The Source for Crime and Justice Data

Description & Citation--Study No. 9972

Bibliographic Description

Study No.:

09972

Title:

Arson Measurement, Analysis, and Prevention in Massachusetts, 1983-1985

Principal Investigator(s):

Fox, James Alan

Funding:

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (86-IJ-CX-0071)

Bibliographic Citation:

Fox, James Alan. Arson Measurement, Analysis, and Prevention in Massachusetts, 1983-1985. ICPSR09972-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1998. doi:10.3886/ICPSR09972.v2

Scope of Study

Summary:

These data were gathered to test a model of the socioeconomic and demographic determinants of the crime of arson. Datasets for this analysis were developed by the principal investigator from records of the Massachusetts Fire Incident Reporting System and from population and housing data from the 1980 Census of Massachusetts. The three identically-structured data files include variables such as population size, fire incident reports, employment, income, family structure, housing type, housing quality, housing occupancy, housing availability, race, and age.

Subject Terms:

arson, causes of crime, crime prevention, family size, housing, population size, property crimes

Geographic Coverage:

Massachusetts, United States

Time Period:
  • 1983--1985

Universe:

Arson incidents in metropolitan areas in the United States.

Data Types:

aggregate data, census/enumeration data, survey data

Data Collection Notes:

Data are aggregated to the census-tract level in the city files, Parts 2 and 3, and to the ZIP code level in Part 1, the state file.

Methodology

Sample:

All residential and vehicular arson incident reports in Massachusetts for the years 1983-1985.

Data Source:

residential and vehicular arson incident reports from the Massachusetts Fire Incident Reporting System, and population and housing data from the 1980 Census of Massachusetts

Access and Availability

Note:

Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.

Original ICPSR Release:

1993-10-02

Version History:

  • 2006-03-30 File CB9972.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

  • 2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions.

  • 1998-10-05 The card image data were converted to logical record length format, and SAS and SPSS data definition statements have been added to this collection. Also, the codebook has been converted to a PDF file.

Dataset(s):
  • DS1: Massachusetts ZIP Code Data
  • DS2: Massachusetts Urban Census Tract Data
  • DS3: Boston Census Tract Data