Arson Measurement Analysis and Prevention: A User's Guide to the Machine-Readable Files and Documentation and Original Codebook

• NCJ Number: 146217
• Author(s): J A Fox
• Date Published: 1992
• Length: 30 pages
• Grant Number(s): 86-IJ-CX-0071
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored

Annotation

Arson data were collected to test a model of socioeconomic and demographic determinants of the crime of arson, based on records maintained by the Massachusetts Fire Incident Reporting System and population and housing data from the 1980 Census of Massachusetts.

Abstract

Arson incidence data covered the 3-year period between 1983 and 1995 and were organized into three files: Massachusetts statewide file (592 cases); Massachusetts nine-city urban census tract file (389 cases), and Boston census tract file (161 cases). Data were aggregated to the census tract level in city files and to the zip code level in the State file. Each file was identically structured and included 135 variables, about one- third of which were drawn from arson incident reports and the rest from the Census. The 3-year files contained a total of 60,450 residential and vehicular arson incident reports. Although data resulting from the analysis are tabulated separately, a data completeness report and a codebook are included. 1 reference and 12 tables