Arson, Urban Economy, and Organized Crime: The Case of Boston

Abstract

The deadly crime of arson is spreading at an alarming rate in the United States, leaving whole city neighborhoods devastated in its wake. Traditional methods of dealing with the problem are based on a view of arsonists as or vandals. This paper shows a clear link between the policies of banks and insurance companies, on the one hand, and the arson-for-profit schemes of organized crime, professional arsonists, shady landlords, and corrupt public officials. I develop a sociology of arson, in the process analyzing several kinds of arson and describing specific bank investment practices and insurance industry underwriting policies which directly contribute to the problem. I conclude by assessing proposed new remedies for arson in the light of the conflicting interests of corporate institutions, on the one hand, and tenants and homeowners on the other. We are accustomed to think of fires, like automobile crashes, as tragic accidents caused by carelessness or bad luck. While it is recognized that some blazes are deliberately set, the public has long been assured by fire officials, psychiatrists, and criminologists that such fires are the isolated acts of pathological pyromaniacs or juvenile vandals and pose no serious threat to cities guarded by modern fire-fighting companies. Unfortunately, the dramatic upsurge of arson fires in the United States since 1960 has made a shambles of these assurances. Arson now outstrips all other index crimes in terms of injuries, deaths, and property losses, forcing us to re