Bushfires: jail time hasn’t stopped arsonists

Experts warn harsher sentences for deliberately starting bushfires has not deterred arsonists.

The jail time being doled out to NSW’s worst arsonists for deliberately starting and spreading fires has more than doubled over the past two years but experts warn that harsher penalties are doing little to extinguish the problem.

Of the 21 people in NSW convict­ed of crimes relating to settin­g bushfires last year, three were sentenced­ to prison, while the remainde­r were given community service orders or fined.

Two of the 11 sentenced for the most serious of those crimes, intentional­ly causing fire and being reckless as to its spread, were sentenced to an average prison sentence of 35 months.

That was more than double the average penalty of 12 months given out to serious firebugs convicted for the same offences in 2018 and more than four times that given out in 2017. The maximum sentence for lighting a bushfire in NSW is 21 years.

Melbourne University associate professor Janet Stanley said the threat of lengthy jail terms was not enough to deter would-be arsonists. “If you want to talk about stopping them doing it in the future, time in prison is not a known deterrent,’’ she said.

“It would be a different situation if while they were in jail some rehabilitation were done. They need to be offered opportunities to change their trajectory.”

She said putting firesetters in jail would only make the problem worse, given that most were young people. “It’s associated with povert­y and in the case of arsonists it’s associated with a history of child abuse and neglect and an impoverish­ed upbringing.

“Youth unemployment is high. Putting them in jail isn’t going to change their circumstances. It might make them more angry.”

Ms Stanley said the focus needed to be on understanding how these fires could be prevented in the first place: “We need to give a lot more attention on understanding how we can prevent these fires being lit. This, alongside the lack of attention on climate change, has meant fires burn a lot faster and become much more dangerous.”

Nationally, more than 200 ­people have been charged with ­deliberately lighting bushfires in the past year. In NSW alone, authorities have taken action against 183 people since November 9 last year, with 24 charged for deliberately starting bushfires, and other­s charged for offences such as flicking lit cigarettes out of cars or not obeying fire bans.

NSW Bureau of Crime Statis­tics and Research data revealed a further 50 people were charged with lighting bushfires in the ­period January-September 2019.

Between October 2018 and 2019, 1176 bushfires were deliberately lit in NSW, down from 1537 in 2017-2018. Victoria recorded 43 deliberately lit bushfires last year, with 16 people charged; while, in Queensland, 109 people have been dealt with by police for recklessly and deliberately setting fires in the past 12 months. Of the 1068 fires in Queensland since September 10, 114 are suspected to have been deliberately­ lit.

The Western Australia Police Force said it had charged 12 people between November 25 and Wednesday with lighting fires. Five were minors. Four people were charged in Tasmania last year and two charged this year. In 2018-19’s fire season, South Australia recorde­d 63 deliberately lit fires.