Association for Behavior Analysis International

Crime and criminal behavior is a pervasive problem apparent across nearly all societies. These criminal behaviors exist on a broad continuum ranging from relatively benign behaviors such as jaywalking to more extreme and damaging behaviors such as murder. Just as there is a range of criminal behavior, there also exist a variety of approaches to explaining and understanding the causes of criminal behavior. This symposium will extend behavior analysis into the realm of criminal behavior by focusing on two extreme criminal behaviors as well as explaining common approaches to understanding these behaviors. In the first talk, Meindl and Ivy discuss mass killings and describe how the behavior may be partially environmentally controlled through media reporting. In the second talk, Templin will analyze domestic violence and intervention through the lens of behavior analysis. In the final talk, Niazi and Dracobly will illustrate how the current approaches to criminal profiling differ from explanations offered through behavior analysis.

Board Certified Behavior Analysts, graduate level students, faculty

To expand the field of behavior analysis, and out of concern for the public good, we seek out significant social and legal issues. In a 1995 article by David L. Myers, an age-old phenomenon is compared to other types of problem behavior, including potential functions and environmental contingencies. Myers (1995) reviewed how battering can be described within three term contingencies (antecedent, behavior and consequences). Ways that escape, punishment and positive reinforcement play a role. The common interventions to reduce domestic violence and how these can be more effective using behavior analysis. How direct observation can be a methodological barrier for behavior analysts, and some innovative ways it has been overcome. How the issue of domestic violence is an excellent candidate for study within the field of behavior analysis. A 2005 article by Bell and Naugle on why a victim of domestic violence would stay or leave their situation provides information on victim behavior. A reading from the 2014 essay provides details on life in a domestic violence shelter. The concepts of reinforcement, punishment, extinction, behavioral economics and delay discounting are seen in the light of this serious social problem.

Using method analysis and a case study, we compare the criminal profiling approach and the science of behavior in understanding criminal behavior. Criminal profilers emphasize classification (e.g., Crime Classification Manual) via internal psychological constructs (Devery, 2010). Behavior analysts emphasize an organism’s genetic endowment, current environment, history of reinforcement and punishment, and culture (e.g., Skinner, 1969). First, we will compare the two approaches, focusing on history, unique explanatory systems, and peer-reviewed support. Second, we elucidate these difference with a case study of murder. For instance, in a murder with sexual assault, a profiler may hypothesize the murder was based on a desire for power and lust. Therefore, there may be something inherently wrong with the offender’s personality because they inflict physical pain for sexual pleasure. A behavior analyst would look for specific, observable environmental and physiological variables. The murder may have been, in part, schedule induced, as either a side-effect of extinction (e.g., Lerman & Iwata, 1996 ) or (a response to some form of aversive stimulation (e.g., Azrin, Hutchinson, & McLaughlin, 1965). For example, deprivation of a tangible item (e.g., money) or certain physiological sensations (e.g., physical pleasure from sex) may have contributed.