small preventive effect.

Bibliography

The State of Florida. “Arson and Criminal Mischief.” Official Internet Site of Florida Legislature. Web.

Burton, Paul, Dale E. McNiel, and Renée L. Binder. “Firesetting, Arson, Pyromania, and the Forensic Mental Health Expert.” Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online 40, no. 3 (2012): 355-365.

Palermo, George B. “A Look at Firesetting, Arson, and Pyromania.” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 59, no. 7 (2015): 683-684.

McEwan, Troy, and Ian Freckelton. “Assessment, Treatment and Sentencing of Arson Offenders: An Overview.” Journal of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 18, no. 3 (2011): 319-328.

Gächter, Simon, Elke Renner, and Martin Sefton. “The Long-Run Nenefits of Punishment.” Science 322, no. 5907 (2008): 1510-1510.

Hood, Roger, and Carolyn Hoyle. The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective. OUP Oxford, 2015.

Footnotes

1. Paul Burton, Dale E. McNiel, and Renée L. Binder, “Firesetting, arson, pyromania, and the forensic mental health expert,” Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online 40, no. 3 (2012): 355, 356.
2. The State of Florida, “Arson and Criminal Mischief,” Official Internet Site of Florida Legislature. Web.
3. Burton, McNiel and Binder, “Firesetting, Arson, Pyromania, and the Forensic Mental Health Expert,” 355,366.
4. Ibid, 359.
5. George B. Palermo, “A Look at Firesetting, Arson, and Pyromania,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 59, no. 7 (2015): 683,684.
6. Troy McEwan and Ian Freckelton, “Assessment, Treatment and Sentencing of Arson Offenders: An Overview,” Journal of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 18, no. 3 (2011): 319,320.
7. Simon Gächter, Elke Renner and Martin Sefton, “The Long-Run Benefits of Punishment,” Science 322, no. 5907 (2008): 1510, 1511.
8. Burton, McNiel and Binder, “Firesetting, Arson, Pyromania, and the Forensic Mental Health Expert,” 360.
9. Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle. The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective. OUP Oxford, 2015.
10. Burton, McNiel and Binder, “Firesetting, Arson, Pyromania, and the Forensic Mental Health Expert,” 358.
11. McEwan and Freckelton, “Assessment, Treatment and Sentencing of Arson Offenders,” 319.
12. Burton, McNiel and Binder, “Firesetting, Arson, Pyromania, and the Forensic Mental Health Expert,” 357, 358.