Sick of human relations”…The “impulse” that drove a 31-year-old childcare worker to commit the crime of setting fire to the daycare center where she worked.

An orange glow came from the second floor of the daycare center.

On the morning of October 21, one woman appeared accompanied by a police officer from the Soka Police Station of the Saitama Prefectural Police. Her long hair, which had turned slightly brown at the ends, was tied back in a single bun, and her plump face looked kindly. Why did she set fire to the day-care center where she worked?

On October 19, the Saitama Prefectural Police’s Yoshikawa Police Station arrested a nursery school teacher, Sayaka Imanari, 31, for attempting to set fire to the nursery school where she worked, on suspicion of breaking into a building and attempted arson of a noncurrently inhabited building. The suspect Imanari broke into Yutaka Nursery School in Matsubushi-cho, Saitama Prefecture, where she works, at around 10:20 to 10:25 p.m. on the 18th, and tried to set it on fire.

When the fire department arrived, they found that the staff room on the first floor and part of the carpet in the library on the second floor had been burned. The main entrance was unlocked, and based on security camera footage, police identified the suspicious woman who left the scene as the suspect Imanari and arrested her. The crime is believed to be a premeditated one, as the time of the crime was only about 5 minutes.

The arrested suspect, Imanari, had worked at the daycare center for 10 years. He stated that he was ‘fed up with the relationships between people,’ and he has admitted to the charges. The police are also investigating a problem between staff members.

The suspect Imanari stated that the reason for the crime was that he was tired of “human relations. There have been many arson cases in which the perpetrator committed the crime “because he felt stressed. Most recently, in July, an employee of a neighboring company set fire to a company that manages public road carts popular among foreign tourists in Koto-ku, Tokyo, claiming that he was stressed by the loud noise of the carts’ engines.

In the same month, a man with no fixed address set fire to newspapers and other objects under the elevated tracks of the Tokyo Monorail in Ota-ku, Tokyo, claiming that he did it to relieve stress because his personal life was not going well. We asked Masashi Usui, professor of social psychology at Niigata Seiryo University Graduate School, about the relationship between stress and arson.

What is the “psychology” of people who set fires due to stress?

There are various motives for arson, but one of them is the exhilaration that people feel when they see a fire burning. If this becomes a habit, a diagnostic name such as “arsonism” or “arsonism” may be given to the person.

I think many people can relate to the fact that breaking things relieves stress. For example, there are people who kick a store sign out of spite. Arson can be one such vandalism as well.

However, it takes a lot of courage and strength to kick away the signboard of a store that is open for business. In this respect, arson can be done secretly by one person. A weak person sets fire when he or she wants to destroy things or annoy others. While it is easy to do, arson, which reduces everything to ashes, is the most thorough form of vandalism,” Usui said.

Since the suspect in this case set fire to his own workplace, he could have a motive of revenge against the workplace or its organization.

The suspect may be expressing, ‘I’m so angry, I’m so hurt, please understand me. But the consequences of arson are far greater than breaking a billboard, and it is a very serious crime, just like murder, so no matter what kind of grudge you hold, you should never do it. Normally, we suppress it with our reason, but it happens as a result of being unable to suppress it.

If you really wanted to kill indiscriminately, you would go out in the daytime, pour gasoline on the ground, and set it on fire. There are cases in which people do not have that kind of feelings, but they set fires to relieve their anger, despair, grief, or the desire to have their uncontrollable trauma understood,” he said.

What kind of “human relationships” tormented the suspect Imanari? Nevertheless, there should be no such thing as arson at a day-care center that may involve unrelated children.

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