Computerized Data Showing Results In New Haven Battle Against Arson
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Photo by New Haven Fire Dept. Arson Squad
AMERICA’S MALIGNANT CRIME
Can arson-for-profit in deteriorating neighborhoods of cities be reduced?
Chief Francis J. Sweeney of the New Haven, Conn., Fire Department says his department’s computerized fire incidence data bank already is showing results and when the next step—an early-warning data bank—is completed, buildings that are becoming ripe for arson will be spotted by the computer.
The computer program, however, is but the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface of this marvel of the electronic age lies an enormous amount of preparatory and supportive work that makes the computerized data bank effective. Fire fighters had to be formally exposed to the arson problem and trained to recognize arson and how to react to it. The company incident report form had to be revised and company officers had to be trained in filling it out so that the data provided would be the data desired.
The basic alarm data collection sheet had to be developed to gather the desired information as it went from the communications bureau to the fire marshal’s office. Fireground tactics had to be altered to protect evidence at the scene of a suspicious fire. An arson squad consisting of both police detectives and fire department investigators had to be organized. And perhaps most important of all, the increase of arson and public awareness had to reach the height it did for the city government to make an all-out commitment to resolving the arson problem in New Haven.
Increase in arson
In three years, the number of arson fires in New Haven increased 400 percent—from 39 in 1973 to 159 in 1976. In the same period, there was only a 15 percent increase in fire alarms. Furthermore, it was estimated that 30 percent of all building fires in the city were of suspicious origin.
In his report on a grand jury investigation of arson fires in New Haven in 1974, Superior Court Judge Irving Levine noted that the buildings that were targets for arson were mostly “located in the poorer sections of New Haven and were multiple dwellings commonly known as tenements … It would be difficult to sell any of these premises on the open market since to expect the purchasers to carry the mortgage payments, real property taxes, insurance, heating costs, maintenance and repairs was almost impossible, considering the rental income which they could produce. To a large extent, whatever rents were received were the result of welfare payments by the city to the tenants…”
These buildings had a history of building and housing code violations, property tax arrearages, high or increasing vacancy rates, and tenants with limited or declining incomes.
In a proposal for further development of the anti-arson program, the New Haven Fire Department and the Mayor’s Office of Policy Analysis declared that “the single, overwhelming type of arson which characterizes central cities such as New Haven is the arsonfor-profit targeted to housing in deteriorating neighborhoods.” The proposal referred to arson as “one of two alternative ‘last stops’ for deteriorating structures and declining neighborhoods—fire or abandonment.”
Task force appointed
The fire department had been aware of the increasing arson problem for some time, but it took the report of the grand jury investigation to create the public awareness needed to get the resources to launch an all-out attack on the problem. Mayor Frank Logue appointed an arson task force composed of representatives of the mayor’s office, the fire and police departments, and a consulting firm, Abt Associates, which provided technical assistance.
The arson task force made two recommendations: create a police/fire arson squad and develop a data system for the analysis of arson-related information.
The arson squad was formed with two fire department investigators out of the fire marshal’s office and two police detectives. Last month, a third fire department investigator was added to the squad. The two detectives go directly to fire headquarters to report for duty and each detective is paired with a fire investigator to form two two-man arson investigating teams. The two teams work from 8 a.m. to4 p.m. and alternate on standby status at other hours.
Beside training in criminal investigation and interrogation, a less recognized capability that police officers bring to an arson squad is the access they have to information from other police departments in the way fire fighters have it with other fire departments.
Conviction obtained
In June, the fire department gained a victory in its battle against arson with the conviction of a restaurant owner on a charge of arson in the first degree in New Haven County Superior Court after a six-week trial. Eleven fire fighters and two civilians were injured at this three-alarm fire at 1140 Chapel Street in New Haven and the injuries underline the tragic truth that arson is not a crime just against property, but also against people.
The conviction was especially satisfying to the New Haven Fire Department because it resulted from the first investigation of a major fire by the arson squad and Inspector John Rourke was qualified by the court as an expert witness. Evidence at the trial showed that the restaurant owner used gasoline and let fumes build up in the kitchen so that the resultant explosion would appear to be a natural gas explosion. The toughest job the arson squad faced was to eliminate natural gas as the cause of the explosion, which it did with assistance from the local gas company.
The decision to establish a fire incidence data bank was a major step in both documenting arson trends throughout the city and, most importantly, providing the arson squad with instant information about building fires and the people involved in arson investigations. By using a terminal in the fire marshal’s office in the New Haven Fire Department Headquarters, an investigator can ask the computer for a cathode tube display of a record of all fire department responses on a specific street or to a specific building. Another inquiry can retrieve information about a specific fire, which will include not only the company report type of information, but also the names of everyone associated with the investigation.
Name file
Perhaps the most interesting item in the arson information system capability is the name inquiry. By punching out a surname on the terminal keyboard, the display tube shows every such name contained in the data bank along with the first name or initials, the alarm number with which each name is associated, and the connection of each name with each fire. Not only can this save hours of pouring through fire and police reports, but it also immediately shows when one person has been connected with a number of fires.
Chief Sweeney assigned Battalion Chief John Reardon and Lieutenant Martin O’Connor to work with Paul Loethen, computer programmer for the city controller’s office, where the IBM 370 computer is located. O’Connor borrowed from police practices to set up a code for the name data bank. There are 16 specific categories plus an “other” category for names. In addition to the expected owner, occupant and casualty categories, the computer can identify mortgage and lien holders, policemen and fire fighters involved in the investigation, public adjusters, arrestees, real estate brokers, fire discoverers, and non-criminal fire setters.
To provide other information for the computer, company reports were changed and the fire department is going over to full use of the NFPA 901 reporting system. One of the additions to the company report form that is of particular value to the fire investigator is whether doors and windows were locked or open. The portion of the new data collection form which the fire marshal’s office fills out includes spaces to note arson indicators, arson equipment, ignition factor, area of origin, form and type of material involved and smoke and flame travel. The basic data collection form starts in the communications bureau, which assigns an alarm number and supplies basic alarm information.
In making the changes in the reporting system, Reardon explained that quality control was established in the fire marshal’s office, which has responsibility for supplying the data for the computer.
To ensure quality reporting of data by company officers, Reardon continued, two officers in each fire department division were trained in the reporting system and they in turn trained the other officers in their divisions. This arrangement placed at least one of the two first-trained officers on duty at all times so these officers could answer any questions that occurred to company officers as they filled out their reports.
Another program designed to make the fight on arson more effective was an arson course conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice that was aimed at both line fire officers and policemen. The course was given four times in New Haven and was attended by 236 persons. In addition, the entire course was videotaped by fire department personnel so that it becomes another training resource. The three-day course was funded by an $18,000 federal grant. Arnold Markel, New Haven County prosecutor, was so interested in the course that he spoke at all four sessions.
Tactics modified
As a result of training directed at the arson problem, fire fighting tactics have been modified in New Haven.
“The old idea was to overhaul and salvage,” Reardon commented. “Now it’s overhaul and preserve evidence.”
“At a suspicious fire,” Sweeney added, “the area is barricaded to preserve evidence.”
Although the fire marshal reports to all second alarms, the first-alarm battalion chief has the authority to call the arson squad, which has its own van.
With the fire reports into the data bank, printouts can be obtained for a variety of purposes. For example, the computer can provide a monthly report of all vacant building, major and multiple-alarm fires. Each fire is identified by street address, date, time, alarm number and census tract. The estimated property loss and the alarm level—still, box or multiple—are also listed.
Looking at one such monthly readout, it was quickly seen that one building was becoming a problem with four still alarms. Another building reflected the fire history of deteriorating buildings with a $200 fire followed two days later by a $20,000 blaze. Three addresses in this monthly report accounted for nine of the 21 responses for vacant building, major and multiple-alarm fires, and all such responses were in nine of the 28 census tracts in New Haven.
Response data
Another printout gives response data by census tract and still another by each hour of the day. Both reports have columns headed fire alarms, structure fires, vacant building fires, structure fires with loss, fire loss, non-fire emergency, EMS, and cardiac cases. The census tract report also lists civilian injuries and deaths while the hourly report lists mobile and structural suspicious fires. These printouts showed that in one month, 15 of the 29 structural fires were in vacant buildings.
Two other fire report printouts share the same column headings. One is for fixed property and the other for mobile property. The column headings for both reports are total fires, fire loss, incendiary, suspicious, misuse of heat, misuse of material, mechanical failure, design/construction/installation deficiency, operational deficiency, natural condition and other.
The fixed property report divides the properties into nine major categories: public assembly, educational, institutional, residential, store/office, basic industry/utility/defense, manufacturing, storage, and special properties. Each major category has a number of more definitive subdivisions in accordance with NFPA 901, “Uniform Code for Fire Protection.” A quick glance at one of these monthly reports showed that one and two-family dwellings accounted for nearly half the fire loss—47 percent a quick calculation showed.
The mobile property report has categories for passenger road transport vehicles, freight road transport vehicles, rail transport vehicles, water transport vehicles, air transport vehicles, heavy equipment, special vehicle containers, and other mobile property type.
Ignition factor
The nine ignition factors—incendiary, suspicious, misuse of heat of ignition, misuse of material ignited, mechanical failure/malfunction, design/ construction/installation deficiency, operational deficiency and natural condition (such as lightning or flooding)—can be called out of the data bank for another report. Again, each ignition factor has a number of subdivisions. In this case, the column headings are fires this period, loss this period, fires this year to date and loss this year to date.
The data hank also supplies a monthly printout of totals for fire incidents—with figures for structure fires, electrical fires, vehicle fires, brush and grass fires, refuse and Dumpster, and other fires—multiple alarms, false alarms, non-fire emergency respones, and emergency medical responses with separate figures for cardiac cases and other EMS responses. Also in this printout are the number of deaths and injuries for civilians and fire fighters. The damage summary gives the total fire loss in dollars and the percent of fires with damage in excess of $10,000.
In each category, the totals are reported for the month of the report, the year to the date of the report and the previous year to date. Thus, a comparison can be made with the previous year to spot developing trends in the total fire problem and the EMS responses.
Warning system grant
Only last month, Factory Mutual System awarded a $10,000 grant to New Haven to help pay for a full-time research analyst for six months who will integrate arson indicators into the computerized arson warning and prevention system. When the indicator system is computerized, New Haven will have a data bank that will be able to warn when a building is becoming ripe for arson as well as to show where arson has occurred and who the owners of the building are.
The data is on record right now—-not only in New Haven, but in other cities throughout the nation. However, the data is not presently retrievable without an inordinate amount of work because it is buried in the records of a number of municipal and private agencies.
The sources and the types of arson indicators were identified by Abt Associates in a report to the New Haven Arson Task Force as follows:
The Department of Housing Conservation and Code Enforcement has records of increasing building disrepair and maintenance problems and complaints.
The Building Department has records of building inspections, code violations and demolition orders.
—New Haven Fire Dept. Arson Squad photo.
The Tax Collector’s Office has listings of persistent, increasing or sudden tax arrears.
Health code violations
The Department of Health can provide evidence of persistent, increasing or sudden reports of health code violations.
The Tax Assessor’s Office has the assessments for all properties and the taxes levied.
The Police Department has records of vandalism.
The Fire Department has fire incidence information, which in New Haven is now computerized.
The Commercial Record contains information about property sales, which includes the names of purchasers, and from these names, owners of buildings that have had suspicious fires can be identified.
Insurance companies have information about the amount of insurance on properties and particularly increases in the amount of insurance carried on certain buildings.
The mortgage holders have information on delinquencies and increased leveraging as well as the size of the original mortgage and the balance due.
Trigger variable
Obviously, it is neither cost-effective nor desirable to put extensive information into the data bank for every building in New Haven. Therefore, it is the intent to have the collection of data for a specific building triggered by a key variable. A study of the 18 burned buildings that were the subject of the grand jury arson investigation indicated that a vandalism complaint accompanied by housing code violations that remained unabated after 30 days—or a violation characterized as an emergency—could be an effective trigger variable for putting a property into the early warning data bank.
In addition, a suspicious building fire would become an independent, emergency trigger. The experience of the arson squad shows that before setting a fire that causes major property damage, an arsonist frequently makes one or more unsuccessful small-scale attempts to burn the building.
The New Haven Fire Department and the Mayor’s Office of Policy Analysis have stated that the predictive power of the trigger variable selected will have to be evaluated once the data bank is in operation. The two agencies said that once the predictive data bank is in operation, the ability of the trigger factor to identify arson prospects will determine whether the trigger will have to be “augmented or altered to more effectively identify potential arson victims.”
The fire department will be responsible for collecting and processing data for the early warning system, as it is now responsible for the fire incident data system. The same terminal in the fire marshal’s office that is used for fire incident data will be used to retrieve early warning system data.
Task force expansion
Plans call for the expansion of the arson task force to include representatives from banks, savings and loan associations and insurance providers. As the predictive capabilities of the data system are developed, the task force members will receive briefings at least monthly on early-warning information on properties that appear to be likely targe’ts for arsonists. The members of the task force will then be able to take specific actions.
For example, lenders and insurance providers may decide to notify certain owners that their arson-prone properties are being closely watched and requests for increased mortgage money or insurance will be carefully reviewed. Another step could be to notify owners of high-risk properties that fire damage claims will not be paid without a full investigation.
Is the arson prevention system working?
Sweeney declared, “We got two confessions that we never would have before, and we’re getting dispositions on cases that were hanging for a long time.”
Records show that fire losses are down about half a million dollars in the first six months of this year, and the belief is that a drop in fires for profit is indicated by the fire loss record.
