A portrait of the juvenile arsonist.

In this study we evaluated if juvenile arsonists (n = 34) differ from juvenile criminals of violence (n = 33) in regard to suicide and mental problems in forensic psychiatric examination. Both arsonists and violent offenders were mostly male, poorly educated, unskilled and unemployed at the times of committing their crimes; and 79% of the arsonists and 58% of the control group had used public health services for treatment of their mental symptoms before the crime. This difference was significant (p = 0.05). Suicide was more common among the arsonists than the control subjects (p = 0.02); 74% of the arsonists had suicidal thoughts and 44% had tried to commit suicide before setting a fire. In the forensic psychiatric examination the arsonists were more often relieved from responsibility than the comparison group (p = 0.02).