Child firebugs 'often become adult crims'

Children who like setting fires are more likely to go on to commit serious crimes as adults, a study has found.

Up to 200 young people identified as having worrying fire-related behaviours - and who subsequently went through a special education programme for fire setters - were looked at for the study.

Carried out by the Fire Service over 10 years, the study showed that 2 per cent of the group went on to commit arsons in the years after being a part of the programme in 1999.

Just over half of the group - 55 per cent - went on to commit other crimes which included serious assaults, intimidation threats, disorder, drugs offences, burglary and the more serious crimes including sexual attacks.

Clinical psychologist and lead researcher Dr Ian Lambie said the study made it clear that many fire setters were at high risk of committing crimes in the future.

"It might be that some young people also grow out of fire setting and replace it with another criminal behaviour - or it could be a combination of the two," Dr Lambie said. "We need to do more research to find out."

Hundreds of youngsters go through the programme - called the Fire Awareness and Intervention Programme (FAIP) - each year because they have been identified by parents or agencies as showing worrying fire-related behaviour.

Young people, under the age of 21, are responsible for more than half of arsons in the country each year, the Fire Service says.

Dr Lambie said the study - which is the first of its kind to be conducted in the Southern Hemisphere - showed that of the 200 youngsters, nearly all of them came from dysfunctional families and had serious anti-social behaviour.

Therefore, he said, it was vital that there be a multi-agency, collaborative approach in place to help young people in this situation.

The Fire Service's manager of the fire awareness and intervention programme, Peter Wilding, said educating young fire setters was largely having a positive effect and helping them overcome their fire-lighting behaviour.

But he acknowledged that he was concerned at the high number of other criminal activity which popped up in later years, indicated in the study.

"It would be useful to examine whether it would be viable to expand the programme to address other anti-social behaviours," Mr Wilding said.