Unlock the secrets of the criminal mind with behavior scientist Presley Wanner, as we navigate the intriguing intersection of behavior analysis and forensic investigation. Imagine peering through the eyes of a behavior analyst at the crime scenes frequented by law enforcement professionals; we do just that, offering a fresh and compelling perspective that could redefine criminal profiling. Join me on a journey into the darkest corners of human actions, where we dissect the fabric of criminal behavior, from the infamous deeds of Jeffrey Dahmer to the principles that govern everyday transgressions.
We also wrap up with a critical discussion on the future of law enforcement and community safety, where positive reinforcement triumphs over punishment, and training transforms into meaningful, lasting change. We share inspiring success stories from schools to streets, highlighting the transformative power of behavior analysis in creating safer, more compassionate communities. This episode is more than an educational exploration; it's a rallying cry for a reimagined approach to behavior in our justice system and beyond, laying the groundwork for a society that's both safer and inherently more understanding of the human condition.
Pick up a copy of the #1 bestseller: Adaptive Intelligence: The Evolution of Emotional Intelligence Through the Proven Power of Behavior Science
The Behavioral Toolbox equips those charged with supporting behavior change in schools with practical applications of the science of human behavior for making a positive difference in the workplace. In this case, the classroom and school!
Be sure to subscribe to Dr. Paulie's Heart & Science YouTube channel for a variety of content related to behavior science and bringing out the best in yourself and others.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Thoughts and Rants of a Behavior
Scientist show hosted by WallStreet Journal and USA Today
bestselling author Dr Pauly.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome back to the Thoughts and Rants of a Behavior
Scientist podcast.
I'm your host, Dr Pauly, andI'm here with Presley Wanner.
How are you doing, Presley?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good.
How are you doing Presley?
Good how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm good, and I came across a social media post and
it was about using behavioranalysis in forensics and it was
about I think it was called abehavior correct me if I'm wrong
but a behavior analysis ofJeffrey Dahmer or something
along those lines.
Yeah, a behavior analyticconceptualization of Jeffrey
(00:58):
Dahmer behavior analysis unit,but I don't think it's like real
behavior analysis and I'mhoping that maybe that they can,
you know, learn from somebodylike you and adopt it because
you have a background.
I went back and I looked atyour education.
You just didn't come intobehavior analysis.
You have a background inforensics.
I mean, you have a few degreesthat are directly aligned with
(01:20):
those.
I'm clicking on the wrong thinghere.
Yeah, crime analysis from PennWest, california, that you got a
degree in applied behavioranalysis, sociology, forensic
psychology from University ofNorth Dakota, so it's very cool.
So you have all this stuff andthen you got ABA and I'm just
very interested to see how thosetwo merge.
(01:42):
So thanks for coming on thepodcast with me.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
you, I was really excited to get your message yeah
, yeah, it's cool man, and so,um, let's first start with are
you familiar with the?
I don't watch much tv.
I watch movies and I watch newsand sports, you know, but there
is a tv show out there rightthat has this like a crime unit
and behavior analysis there's afew, yeah and am I correct in
(02:05):
saying that it's not realbehavior analysis as we know it
so it's I.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I'm thinking, are you referring to, like the fbi, bau
behavior analysis unit?
Maybe we'll go with that one sothe fbi has a bau behavior
analysis unit out in quantico.
Um, that's like so mind hunter,if you've seen that show that
(02:32):
sounds like where it came from.
Yeah, yeah, those are the guysat the bau.
Um, they are law enforcement,not directly psych or behavior
analysis.
Um, you have to be an FBIspecial agent to build up and
get into the BAU, which I wasbummed about when I found out
(02:54):
because that was my goal.
But yeah, it's more lawenforcement, criminal profiling,
than true behavior analysis.
But it's very close and wecould definitely work together.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, I found that like, for example, in sports
right, sports there's a lot ofmetrics out there and you know,
but it's not.
I know that when I've gone intoI work in sports and MMA and
boxing I'm seeing how they'reusing the metrics and they're
doing a lot of great things.
But as behavior analysts, wecan take that nuance thing.
We can find that really pivotalthing that we need to look at
(03:33):
and help to make a difference,because sometimes they're just
missing that angle of it andgosh.
Well, hopefully, maybe we dothis podcast you can send to the
folks, because people don'tknow what they don't know and I
would think I mean this is thegreatest you know science in the
world for making a difference,and so they're not aware of it
or they think they are and theyprobably maybe they got 80% of
(03:55):
it.
You know what I mean, butthere's that 20% that would make
the hugest difference If youwould, if you characterize, and
because I want to find out allabout this.
Right, let's start with whatthe standard people that aren't
actually trained in appliedbehavior analysis.
What are they missing ingeneral?
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So I think that, because typically with criminal
profiling, you know they stilllook at patterns of behavior.
You know they still, they'restill very aware that a past
history of violence is the bestpredictor for future violence.
But I think they're reallymissing the meat of what we do
(04:38):
the antecedents, theconsequences, what reinforces
this behavior?
How can we put this behavior onextinction by removing that
reinforcer?
How can we teach replacementbehaviors that match the
function?
They don't look at any of that.
They look at criminal records,support history, education
(05:01):
history, things like that, andbuild a picture.
So I feel like behavioranalysis and that viewpoint of
it, we look very specifically atthe crime itself instead of at
the overall pattern.
We still see those overallpatterns because that's what we
(05:22):
do, but we look specifically atthese behavioral instances and
say what is happening here, whatare the antecedents that lead
to this behavior, what are theconsequences that maintain this
behavior?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Okay, so would you be able to, if we could juxtapose
it to or contrast it to, if wehad a non-behavioral analyst
who's an FBA and they're doinglots of good things, right?
Just maybe a short like snippet, like here's how they would
look at this one situation Maybeit's a crime scene or something
like that, or whatever you feelmost comfortable with
explaining and then, as abehavior analyst, how you would
(06:00):
look at it differently than theydid.
Like concrete example.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Okay, let's see here.
So let's say we have a homicide, okay, Body is found and
investigation begins.
Those law enforcementindividuals are going to do
things like canvassing theneighborhood right Looking for
witnesses, asking questions.
They're maybe going to, once weget further down the
(06:29):
investigation, maybe they'regoing to build a criminal
profile based on the FBI'sprofiling system.
They're probably going to dogeographical profiling.
We know that-.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Which means what, Just for anybody listening and
I'm not quite sure I know whatthat means.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, so geographical profiling.
Typically, crimes are committedin the general vicinity of the
perpetrator.
It's going to be an area thatthe perpetrator frequents in
some way shape or form.
So, like triangulation, we'regoing to center where this body
(07:08):
was found and go out a certainradius and look inside that
radius.
So those are the type ofstrategies that law enforcement
is going to use.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
And those are good strategies, we're not saying
those are good strategies.
Absolutely Right Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yes, they are effective Behavior analytic
conceptualization.
We are going to look at thecrime itself and it'll be more
of we could call it profiling ofthe perpetrator.
We're going to determine, well,try to determine.
(07:49):
In what setting right Does thisoccur?
What are the potentialantecedents?
What is the function of thisbehavior, aka motive right.
What is the purpose?
Is this individual, was thisindividual murdered for life
insurance money?
Right, tangible?
(08:10):
That's our function.
Were they murdered?
Was it a power situation?
Right, and then we can identifythe consequences as well.
So what are they gaining fromthis?
Are they reinforced by themoney they receive, the feeling
of power?
What's the reinforcer?
(08:31):
And we can go from there.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Well, I mean, that sounds like the things that
they're doing already, though,isn't it?
I mean, they do look for themotive, they look for the why
behind it.
Um, how is that?
How is what you know, whatyou're saying, different from
what they they are actuallydoing?
Because I know that they alwayslook for a motive, that's like
somebody like me.
(08:56):
So how is it?
You know what it's.
It's I'm sure it's more nuancedthe approach that we're, that
you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah.
So it's difficult to give fromlike a present perspective,
because the conceptualizationsI've done were after the fact
right.
So typically with this type ofconceptualization that I did
(09:23):
with the Jeffrey Dahmerpresentation, we are looking
after the fact and we'redetermining what happened here.
How can we use this informationto move forward and prevent
perhaps?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You're kind of like gathering, like four-term
contingency You're looking at,you're getting all the boxes,
you're trying to fill up thosebuckets with as much data as you
have.
I'm guessing you know, becauseeven like you know you.
But you know you, what is themo here, what was happening a
while back?
Based on just whateverinformation you have, it goes in
that bucket and I'm justspeaking out loud so I can try
to figure it out.
(09:57):
Right, you know antecedents.
Uh, maybe it's not a directacting contingent, where I guess
it could be.
Uh, it's uh in this area at.
You know it's not a directacting contingent, or I guess it
could be.
It's in this area at.
You know it's.
You know 1130 pm.
You know this is a pattern ofit.
You know there's a certain typeof person around, right.
So all these are antecedentsthat are involved in it.
(10:21):
And again, I'm thinking thatthis is very similar to what's
going on in the behavioranalytic, the forensic, what
they have.
So I don't think it's differentthere.
I think it sounds like it'sjust conceptualizing it
behaviorally, right.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yes, Yep, precisely it's not.
There are no really hugedifferences, but how we
conceptualize it cops are notlooking at this as well.
What's the antecedent?
What's the establishingoperation right?
What are the setting events?
You know?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
the behavior.
You actually can't see thebehavior.
You have a prominent product,so you have to take that
information behavior and thenyou have to think about what are
the consequences of that,what's maintaining it, and so
that I guess that's.
There's a lot of speculationthat goes on there.
That's nowhere.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
And with forensics too, the behavior analysis of
forensics that is one of thebiggest things is that criminal
behavior is generally covert,right.
Most criminals are not just outthere broad daylight.
Hey, I'm going to go rob thisbank.
Everyone, come stop me.
It's covert, right.
(11:36):
So unless we have people whowere witnesses, right, we're
really relying on, just like yousaid, permanent product.
So there's some.
I mean, with law enforcementtoo, we're speculating right
into the perpetrator's state ofmind at the time, and us
(12:00):
behavior analysts we don't likementalism anyway, right, but so
we're looking at kind of a morenuanced view of it.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Okay, I mean, you know, just like when we normally
take the ABCs, we do it becausewe're hypothesizing a function.
Obviously, you can't do afunctional analysis in these
cases, exactly these cases.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yep, and one thing that I mentioned in my
presentation, too, is ABA.
We have our three levels ofcontrol, right, we have
description, prediction control.
Well, what this does is thefirst two.
Like you said, there's no thirdlevel, there's no experimental
control.
Here we're not doing afunctional analysis of crime,
we're not turning that on.
(12:43):
So all we're doing here we'redescribing, we're predicting.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Interesting.
Okay, now let's go ahead andmaybe we can shift on to just
discuss what you did withJeffrey Dahmer.
So help people to, like youknow, theorize it more.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, so with Jeffrey Dahmer.
I chose him because there'splenty of data.
Um, of course, I can't observethe behavior and take direct
data, but we have thank goodnessbooks I know we have books, we
have um recordings of jeffrey'sown discussion of his crimes um
(13:27):
one of my main sources wasjeffrey dahmer's dad's
autobiography speaking about hischildhood, all of that.
So we have a lot of sourcesthat we can use um some other
crimes not so much.
Right jack the ripper might bedifficult um.
(13:48):
So with jeffrey I I did justthat.
I discussed setting events um.
There are a lot of things thathappened in his life um, like
the, the incident with the bonesunder the house.
That was very formative forjeffrey um but what was it?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
also speak as if nobody knows about it, like okay
yeah so bones under the houseum.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
One day jeffrey's mom smelled something gross and
sent Lionel to check under theunder the house.
Lionel is Jeffrey's dad.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And, um, he found what was most likely a dead
raccoon, something of the sort.
He pulled it out and Jeffreywas kind of interested and, um,
he picked up the bones and Ithink Jeffrey was probably five
interested and he picked up thebones.
And I think Jeffrey wasprobably five, six, seven and he
picked up the bones and he saidthey're like fiddlesticks and
(14:54):
he was interested in the bonesand he wanted to play with them.
And Jeffrey or, I'm sorry,lionel, being a sweet, innocent,
loving, naive father, he saidthis is great, my kid has an
interest.
I can shape this, I can turnthis into.
Maybe he'll be a doctor one day, maybe he'll be a surgeon
(15:18):
Biologist, whatever right, yesanything.
He has an interest in anatomy.
This is good.
I want to reinforce this.
Unfortunately, it didn't go asplanned.
So that event in Jeffrey'schildhood was pretty formative
(15:38):
and he had unfortunate geneticpredispositions.
Had unfortunate geneticpredispositions um in my.
I teach abnormal psych at northdakota state university and one
of my favorite phrases isgenetics loads the gun,
environment pulls the trigger oh, I like that yeah so it sounds
(15:59):
it's very law enforcement ish itis.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I don't believe we won't use it in the.
You know, working in the, theautism areas or whatever, but
that yeah no, that's perfect yep, and so joyce jeffrey's mom.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
She had significant emotional disturbances, um,
likely borderline personalitydisorder.
She would consistently umoverdose.
And because jeffrey's fatherwas away at work, he was a um
doctorate level pharmacist, Ibelieve, and chemist, I'm sorry,
(16:37):
doctorate level chemist and sohe was away at work and poor
jeffrey, um he, and poor Jeffrey, he had to discover his
unconscious overdose mother onmore than one occasion.
So not only were there geneticpredispositions there, but also
environmental events findingyour unconscious, maybe dead,
(17:01):
mom, you know, not ideal forchildhood psychology.
So there was a lot of thesefactors, kind of this perfect
storm.
Lionel himself too and this isspeculation on my part, but
(17:22):
working in autism for some yearsand having an autism diagnosis
myself, I speculate that Lionelwas on the spectrum as well.
Some of his statements he makesin his book he states that he
did not know how to be a fatheror a son or a husband.
(17:46):
He had to do research on whatthese roles were supposed to be
and then acted accordingly.
So one thing with highfunctioning autism we see that
adherence to rule governedbehavior a lot of times and that
was depicted in Lionel'sautobiography.
So I do believe that Lionelhimself had some social issues,
(18:15):
as did Jeffrey, obviously, andrecords have shown too that his
parents attempted to seek somesort of behavioral treatment for
Jeffrey when he was youngWhether it was ABA specifically,
you know, in that time period,unsure but they did seek some
(18:38):
sort of behavioral treatment forJeffrey as a kid, for Jeffrey
as a kid.
So there's, like I said, there'sthis perfect storm of of um
(18:59):
preexisting factors.
So then we discussed this andthen I used a three-term
contingency for a bunch ofdifferent target behaviors that
he exhibited.
Um doing a dommer was one ofthem.
So when he was young he wouldengage in this um really
inappropriate attention-seekingbehavior at school.
Um, he would, you know, runthrough the halls making noises,
(19:22):
talking in weird voices, andJeffrey didn't have any friends
and people laughed andhigh-fived him when he did these
things.
So if we're analyzing thisright, we have our consequence
social positive reinforcement inthe form of attention,
(19:44):
sometimes tangible.
Some kids even paid him um todo certain pranks, things like
that.
There was one where hephotobombed um yearbook photos
and I believe some kids offeredhim money to do that.
So interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I wonder if, as part of that, became like almost like
desensitization to to uh, youknow, existing rules or
something I don't know yep, orcould have been, you know,
ignorance or disregard for themin the first place interesting.
All right, so so continue, thisis all right.
(20:25):
So I can see now, you know, seelike a little bit of nuance
there and how things are shapingup, like I can imagine law
enforcement as it, as it is, butlook at those things as well.
But we're just going a littlebit deeper to say what was
maintaining the behavior.
So it becomes more behavioranalytic.
They might just state like youknow, he had a history of
getting attention or doing somestuff earlier.
(20:46):
But then we say you know why,what was maintaining that
behavior?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
okay, exactly, yeah, okay.
So then, as we move on and welook as jeffrey grows up, so he
starts with these inappropriateattention-seeking behaviors in
school.
He also because he has nofriends.
This poor young man and you'dnever think anyone would say
(21:14):
that, right, poor Jeffrey, therewas.
He was an unfortunate victim ofclassical conditioning which
this might be one of my favoriteparts to analyze as young boys.
Right, you're age 9 to 13,.
(21:34):
Right, very important phase ina young boy's life puberty.
Yes.
So during puberty, right,physical changes happen
spontaneous erections, thingslike this.
This is how sexuality is formed.
However, in most individuals Idon't want to say normal in most
(21:58):
individuals these things, thesefeelings, these physical
changes are occurring in thepresence of same age peers,
right, and then we developattraction towards same age
peers.
Jeffrey was not exposed to sameage peers, he did not have many
friends.
So after school he comes home,he goes to his shed in the
(22:24):
backyard that is full of deadanimals.
So jeffrey here is experiencingall of these pubertal changes,
these spontaneous erections,these feelings of arousal in the
presence of dead animals, not,living humans we're classically
conditioning.
(22:44):
So as he is experiencing arousalin the presence of these
animals, exactly that's pairedand he talks about as he gets
older, that he is not able toachieve an erection, achieve any
sort of sexual satisfactionwith a living person.
(23:05):
So that was rooted in childhoodas well.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Oh, interesting, okay , All right.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
And then, as we go on , and he is so desperate for
this social positivereinforcement right, positive
reinforcement, right, um he.
We also throw another factorsetting event in there, of
jeffrey's sexuality.
(23:34):
Um, jeffrey was gay at thattime.
That was not okay, right, andhe was forced to hide it.
He did attempt to talk to hisdad about it multiple times and
his dad shut it down.
He didn't want to hear it.
So that behavior of talking wassufficiently punished enough to
(23:54):
where Jeffrey didn't talk aboutit anymore.
He didn't access reinforcement.
When he did so, he shut up, hequit.
So that led to holding all thisinside, which then led to the
shame and this guilt.
Um, and even he even tried I, Ido give him props because he
(24:15):
tried.
Um, there was the whole, thewhole thing with the mannequin.
Um, jeffrey unfortunately had,because of his abandonment in
his childhood and things likethat he unfortunately had severe
borderline personality disorderas well um, severe abandonment
issues oh and his whole thingwas that he just wanted someone
(24:41):
to be with him, to stay with him.
He did not necessarily want aperson, but he wanted their body
.
Um, he did before he, he, hemurdered.
Well, with the exception of umsteven hicks, who was his first
murder.
There was a nine-year breakthere, um, but in the interim he
(25:05):
had stolen a mannequin from adepartment store and he tried to
use that as a replacementbehavior, right?
Um, that did not work, that wasnot sufficient.
Um, it freaked his grandma outand she demanded he get rid of
it.
Um which, who knows that if hecould have kept that, would that
(25:29):
have been where that ended?
We don't know, um I knowingwhat we know about criminal
behavior and its escalation, um,I do think that eventually that
mannequin would have beeninsufficient and he would have
moved on anyway, but he triedand then, unfortunately, when
(25:52):
that was removed, he escalated.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Okay, all right, I'm seeing the picture, okay.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Okay, so let's see here as he moved out.
So, after he moved out of his,his grandmother's Jeffrey was
also an alcoholic um, whichcomplicates things as well.
So alcohol use was typically anantecedent for his umseeking
(26:30):
behavior.
Typically he would pick up hisvictims at gay nightclubs where
he was drinking.
He would buy them drinks.
That is how he would meet hisvictims.
He would then offer them moneyto take photos.
He said he was a photographer,he needed models, so he would
(26:51):
offer them money, bring themback to his house where he would
then drug them.
That was.
One of the other targetbehaviors I discussed was the
drugging behavior and how itallowed him access to an
unconscious body which isreinforcing that behavior.
(27:12):
Once he has that unconsciousbody and this is all a
behavioral chain too you cannotmurder someone without first
having that victim available toyou.
Correct, yeah, correct.
So we have this huge behavioralchain of, you know, the alcohol
use in the nightclub, to thenthe drugging behavior once he
(27:37):
gets them home, to then themurder of that individual, to
then necrophilia and the rape ofthat individual, to then
evisceration and thedismemberment of the individual
and then to finally cannibalismand eating that individual.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
so this is a huge, complex behavioral chain lord,
if we could have broken thatchain, that would have been nice
.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I know Yep, it really would have been, which is why
analysis of these things ishelpful, recognizing that this
is a behavioral chain and thatwe can break it somewhere.
We just have to know that first.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Yeah, you know what, as you're saying this, I'm
starting to form some thoughtsabout how this would be
applicable because, I mean,still, everything is still
hypothetical, but I guess overtime you get patterns If you
analyze.
Because this is all done, it'snot like we can change behavior,
right, because that's normallywhat we're trying to do right
(28:44):
now.
We can't change that person'sbehavior.
It's already occurred, occurred, the outcome has already
occurred.
Uh, at least you know, notsaying they can't be
rehabilitated, but but yes,let's just use this example and
if we start to see if we haveenough data over time,
especially if we have stuffwhere people stopped, um, where
they didn't go beyond right,maybe we start to see where the
(29:05):
chain, you know, where the,where the important link in the
chain needs to be removed, so tospeak, or, like you know, of
that, of that chain, what was?
You know where was the point ofno return, for example, what if
we pulled out that one in themiddle or whatever?
I don't know?
um, I, I can, I can see if wehad enough data yes you know,
(29:25):
and so you could probablysomebody like you could probably
go back and profile, take alook at a number of these
profiles and kind of sort thisdata and I imagine putting some
grand uh database to see whatkind of uh you know what, what
pops out, you know making somesort of things that aren't
(29:47):
salient right now become like oh, I see, there's a pattern here.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yes, exactly Like a meta analysis of all of this
data, looking at what, where,which which link in that chain
is is the weakest.
Where can we break this?
But, like you, you hadmentioned rehabilitation, that's
another application of this.
But, like you had mentioned,rehabilitation, that's another
(30:12):
application of this we can lookat okay, this behavior
historically has been maintainedby this reinforcer.
This is the function.
Okay, now let's teach you anappropriate alternative behavior
so you don't need to engage inthis criminal behavior.
One example that I used withJeffrey, which you know
(30:33):
unfortunately couldn't doanything, there was social
skills training.
Jeffrey did not know how tomake friends, how to maintain
friendships, how to havefunctional interpersonal
relationships, so he luredpeople, drugged them just to
(30:57):
cuddle with their unconsciousbodies and then murder them.
Right, if we could.
Well, if someone could havelooked at that, said, okay, the
function of this behavior, eventhe doing a domo behavior, just
being a goofball in school,function of this is social
(31:18):
positive reinforcement.
I'm going to teach you how tofunctionally have a relationship
, how to have a conversationwith a same age peer, how to
understand their body language,how to read their facial
expressions, how to havereciprocal conversation.
(31:40):
Because he couldn't do any ofthis and so the response effort
for that which would be theappropriate behavior was way too
high.
It was easier for him to engagein these criminal behaviors to
access that same form ofreinforcement.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Right, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
So rehabilitation is a big piece of this too.
Where are these gaps that thisperson is missing?
How can we fill those gaps withappropriate pro-social
behaviors instead of criminalbehaviors?
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Interesting.
So that would be it for therehabil profile.
In prison.
We can figure out what thecontingencies are.
We can apply that to theirrehabilitation and perhaps
making sure that there's anenvironment that supports
maintaining whatever replacementbehaviors they learned in
prison or whatever facility thatthey're in.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yep, and there's a lot of good research.
Some of it is kind of datednowadays but my go-to text is
the behavioral approaches tocrime and delinquency by Edward
Morris and Curtis Brockman, andthey have a lot of information
(33:09):
compiled in there.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
It's an anthology of research and there's so much
good information in there aboutbehavioral strategies used in
prisons, in group homes, inhalfway houses, things like
token economies, behavioralcontracts no-transcript and of
(33:49):
course, along with that I'm anOBMS, so we might figure out how
we're going to treat theinmates, to rehabilitate them,
but we have to make sure thatthe security guards and
everybody that's working inthere engages in the right
behavior that's going to supportthose things.
There's a lot of change thatneeds to be made there.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yes, yes, and that's a huge piece of it as well.
Not only do we have to changethe inmates behavior, but we
have to change law enforcementworkers but also society
prejudices, I guess, aboutinmates, criminals, people who
(34:32):
engage in criminal behavior.
What I've seen is thatrehabilitation is not really the
goal.
More so is punishment, ispunishment and um punishment, we
(34:53):
know as behavior analystsdoesn't work in the long term.
Right, short term, yeah, butthen once they get out, what are
they going to do?
Go right back to the behaviorthat was reinforcing, because
those punishing contingenciesare no longer in place.
So if we can shift thatattitude towards rehabilitation,
(35:13):
towards empathy, I think we cando some good work.
But that is a huge shift.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
It is.
I think, before that shift isever going to happen, we have to
have leadership.
I'm not getting political hereand I want to go down that uh,
that path, um, but it's got tobe a value to change, uh, and to
have an environment that'ssupportive of uh, you know, uh,
of difference, you know, that'stolerant, um, you know, et
(35:46):
cetera, et cetera, because, asit is it, you know there's,
there's a lot of uh, there's alot of coercion applied out in
society and uh, you know, Idon't, I don't, you know,
without that it's plugging, youknow it's plugging a hole, it's
putting a band-aid on thesituation because, even if
they're rehabilitated, um,they're going to come back out
(36:06):
into the real world and, as weknow, just they're going to,
they're going to bounce back andforth.
I don't know what the greaterrecidivism is, but I know it's
pretty high yes, yep, thatcriminal justice funnel once.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Once you're in it might spit you out, but it'll
put you right back in,unfortunately yeah, yeah, I mean
, because there's nothing that'sgoing to maintain those
behaviors.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
You're going to go back right to uh, um, yeah, it's
, it's man is so, but I mean it,it should be.
You know, I do believe thatthere needs to be something out
there that is punishing um,because you know, we all, like
you know, hey, I don't, I don't,I try to do the speed limit
when the cops looking as much aspossible, because I don't.
I was thinking about that theother day.
Uh, in one of my, my last book,I I break down leadership into
(36:51):
leading, training, coaching andmanaging, like these are these
four hats, and the managing hatis about maintenance of uh,
learned skills, um, and itinvolves leveraging existing
contingencies and people don'twant to talk about punishment.
I'm like it's got to be inplace.
We all, you know, I mean, ifI'm driving down the street the
other day and I'm thinking, whatif there was no speed limit
(37:12):
here?
And what if there's only, youknow, a couple of cops around?
But it's enough to keepbehavior, you know, within a
reasonable limit.
So you have to have thesethings in place.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Of course, as we know , the problem is there's not
enough positive reinforcementfor value-added behavior.
It would be nice if they reallywanted to reduce speeding.
All insurance companies wouldtie it right into your bill
getting lowered.
They would incentivize it.
Yeah, they would, but we're notthere yet.
There's a thought that weshould just be this way.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
And if you don't, you get punished.
There's a lot of struggle there.
Yes, there's this assumptionthat everyone is going to engage
in rural, governed behavior andhave the same values, when that
is not the case.
I actually had a conversationrecently with one of my work
individuals, an adult, and wewere talking about determinism.
(38:19):
And she asked me she's likebecause she has a religious
background and I grew upreligious but I'm not any longer
but she asked me it was thisclassic free will determinism
conversation, right, and I toldher I'm like I'm a little
(38:41):
determinist, yeah, and I saidyou know, if you are driving
down the road at 3 pm, you'regoing to stop at every red light
, you're going to stop at everystop sign and you're going to
remain stopped until that redlight turns green.
Right Now, if you were drivingdown the road at 3 am with no
(39:05):
one around you, you might notwait until that light turns
green.
You might stop, look around andthen go right, because the
environment influences ourbehavior, and I think that
that's such a huge piece that weare missing in rehabilitation.
People are expected to just youknow better, go into the world
(39:30):
and act accordingly.
That's not always how thatworks.
We have to have contingenciesin the environment to help
maintain that behavior.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, I think we have to have good values right so
that supports us, it creates awant to move in that direction.
Values are just a way of beingand doing, but we all know that
we get behavior drift that movesaway from that.
I think that's that is reallyimportant to support that early
on, and uh, and we want societyto help to maintain those values
(40:05):
.
But unfortunately there's justa lot of, you know, there's a
lot of challenges that existthat are going to pull people
out.
You know there's like a I thinkthat this is a pretty harsh
thing to say, but it's just anexample.
You know that, where peoplejudge others for doing a crime
(40:29):
and listen, you would do a crimetoo If the right contingencies
were in place.
Let's say, somebody had Godforbid this horrible example if
somebody had a gun to yourchild's head, you say, well, I'd
never kill somebody.
Well, under those conditions,would you if it meant that your
child was going to die as aresult?
I don't even want to thinkabout something like that.
It's so terrible.
So we're very quick to judge,but the only way to change this
(40:54):
stuff, to make a difference, isrearranging the environment at
scale and creating, you know,contingency deposit
reinforcement for value-addedbehavior.
But then there becomes an issuethat you know in society, I
think as a whole, is like againwhat are our values?
And the problem is we don't allshare values and I think you
(41:15):
know through your you know weall have different learning
histories, so it makes thingsdifferent.
You know we have differentreinforcers.
It's like it's why you knowthere's we like something like
communism won't work.
It could work on a small scale.
People think it's like a badname, like man, just people
coming together to work towardsa common goal.
But you know, a large scalethere's just too many histories
(41:37):
to contend with.
Yes, so it's not going to work.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
That's why utopia there's no such, we can never
have aden too.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Right, I think you know Skinner found that out
pretty, you know, or he made itvery clear that that's the deal,
which, by the way, I mean Ineed to.
You just brought that up.
I want to plug this real quickin here, cause my, my guy, dave,
dave, david Roth, sorry, I'mlooking at this.
(42:06):
I'm looking at this, I'm doingtwo things at one time.
And David Palmer, they just dida foreword on one of Skinner's
works and they're going to behaving a Q&A later on Behavioral
Live, yeah, today.
Well, this is going to well, Idon't know, I might be able to
get this out to air earlier, butit's pretty cool, man, what
(42:28):
they did.
Uh, I love hearing dave talkabout, uh, walden too, and
pulling different, um, differentquotes out from skinner and how
, uh, you know, just justtalking about how valued he was
and how he wants to have a worldthat is, you know, uses
positive reinforcement andthat's against punishment.
People just so miss the boatwhen it comes to that.
(42:49):
And as I'm speaking, I'm justgetting to the name of the book
because I forget and he'll killme for this, and so it's
Skinner's Reflections onBehaviorism and Society.
So it's been completely editedand you know they've done some
forewords and really kind ofgotten to the meat of some of
the stuff.
It was him and Dr David Palmer.
(43:10):
So anyways, that book is outand if you're listening to this
I'll drop a link in to where youcan find it.
Sorry to interrupt in themiddle of this.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
No, I'll have to grab a copy.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah, yeah, it's very cool man, it's very cool.
All right, I do.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Oh sorry.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
No, go ahead Go ahead .
Speaker 1 (43:35):
I was going to say I do like how you brought up
learning histories, because thatis a huge point for me.
I also, when I teach, I try toembed that in my students'
brains that everyone has a adifferent learning history, like
you say that right, and it'slike, well, obviously we're all
(43:58):
unique, we all da, da, da.
But I don't think anyone reallygets to the meat of what that
means, that we have all beenreinforced for different things.
We, something that you havebeen reinforced for I might have
been punished for.
I might not have even accessedright, so I might not have been
reinforced or punished.
Everyone's experiences aredifferent and I think that we
(44:23):
need to really look at becauseABA right, we typically look at
the present, present behavior,um.
I went to a talk actually atthat same comfort conference
that I presented on um, dr LindaLeBlanc.
She spoke about the behavioralworldview and I loved that
(44:45):
because that gets at that ideathat behavior we might engage in
the same behaviortopographically, the function is
different.
Our reinforcement histories aredifferent.
We're really moving towardstrauma-informed care and
understanding that if I or ifsomeone raises their hand and I
(45:09):
flinch, you know, okay, thatdoesn't mean that I have a
punishment history with thatperson who raised their hand to
me Right, it means that I have apunishment history with that
act.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
I'm glad you actually gave a really succinct example
of that, because I think we'rethrowing around the term trauma
too much and that would be likethat's probably a good indicator
that something's happened inthe past.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Yes, exactly, and so that doesn't tell me anything
about that relationship withthat person, right there.
It tells me about the learninghistory, right?
And so I really try to put thatinto my students' heads.
That you know, be nice for one,because everyone has a
(45:58):
different journey, everyone hasa different struggle, and when
you look at someone's behaviorand you judge it and you say I
would never do that, you have noidea what their contingencies
are, you have no idea what theirlearning history is.
Maybe that individual isstealing because they don't have
(46:19):
food at home.
Mom is working 18 hour shiftsand they have to take care of
their two young siblings andthey don't have food.
Yeah, so no one knowseveryone's contingencies, and so
just be nice.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
I agree with that so much.
And when you do judge you're nolonger looking, no, no, that
you're suffering from behavioralmyopia or no longer looking at
life through a behavioralanalytic lens.
This happens a lot in in myworld of OBM.
People seem to be verycompassionate when it comes to
like a student, someone withautism.
They see, you know, they lookat the function of behavior,
(46:58):
they try to adjust theenvironment.
But when it comes to like theemployees that are working with
that, they forget about it andthey gauge, blaming and like
coercive techniques, et cetera,et cetera.
Our field suffers from thismassively.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
So, as I'm thinking about this schools are a very
important place that I support Ithink about school shooting and
I think about they've poured aton of money, unfortunately,
into law enforcement as apreventative measure and I'm
like I don't think that's theright direction to go.
I think that I'm not saying thatwe shouldn't have security
(47:36):
guards around, but like ifsomebody really wants to shoot,
that's the first person they'regoing to shoot, probably in my
thought.
But if we had, if we use abehavioral approach and got all
this data, we can really, if wereally focus on designing the
environments in schools, that itwould probably drastically
(47:56):
reduce the likelihood that wewould have school shooting.
And unfortunately, in education, the only thing they grade that
schools are grading on is their.
The school grade right, basedon academics, but there needs to
be grades that have to do withsocial validity.
I believe, yeah, man, you feelsafe, support is secured, and I
(48:16):
think you know, I bet theschools that had high reports of
that, from the learner to theteacher, to the principal on up,
I bet there would be a directcorrelation to reduction in you
know, violent, you know thecrisis incidents, et cetera, et
cetera.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah.
So I have information for youon all of this.
So let's see, last June maybeit was June, I want to say June
last June here in Fargo, um, wehad a shooting.
It was not a school shooting,it was a police shooting.
(48:53):
Um, an individual was found tohave enormous amounts of ammo,
um and police believe that hewas on his way to the Fargo
street fair.
And police believe that he wason his way to the Fargo Street
Fair to cause a lot of damage.
(49:13):
But on his way there he wassidetracked by a.
It was just a fender bender,the cops were there.
So he pulled in across thestreet and he opened fire on the
cops.
He killed one, injured, Ibelieve, two others, and that
(49:33):
was huge.
We don't have that here.
I'd say we're relatively safe.
You know we had the case ofSavannah Graywind, but these
cases are out of the norm.
We typically don't have umviolence like that.
And after that shooting andthen there was an additional
(49:56):
there was a threat called into amiddle school that I work at,
um, the threat ended up being hewas a mentally ill individual,
um, but after after thatincident, the county sheriff um
decided to put together a threatassessment and threat
management team.
So I emailed him and I said,hey, I'm very interested in
(50:20):
helping out with this.
So I have been volunteering onthe Cass County Threat
Assessment and Threat Managementteam.
I am the only behavioralspecialist on the team.
Most of it is law enforcement.
We do have some like socialservices, social workers, but I
(50:42):
am the only behavioralspecialist and we so I went
through a training course withthe Department of Homeland
Security on threat evaluationand reporting and I'm working
with the FBI.
They're part of the team and Ijust had a meeting with the FBI.
(51:06):
They wanted to know what can wedo better, and so I discussed
with her.
Here are all of these gaps.
I know we can't fill them inall right now, but there are a
lot of gaps and we need to dosomething here and we need to
set up some of thosecontingencies when we can and
(51:30):
things like that.
So the school shootings and theas well, who is an
(51:51):
internationally known war crimesinvestigator and he teaches
school threat assessment.
So threat assessment is anotherone of my areas of interest.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Well, I'll tell you what.
You have a case example righthere.
I was dropped I was actuallyworking in an alternative school
as an assistant principal andthey had another school.
It was a very high title, oneschool, high poverty area, high
crime area, and they had lawenforcement being called out
there on average twice a week,being called out there on
average twice a week.
I got dropped in there inJanuary, right after winter
(52:30):
break, and we only had to callcops out there one time and it
was for a Baker Act, and Iremember the local union
president and the state unionpresident came out and declared
a miracle.
And of course you and I know itwas just a science of human
behavior, right, it was usingsome practical application of
the science, right, Practicalorganizational behavior
(52:50):
management, changing thebehavior of the adults in there
to change the behavior of thestudents, and I mean you know,
hey, that you know resulted inlaw enforcement getting to build
relationships with the studentsand you know, be on the other
end of that.
Now I think that one of theissues with law enforcement I
didn't mean for this to go inthis direction, but I'm actually
(53:11):
happy to talk about it I thinkthere's way too much, and I
don't want to overgeneralizethis because I don't know.
I know that there's good places, I'm certain, but I suspect
that there's too much coerciongoing on in the actual
departments themselves.
They're very punitive in nature.
I know of an area where theygot 50% turnover.
That's costing a fortune.
Now we're blaming officers waytoo much, right?
(53:35):
I don't believe they're notperforming to a standard.
It's a skill deficit or amotivational deficit, and they
lack both.
They're not being trained wellenough in these preventions.
They're not being trained wellenough how to communicate well.
They're also acting out of fear.
Sometimes.
I've been fighting my wholelife, you know, and I can look
at some of these guys.
They're not in good shape, youknow.
(53:57):
So when you get under theseconditions where people are
yelling at you and screaming atyou, you know you do things that
you shouldn't do and anybodywould.
They're not super human.
But if you are trained wellenough and you feel safe because
you are extremely-, Right, Well, and also, you were like.
You were like I'm a boxer, I'ma mixed martial artist, right,
(54:17):
you could scream at me.
I do all this stuff.
I don't feel threatened becauseI know I can handle my business
.
If they feel this way, I think,they can interact more calmly.
They won't be so quick toengage in these behaviors that
produce issues.
So when they do engage thesebehaviors, the result is now
that the citizens become fearfulof them and they have disdain
for them.
So now when cops areinteracting, you have people
(54:40):
that are not following theirdirections, which I have a
problem with, because I thinkthat as citizens, we have a
responsibility and this iscreating safety issues for them
and for other people, right?
And so this is also frustratinglaw enforcement, because now
they don't have, like there's nocontingency.
You can do whatever you want,you know, and I think that we
need to start by training themmuch better.
We need to start by positively,like the cameras are used to
(55:03):
punish, right, I think we couldtrain them in how to deescalate
and let's do random sampling ofthis stuff and possibly
reinforce them.
Catch them being good, let'sgive badges for that, right,
Like belt, like belt ranking,like you are a black belt
communicator, and let's givethem more money for that stuff,
and they would save so muchmoney on the back end from
turnover, from lawsuits and allthis stuff.
(55:24):
So I think behavior analysiscould dig in there.
Let's make it so as part ofjust like you go in there, like
you get to go to the gym totrain.
It's part of your regularcurriculum that you got to
become at least a purple belt insome specified and you have to
maintain that belt as well,which means you also have to
maintain your athleticism.
But we can't just expect tocram that into their day.
(55:47):
That's got to be part of theirweek where they're allowed to
stay in shape and do this stuff,because it's also costing them
in mental health, which iscosting issues, and it's also
hurting society.
So I'm up on my box.
I can see that we are veryaligned with these thoughts,
right, but I think we could do alot to help out in there.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
I think so, and that is actually actually one of when
I had that conversation with um, the fbi agent.
That was one of the things Irecommended was so I I don't
know what type of um are you indirect care right now?
Speaker 2 (56:18):
no, no, I'm not at all man.
Okay, I'm doing consulting or Ido stuff.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
Organizational behavior management, yeah okay,
so my, so my specialization.
Cool, Okay, so I'm in directcare autism and we have to be
trained in nonviolent crisisprevention and intervention.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
Oh, and let me pause you there you should be trained
in professional crisismanagement.
It's the only behavior basedsystem in the world that's
fluency based, the nonviolentPCM Yep M, yeah, pcma is and
just full transparency.
I work for them, but I don'tget any money on sales or
anything.
I went to work for them becauseof the integrity of their
(56:58):
program the only fluency-basedprogram in the world ground and
ABA from the ground up.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
So it's a plug for them because I believe it's what
everybody needs okay, I'm goingto write that down and bring
that up to my uh company.
Right now we do cpi training,so crisis prevention institute
I've done it so many times likedo it yeah but I I brought to
the fbi agent you guys need someof this, you know you.
(57:26):
I mean, don't just come in hot,you need to observe, be, you
know non-threatening, because weknow that behavior breeds
behavior.
So if you're coming in withyour body language being
threatening, the individual isgoing to be defensive and then
we have that power dynamic thatwe, we it's kind of hairy, um,
(57:50):
and I also.
So that is one another passionof mine is is the training we
need.
We need training on how to umdeal with individuals that might
be mentally ill.
Um, I gave a training earlierin April at the North Dakota
(58:11):
Emergency Medical ServicesConference on how to interact as
first responders withindividuals with autism.
We've seen all over the countrythere are these horrible
stories of autistic individualsbeing shot by police officers,
security guards, because theyare perceived as threatening.
(58:32):
So that is one of my areas aswell where I like to train.
But in general, handling youknow mental illness or whether
it just be you know just what wewould call, you know,
uncooperative behavior.
(58:52):
How do we handle this to ensureand maintain safety of everyone
involved?
Speaker 2 (58:59):
Yeah, and I want to.
I want to.
This is fresh out of my book,the positional authority and
leadership.
I want to say that this, right,we need.
We need four things.
I break down, like leadership,into four hats, and so it could
be used from anywhere.
It's just about improving andmaintaining performance.
We need a good leading whichcreates value for this stuff.
Right, it's an MO.
Right, we've got to have an MO.
So somebody engaged in goodleading behavior say hey guys,
(59:24):
here's what we need to do andhere's why it's going to make
your job easier.
It's going to keep you safe.
You're going to get more money.
Whatever it is, you know weyou're going to, you're going to
make a positive difference.
We got to tap into people'sreinforcers, right, their pain
points and you know their, their, their, their values.
Right, then, once, we create awant for that.
But then we got to trainfluency-based.
Right, we can't just give theseone-stop shops.
(59:46):
Right, you go in.
That's the problem with so manycrisis management systems.
You go, you get trained, youforget what you learned the next
day.
I've seen it, I've experiencedit.
It doesn't work that way.
We need to build fluency andkey skills.
It can't be everything.
What are some pivotal behaviors, some behavioral cusps that we
can focus on.
It will not stick withoutcoaching.
Coaching is about supporting thegeneralization of learned
(01:00:07):
skills into the naturalenvironment, which means that we
need to be able to help peoplebehave well enough long enough
that it produces naturallyoccurring positive reinforcement
for them.
So we've got to make surethat's available for them and
then we've got to make sure thatwe engage in managing, and
managing is about maintenance ofskills, right, and that is just
leveraging the system.
But the system has to bedeliberately developed to
(01:00:28):
possibly reinforce value-addedbehavior.
So those skills that they learnthey're coached with, we're
going to maintain them.
That's why I believe, likesaying, the cameras and let's
have a catch them being good,let's have them have a belt
ranking in, like nonviolentinteractions or whatever, and
let's have that belt ranking.
It could be just that they feelgood about it, but I bet, if it
was tied into a little bit ofincreased pay, that it's going
(01:00:50):
to make it even more meaningfulor increase access to some other
things, and I think thatthey're going to save a lot of
money on the back end.
I think that they're going tobuild relationships with the
community, but I think when theydo that.
I think we also need to put someonus back on the community as
well.
Cops tell you to do things.
I believe that you got to dothose things, you know, because
it's creating an issue whereother people like learning like
(01:01:16):
we don't have to follow.
You know police rules and Iwatched like somebody having a
DA spend an hour talking acouple people down.
Well, they're talking thisperson down because the person's
in their face, telling them tofuck off and do all this stuff,
which I don't think is okay.
Um, that means those copsaren't out patrolling the
community or doing these otherthings you know.
So I think that citizens do haveresponsibility, that they've
(01:01:36):
got to learn to interact with.
You know law enforcement betteras well, and they need to be
trained and have value.
And you know there's got to beagreed upon.
But I think it's gonna.
I think it's gonna start withthe cops building their skills
and stuff first and then, oncewe invest in that, then we say,
okay, community, now it's on you.
You need to now have thisresponsibility.
Here are the key behaviors thatyou need to engage in when an
(01:01:56):
officer asks you to do A, b andC.
Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Yeah, and I think too , like, like you said, you know,
first step, training the copsand then pairing Right.
We got to pair with thecommunity because right now the
community has only Well, Ishouldn't say only has a lot of
negative viewpoints towards thecops.
(01:02:20):
But if we can get cops back outthere and pairing with the
community in positive ways, um,a friend of mine, he he
mentioned, bring back beat cops.
You know who were part of thecommunity.
They were seen as people youcan go to and talk to and trust.
Um, we need to pair cops withthe community to build back up
(01:02:46):
that rapport and so everyone canengage in these behaviors that
we want to and need to see.
Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Well, and I think that again, another area for
behavior analysis we could havea metric for that.
Let's have some sociability outthere.
Let's find out the people thatinteract most with the cops
experience it.
Let's find out how they feelabout them.
But let's tie that in, let'snot use that to beat them up.
Let's find out a baseline of itand let's say here are the key
behaviors you want to engage in.
Let's use the coach andpositively reinforce.
(01:03:16):
I think when we have all thiswraparound which you know it's
got to start from leadershipcoming down in these departments
and the communities, and thecommunity is like everybody's
got to be involved, there's gotto be some responsibility, but
we can guide it with science.
So we've got something that wehave some shared values here.
Well, listen, it's beenfascinating to discuss this.
It's very cool to see that youand I think other people agree
(01:03:40):
that are doing somethingdifferent with the science.
I hope that this podcast getsin the hands of some law
enforcement somewhere and theywant to pick it up and pull you
in to do some more, becausebehavior analysis, we know, can
make a big difference anywherein the world.
So, presley, if people want toreach out to you what would be
the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
So we have.
So ABAI, Association forBehavior Analysis International,
has special interest groups.
I am the sitting chair of theForensic Behavior Analysis
Special Interest Group, so youcan find my email address on
ABAI's website.
We also have a Facebook groupForensic Behavior Analysis.
(01:04:25):
We'll be at ABAI end of Mayhere, so we're having a workshop
.
You can join the workshop.
You can come to our businessmeeting, chat with us right
there.
I'll be there.
Yeah, lots of ways, and I cansend you.
Well, you have my email too,Polly, right?
Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Send me anything that you want.
I don't know if there wassomething accessible you can
send me.
If you want something in theshow notes, I can certainly send
.
I usually link your LinkedInpeople's LinkedIn.
Oh, that'll work too, yeah, butif there's anything else you
want in the show notes, dropthem to me and I'll make sure
that people have access to them.
Cool, all right, prezi Thanks.
Welcome to the Thoughts and Rants of a Behavior
Scientist show hosted by WallStreet Journal and USA Today
bestselling author Dr Pauly.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome back to the Thoughts and Rants of a Behavior
Scientist podcast.
I'm your host, Dr Pauly, andI'm here with Presley Wanner.
How are you doing, Presley?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good.
How are you doing Presley?
Good how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm good, and I came across a social media post and
it was about using behavioranalysis in forensics and it was
about I think it was called abehavior correct me if I'm wrong
but a behavior analysis ofJeffrey Dahmer or something
along those lines.
Yeah, a behavior analyticconceptualization of Jeffrey
(00:58):
Dahmer behavior analysis unit,but I don't think it's like real
behavior analysis and I'mhoping that maybe that they can,
you know, learn from somebodylike you and adopt it because
you have a background.
I went back and I looked atyour education.
You just didn't come intobehavior analysis.
You have a background inforensics.
I mean, you have a few degreesthat are directly aligned with
(01:20):
those.
I'm clicking on the wrong thinghere.
Yeah, crime analysis from PennWest, california, that you got a
degree in applied behavioranalysis, sociology, forensic
psychology from University ofNorth Dakota, so it's very cool.
So you have all this stuff andthen you got ABA and I'm just
very interested to see how thosetwo merge.
(01:42):
So thanks for coming on thepodcast with me.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
you, I was really excited to get your message yeah
, yeah, it's cool man, and so,um, let's first start with are
you familiar with the?
I don't watch much tv.
I watch movies and I watch newsand sports, you know, but there
is a tv show out there rightthat has this like a crime unit
and behavior analysis there's afew, yeah and am I correct in
(02:05):
saying that it's not realbehavior analysis as we know it
so it's I.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I'm thinking, are you referring to, like the fbi, bau
behavior analysis unit?
Maybe we'll go with that one sothe fbi has a bau behavior
analysis unit out in quantico.
Um, that's like so mind hunter,if you've seen that show that
(02:32):
sounds like where it came from.
Yeah, yeah, those are the guysat the bau.
Um, they are law enforcement,not directly psych or behavior
analysis.
Um, you have to be an FBIspecial agent to build up and
get into the BAU, which I wasbummed about when I found out
(02:54):
because that was my goal.
But yeah, it's more lawenforcement, criminal profiling,
than true behavior analysis.
But it's very close and wecould definitely work together.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, I found that like, for example, in sports
right, sports there's a lot ofmetrics out there and you know,
but it's not.
I know that when I've gone intoI work in sports and MMA and
boxing I'm seeing how they'reusing the metrics and they're
doing a lot of great things.
But as behavior analysts, wecan take that nuance thing.
We can find that really pivotalthing that we need to look at
(03:33):
and help to make a difference,because sometimes they're just
missing that angle of it andgosh.
Well, hopefully, maybe we dothis podcast you can send to the
folks, because people don'tknow what they don't know and I
would think I mean this is thegreatest you know science in the
world for making a difference,and so they're not aware of it
or they think they are and theyprobably maybe they got 80% of
(03:55):
it.
You know what I mean, butthere's that 20% that would make
the hugest difference If youwould, if you characterize, and
because I want to find out allabout this.
Right, let's start with whatthe standard people that aren't
actually trained in appliedbehavior analysis.
What are they missing ingeneral?
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So I think that, because typically with criminal
profiling, you know they stilllook at patterns of behavior.
You know they still, they'restill very aware that a past
history of violence is the bestpredictor for future violence.
But I think they're reallymissing the meat of what we do
(04:38):
the antecedents, theconsequences, what reinforces
this behavior?
How can we put this behavior onextinction by removing that
reinforcer?
How can we teach replacementbehaviors that match the
function?
They don't look at any of that.
They look at criminal records,support history, education
(05:01):
history, things like that, andbuild a picture.
So I feel like behavioranalysis and that viewpoint of
it, we look very specifically atthe crime itself instead of at
the overall pattern.
We still see those overallpatterns because that's what we
(05:22):
do, but we look specifically atthese behavioral instances and
say what is happening here, whatare the antecedents that lead
to this behavior, what are theconsequences that maintain this
behavior?
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Okay, so would you be able to, if we could juxtapose
it to or contrast it to, if wehad a non-behavioral analyst
who's an FBA and they're doinglots of good things, right?
Just maybe a short like snippet, like here's how they would
look at this one situation Maybeit's a crime scene or something
like that, or whatever you feelmost comfortable with
explaining and then, as abehavior analyst, how you would
(06:00):
look at it differently than theydid.
Like concrete example.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Okay, let's see here.
So let's say we have a homicide, okay, Body is found and
investigation begins.
Those law enforcementindividuals are going to do
things like canvassing theneighborhood right Looking for
witnesses, asking questions.
They're maybe going to, once weget further down the
(06:29):
investigation, maybe they'regoing to build a criminal
profile based on the FBI'sprofiling system.
They're probably going to dogeographical profiling.
We know that-.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Which means what, Just for anybody listening and
I'm not quite sure I know whatthat means.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, so geographical profiling.
Typically, crimes are committedin the general vicinity of the
perpetrator.
It's going to be an area thatthe perpetrator frequents in
some way shape or form.
So, like triangulation, we'regoing to center where this body
(07:08):
was found and go out a certainradius and look inside that
radius.
So those are the type ofstrategies that law enforcement
is going to use.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
And those are good strategies, we're not saying
those are good strategies.
Absolutely Right Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yes, they are effective Behavior analytic
conceptualization.
We are going to look at thecrime itself and it'll be more
of we could call it profiling ofthe perpetrator.
We're going to determine, well,try to determine.
(07:49):
In what setting right Does thisoccur?
What are the potentialantecedents?
What is the function of thisbehavior, aka motive right.
What is the purpose?
Is this individual, was thisindividual murdered for life
insurance money?
Right, tangible?
(08:10):
That's our function.
Were they murdered?
Was it a power situation?
Right, and then we can identifythe consequences as well.
So what are they gaining fromthis?
Are they reinforced by themoney they receive, the feeling
of power?
What's the reinforcer?
(08:31):
And we can go from there.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Well, I mean, that sounds like the things that
they're doing already, though,isn't it?
I mean, they do look for themotive, they look for the why
behind it.
Um, how is that?
How is what you know, whatyou're saying, different from
what they they are actuallydoing?
Because I know that they alwayslook for a motive, that's like
somebody like me.
(08:56):
So how is it?
You know what it's.
It's I'm sure it's more nuancedthe approach that we're, that
you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah.
So it's difficult to give fromlike a present perspective,
because the conceptualizationsI've done were after the fact
right.
So typically with this type ofconceptualization that I did
(09:23):
with the Jeffrey Dahmerpresentation, we are looking
after the fact and we'redetermining what happened here.
How can we use this informationto move forward and prevent
perhaps?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
You're kind of like gathering, like four-term
contingency You're looking at,you're getting all the boxes,
you're trying to fill up thosebuckets with as much data as you
have.
I'm guessing you know, becauseeven like you know you.
But you know you, what is themo here, what was happening a
while back?
Based on just whateverinformation you have, it goes in
that bucket and I'm justspeaking out loud so I can try
to figure it out.
(09:57):
Right, you know antecedents.
Uh, maybe it's not a directacting contingent, where I guess
it could be.
Uh, it's uh in this area at.
You know it's not a directacting contingent, or I guess it
could be.
It's in this area at.
You know it's.
You know 1130 pm.
You know this is a pattern ofit.
You know there's a certain typeof person around, right.
So all these are antecedentsthat are involved in it.
(10:21):
And again, I'm thinking thatthis is very similar to what's
going on in the behavioranalytic, the forensic, what
they have.
So I don't think it's differentthere.
I think it sounds like it'sjust conceptualizing it
behaviorally, right.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yes, Yep, precisely it's not.
There are no really hugedifferences, but how we
conceptualize it cops are notlooking at this as well.
What's the antecedent?
What's the establishingoperation right?
What are the setting events?
You know?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
the behavior.
You actually can't see thebehavior.
You have a prominent product,so you have to take that
information behavior and thenyou have to think about what are
the consequences of that,what's maintaining it, and so
that I guess that's.
There's a lot of speculationthat goes on there.
That's nowhere.
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
And with forensics too, the behavior analysis of
forensics that is one of thebiggest things is that criminal
behavior is generally covert,right.
Most criminals are not just outthere broad daylight.
Hey, I'm going to go rob thisbank.
Everyone, come stop me.
It's covert, right.
(11:36):
So unless we have people whowere witnesses, right, we're
really relying on, just like yousaid, permanent product.
So there's some.
I mean, with law enforcementtoo, we're speculating right
into the perpetrator's state ofmind at the time, and us
(12:00):
behavior analysts we don't likementalism anyway, right, but so
we're looking at kind of a morenuanced view of it.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Okay, I mean, you know, just like when we normally
take the ABCs, we do it becausewe're hypothesizing a function.
Obviously, you can't do afunctional analysis in these
cases, exactly these cases.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yep, and one thing that I mentioned in my
presentation, too, is ABA.
We have our three levels ofcontrol, right, we have
description, prediction control.
Well, what this does is thefirst two.
Like you said, there's no thirdlevel, there's no experimental
control.
Here we're not doing afunctional analysis of crime,
we're not turning that on.
(12:43):
So all we're doing here we'redescribing, we're predicting.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Interesting.
Okay, now let's go ahead andmaybe we can shift on to just
discuss what you did withJeffrey Dahmer.
So help people to, like youknow, theorize it more.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, so with Jeffrey Dahmer.
I chose him because there'splenty of data.
Um, of course, I can't observethe behavior and take direct
data, but we have thank goodnessbooks I know we have books, we
have um recordings of jeffrey'sown discussion of his crimes um
(13:27):
one of my main sources wasjeffrey dahmer's dad's
autobiography speaking about hischildhood, all of that.
So we have a lot of sourcesthat we can use um some other
crimes not so much.
Right jack the ripper might bedifficult um.
(13:48):
So with jeffrey I I did justthat.
I discussed setting events um.
There are a lot of things thathappened in his life um, like
the, the incident with the bonesunder the house.
That was very formative forjeffrey um but what was it?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
also speak as if nobody knows about it, like okay
yeah so bones under the houseum.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
One day jeffrey's mom smelled something gross and
sent Lionel to check under theunder the house.
Lionel is Jeffrey's dad.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And, um, he found what was most likely a dead
raccoon, something of the sort.
He pulled it out and Jeffreywas kind of interested and, um,
he picked up the bones and Ithink Jeffrey was probably five
interested and he picked up thebones.
And I think Jeffrey wasprobably five, six, seven and he
picked up the bones and he saidthey're like fiddlesticks and
(14:54):
he was interested in the bonesand he wanted to play with them.
And Jeffrey or, I'm sorry,lionel, being a sweet, innocent,
loving, naive father, he saidthis is great, my kid has an
interest.
I can shape this, I can turnthis into.
Maybe he'll be a doctor one day, maybe he'll be a surgeon
(15:18):
Biologist, whatever right, yesanything.
He has an interest in anatomy.
This is good.
I want to reinforce this.
Unfortunately, it didn't go asplanned.
So that event in Jeffrey'schildhood was pretty formative
(15:38):
and he had unfortunate geneticpredispositions.
Had unfortunate geneticpredispositions um in my.
I teach abnormal psych at northdakota state university and one
of my favorite phrases isgenetics loads the gun,
environment pulls the trigger oh, I like that yeah so it sounds
(15:59):
it's very law enforcement ish itis.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
I don't believe we won't use it in the.
You know, working in the, theautism areas or whatever, but
that yeah no, that's perfect yep, and so joyce jeffrey's mom.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
She had significant emotional disturbances, um,
likely borderline personalitydisorder.
She would consistently umoverdose.
And because jeffrey's fatherwas away at work, he was a um
doctorate level pharmacist, Ibelieve, and chemist, I'm sorry,
(16:37):
doctorate level chemist and sohe was away at work and poor
jeffrey, um he, and poor Jeffrey, he had to discover his
unconscious overdose mother onmore than one occasion.
So not only were there geneticpredispositions there, but also
environmental events findingyour unconscious, maybe dead,
(17:01):
mom, you know, not ideal forchildhood psychology.
So there was a lot of thesefactors, kind of this perfect
storm.
Lionel himself too and this isspeculation on my part, but
(17:22):
working in autism for some yearsand having an autism diagnosis
myself, I speculate that Lionelwas on the spectrum as well.
Some of his statements he makesin his book he states that he
did not know how to be a fatheror a son or a husband.
(17:46):
He had to do research on whatthese roles were supposed to be
and then acted accordingly.
So one thing with highfunctioning autism we see that
adherence to rule governedbehavior a lot of times and that
was depicted in Lionel'sautobiography.
So I do believe that Lionelhimself had some social issues,
(18:15):
as did Jeffrey, obviously, andrecords have shown too that his
parents attempted to seek somesort of behavioral treatment for
Jeffrey when he was youngWhether it was ABA specifically,
you know, in that time period,unsure but they did seek some
(18:38):
sort of behavioral treatment forJeffrey as a kid, for Jeffrey
as a kid.
So there's, like I said, there'sthis perfect storm of of um
(18:59):
preexisting factors.
So then we discussed this andthen I used a three-term
contingency for a bunch ofdifferent target behaviors that
he exhibited.
Um doing a dommer was one ofthem.
So when he was young he wouldengage in this um really
inappropriate attention-seekingbehavior at school.
Um, he would, you know, runthrough the halls making noises,
(19:22):
talking in weird voices, andJeffrey didn't have any friends
and people laughed andhigh-fived him when he did these
things.
So if we're analyzing thisright, we have our consequence
social positive reinforcement inthe form of attention,
(19:44):
sometimes tangible.
Some kids even paid him um todo certain pranks, things like
that.
There was one where hephotobombed um yearbook photos
and I believe some kids offeredhim money to do that.
So interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I wonder if, as part of that, became like almost like
desensitization to to uh, youknow, existing rules or
something I don't know yep, orcould have been, you know,
ignorance or disregard for themin the first place interesting.
All right, so so continue, thisis all right.
(20:25):
So I can see now, you know, seelike a little bit of nuance
there and how things are shapingup, like I can imagine law
enforcement as it, as it is, butlook at those things as well.
But we're just going a littlebit deeper to say what was
maintaining the behavior.
So it becomes more behavioranalytic.
They might just state like youknow, he had a history of
getting attention or doing somestuff earlier.
(20:46):
But then we say you know why,what was maintaining that
behavior?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
okay, exactly, yeah, okay.
So then, as we move on and welook as jeffrey grows up, so he
starts with these inappropriateattention-seeking behaviors in
school.
He also because he has nofriends.
This poor young man and you'dnever think anyone would say
(21:14):
that, right, poor Jeffrey, therewas.
He was an unfortunate victim ofclassical conditioning which
this might be one of my favoriteparts to analyze as young boys.
Right, you're age 9 to 13,.
(21:34):
Right, very important phase ina young boy's life puberty.
Yes.
So during puberty, right,physical changes happen
spontaneous erections, thingslike this.
This is how sexuality is formed.
However, in most individuals Idon't want to say normal in most
(21:58):
individuals these things, thesefeelings, these physical
changes are occurring in thepresence of same age peers,
right, and then we developattraction towards same age
peers.
Jeffrey was not exposed to sameage peers, he did not have many
friends.
So after school he comes home,he goes to his shed in the
(22:24):
backyard that is full of deadanimals.
So jeffrey here is experiencingall of these pubertal changes,
these spontaneous erections,these feelings of arousal in the
presence of dead animals, not,living humans we're classically
conditioning.
(22:44):
So as he is experiencing arousalin the presence of these
animals, exactly that's pairedand he talks about as he gets
older, that he is not able toachieve an erection, achieve any
sort of sexual satisfactionwith a living person.
(23:05):
So that was rooted in childhoodas well.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Oh, interesting, okay , All right.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
And then, as we go on , and he is so desperate for
this social positivereinforcement right, positive
reinforcement, right, um he.
We also throw another factorsetting event in there, of
jeffrey's sexuality.
(23:34):
Um, jeffrey was gay at thattime.
That was not okay, right, andhe was forced to hide it.
He did attempt to talk to hisdad about it multiple times and
his dad shut it down.
He didn't want to hear it.
So that behavior of talking wassufficiently punished enough to
(23:54):
where Jeffrey didn't talk aboutit anymore.
He didn't access reinforcement.
When he did so, he shut up, hequit.
So that led to holding all thisinside, which then led to the
shame and this guilt.
Um, and even he even tried I, Ido give him props because he
(24:15):
tried.
Um, there was the whole, thewhole thing with the mannequin.
Um, jeffrey unfortunately had,because of his abandonment in
his childhood and things likethat he unfortunately had severe
borderline personality disorderas well um, severe abandonment
issues oh and his whole thingwas that he just wanted someone
(24:41):
to be with him, to stay with him.
He did not necessarily want aperson, but he wanted their body
.
Um, he did before he, he, hemurdered.
Well, with the exception of umsteven hicks, who was his first
murder.
There was a nine-year breakthere, um, but in the interim he
(25:05):
had stolen a mannequin from adepartment store and he tried to
use that as a replacementbehavior, right?
Um, that did not work, that wasnot sufficient.
Um, it freaked his grandma outand she demanded he get rid of
it.
Um which, who knows that if hecould have kept that, would that
(25:29):
have been where that ended?
We don't know, um I knowingwhat we know about criminal
behavior and its escalation, um,I do think that eventually that
mannequin would have beeninsufficient and he would have
moved on anyway, but he triedand then, unfortunately, when
(25:52):
that was removed, he escalated.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Okay, all right, I'm seeing the picture, okay.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Okay, so let's see here as he moved out.
So, after he moved out of his,his grandmother's Jeffrey was
also an alcoholic um, whichcomplicates things as well.
So alcohol use was typically anantecedent for his umseeking
(26:30):
behavior.
Typically he would pick up hisvictims at gay nightclubs where
he was drinking.
He would buy them drinks.
That is how he would meet hisvictims.
He would then offer them moneyto take photos.
He said he was a photographer,he needed models, so he would
(26:51):
offer them money, bring themback to his house where he would
then drug them.
That was.
One of the other targetbehaviors I discussed was the
drugging behavior and how itallowed him access to an
unconscious body which isreinforcing that behavior.
(27:12):
Once he has that unconsciousbody and this is all a
behavioral chain too you cannotmurder someone without first
having that victim available toyou.
Correct, yeah, correct.
So we have this huge behavioralchain of, you know, the alcohol
use in the nightclub, to thenthe drugging behavior once he
(27:37):
gets them home, to then themurder of that individual, to
then necrophilia and the rape ofthat individual, to then
evisceration and thedismemberment of the individual
and then to finally cannibalismand eating that individual.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
so this is a huge, complex behavioral chain lord,
if we could have broken thatchain, that would have been nice
.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I know Yep, it really would have been, which is why
analysis of these things ishelpful, recognizing that this
is a behavioral chain and thatwe can break it somewhere.
We just have to know that first.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Yeah, you know what, as you're saying this, I'm
starting to form some thoughtsabout how this would be
applicable because, I mean,still, everything is still
hypothetical, but I guess overtime you get patterns If you
analyze.
Because this is all done, it'snot like we can change behavior,
right, because that's normallywhat we're trying to do right
(28:44):
now.
We can't change that person'sbehavior.
It's already occurred, occurred, the outcome has already
occurred.
Uh, at least you know, notsaying they can't be
rehabilitated, but but yes,let's just use this example and
if we start to see if we haveenough data over time,
especially if we have stuffwhere people stopped, um, where
they didn't go beyond right,maybe we start to see where the
(29:05):
chain, you know, where the,where the important link in the
chain needs to be removed, so tospeak, or, like you know, of
that, of that chain, what was?
You know where was the point ofno return, for example, what if
we pulled out that one in themiddle or whatever?
I don't know?
um, I, I can, I can see if wehad enough data yes you know,
(29:25):
and so you could probablysomebody like you could probably
go back and profile, take alook at a number of these
profiles and kind of sort thisdata and I imagine putting some
grand uh database to see whatkind of uh you know what, what
pops out, you know making somesort of things that aren't
(29:47):
salient right now become like oh, I see, there's a pattern here.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yes, exactly Like a meta analysis of all of this
data, looking at what, where,which which link in that chain
is is the weakest.
Where can we break this?
But, like you, you hadmentioned rehabilitation, that's
another application of this.
But, like you had mentioned,rehabilitation, that's another
(30:12):
application of this we can lookat okay, this behavior
historically has been maintainedby this reinforcer.
This is the function.
Okay, now let's teach you anappropriate alternative behavior
so you don't need to engage inthis criminal behavior.
One example that I used withJeffrey, which you know
(30:33):
unfortunately couldn't doanything, there was social
skills training.
Jeffrey did not know how tomake friends, how to maintain
friendships, how to havefunctional interpersonal
relationships, so he luredpeople, drugged them just to
(30:57):
cuddle with their unconsciousbodies and then murder them.
Right, if we could.
Well, if someone could havelooked at that, said, okay, the
function of this behavior, eventhe doing a domo behavior, just
being a goofball in school,function of this is social
(31:18):
positive reinforcement.
I'm going to teach you how tofunctionally have a relationship
, how to have a conversationwith a same age peer, how to
understand their body language,how to read their facial
expressions, how to havereciprocal conversation.
(31:40):
Because he couldn't do any ofthis and so the response effort
for that which would be theappropriate behavior was way too
high.
It was easier for him to engagein these criminal behaviors to
access that same form ofreinforcement.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Right, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
So rehabilitation is a big piece of this too.
Where are these gaps that thisperson is missing?
How can we fill those gaps withappropriate pro-social
behaviors instead of criminalbehaviors?
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Interesting.
So that would be it for therehabil profile.
In prison.
We can figure out what thecontingencies are.
We can apply that to theirrehabilitation and perhaps
making sure that there's anenvironment that supports
maintaining whatever replacementbehaviors they learned in
prison or whatever facility thatthey're in.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yep, and there's a lot of good research.
Some of it is kind of datednowadays but my go-to text is
the behavioral approaches tocrime and delinquency by Edward
Morris and Curtis Brockman, andthey have a lot of information
(33:09):
compiled in there.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
It's an anthology of research and there's so much
good information in there aboutbehavioral strategies used in
prisons, in group homes, inhalfway houses, things like
token economies, behavioralcontracts no-transcript and of
(33:49):
course, along with that I'm anOBMS, so we might figure out how
we're going to treat theinmates, to rehabilitate them,
but we have to make sure thatthe security guards and
everybody that's working inthere engages in the right
behavior that's going to supportthose things.
There's a lot of change thatneeds to be made there.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Yes, yes, and that's a huge piece of it as well.
Not only do we have to changethe inmates behavior, but we
have to change law enforcementworkers but also society
prejudices, I guess, aboutinmates, criminals, people who
(34:32):
engage in criminal behavior.
What I've seen is thatrehabilitation is not really the
goal.
More so is punishment, ispunishment and um punishment, we
(34:53):
know as behavior analystsdoesn't work in the long term.
Right, short term, yeah, butthen once they get out, what are
they going to do?
Go right back to the behaviorthat was reinforcing, because
those punishing contingenciesare no longer in place.
So if we can shift thatattitude towards rehabilitation,
(35:13):
towards empathy, I think we cando some good work.
But that is a huge shift.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
It is.
I think, before that shift isever going to happen, we have to
have leadership.
I'm not getting political hereand I want to go down that uh,
that path, um, but it's got tobe a value to change, uh, and to
have an environment that'ssupportive of uh, you know, uh,
of difference, you know, that'stolerant, um, you know, et
(35:46):
cetera, et cetera, because, asit is it, you know there's,
there's a lot of uh, there's alot of coercion applied out in
society and uh, you know, Idon't, I don't, you know,
without that it's plugging, youknow it's plugging a hole, it's
putting a band-aid on thesituation because, even if
they're rehabilitated, um,they're going to come back out
(36:06):
into the real world and, as weknow, just they're going to,
they're going to bounce back andforth.
I don't know what the greaterrecidivism is, but I know it's
pretty high yes, yep, thatcriminal justice funnel once.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Once you're in it might spit you out, but it'll
put you right back in,unfortunately yeah, yeah, I mean
, because there's nothing that'sgoing to maintain those
behaviors.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
You're going to go back right to uh, um, yeah, it's
, it's man is so, but I mean it,it should be.
You know, I do believe thatthere needs to be something out
there that is punishing um,because you know, we all, like
you know, hey, I don't, I don't,I try to do the speed limit
when the cops looking as much aspossible, because I don't.
I was thinking about that theother day.
Uh, in one of my, my last book,I I break down leadership into
(36:51):
leading, training, coaching andmanaging, like these are these
four hats, and the managing hatis about maintenance of uh,
learned skills, um, and itinvolves leveraging existing
contingencies and people don'twant to talk about punishment.
I'm like it's got to be inplace.
We all, you know, I mean, ifI'm driving down the street the
other day and I'm thinking, whatif there was no speed limit
(37:12):
here?
And what if there's only, youknow, a couple of cops around?
But it's enough to keepbehavior, you know, within a
reasonable limit.
So you have to have thesethings in place.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Of course, as we know , the problem is there's not
enough positive reinforcementfor value-added behavior.
It would be nice if they reallywanted to reduce speeding.
All insurance companies wouldtie it right into your bill
getting lowered.
They would incentivize it.
Yeah, they would, but we're notthere yet.
There's a thought that weshould just be this way.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
And if you don't, you get punished.
There's a lot of struggle there.
Yes, there's this assumptionthat everyone is going to engage
in rural, governed behavior andhave the same values, when that
is not the case.
I actually had a conversationrecently with one of my work
individuals, an adult, and wewere talking about determinism.
(38:19):
And she asked me she's likebecause she has a religious
background and I grew upreligious but I'm not any longer
but she asked me it was thisclassic free will determinism
conversation, right, and I toldher I'm like I'm a little
(38:41):
determinist, yeah, and I saidyou know, if you are driving
down the road at 3 pm, you'regoing to stop at every red light
, you're going to stop at everystop sign and you're going to
remain stopped until that redlight turns green.
Right Now, if you were drivingdown the road at 3 am with no
(39:05):
one around you, you might notwait until that light turns
green.
You might stop, look around andthen go right, because the
environment influences ourbehavior, and I think that
that's such a huge piece that weare missing in rehabilitation.
People are expected to just youknow better, go into the world
(39:30):
and act accordingly.
That's not always how thatworks.
We have to have contingenciesin the environment to help
maintain that behavior.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah, I think we have to have good values right so
that supports us, it creates awant to move in that direction.
Values are just a way of beingand doing, but we all know that
we get behavior drift that movesaway from that.
I think that's that is reallyimportant to support that early
on, and uh, and we want societyto help to maintain those values
(40:05):
.
But unfortunately there's justa lot of, you know, there's a
lot of challenges that existthat are going to pull people
out.
You know there's like a I thinkthat this is a pretty harsh
thing to say, but it's just anexample.
You know that, where peoplejudge others for doing a crime
(40:29):
and listen, you would do a crimetoo If the right contingencies
were in place.
Let's say, somebody had Godforbid this horrible example if
somebody had a gun to yourchild's head, you say, well, I'd
never kill somebody.
Well, under those conditions,would you if it meant that your
child was going to die as aresult?
I don't even want to thinkabout something like that.
It's so terrible.
So we're very quick to judge,but the only way to change this
(40:54):
stuff, to make a difference, isrearranging the environment at
scale and creating, you know,contingency deposit
reinforcement for value-addedbehavior.
But then there becomes an issuethat you know in society, I
think as a whole, is like againwhat are our values?
And the problem is we don't allshare values and I think you
(41:15):
know through your you know weall have different learning
histories, so it makes thingsdifferent.
You know we have differentreinforcers.
It's like it's why you knowthere's we like something like
communism won't work.
It could work on a small scale.
People think it's like a badname, like man, just people
coming together to work towardsa common goal.
But you know, a large scalethere's just too many histories
(41:37):
to contend with.
Yes, so it's not going to work.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
That's why utopia there's no such, we can never
have aden too.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Right, I think you know Skinner found that out
pretty, you know, or he made itvery clear that that's the deal,
which, by the way, I mean Ineed to.
You just brought that up.
I want to plug this real quickin here, cause my, my guy, dave,
dave, david Roth, sorry, I'mlooking at this.
(42:06):
I'm looking at this, I'm doingtwo things at one time.
And David Palmer, they just dida foreword on one of Skinner's
works and they're going to behaving a Q&A later on Behavioral
Live, yeah, today.
Well, this is going to well, Idon't know, I might be able to
get this out to air earlier, butit's pretty cool, man, what
(42:28):
they did.
Uh, I love hearing dave talkabout, uh, walden too, and
pulling different, um, differentquotes out from skinner and how
, uh, you know, just justtalking about how valued he was
and how he wants to have a worldthat is, you know, uses
positive reinforcement andthat's against punishment.
People just so miss the boatwhen it comes to that.
(42:49):
And as I'm speaking, I'm justgetting to the name of the book
because I forget and he'll killme for this, and so it's
Skinner's Reflections onBehaviorism and Society.
So it's been completely editedand you know they've done some
forewords and really kind ofgotten to the meat of some of
the stuff.
It was him and Dr David Palmer.
(43:10):
So anyways, that book is outand if you're listening to this
I'll drop a link in to where youcan find it.
Sorry to interrupt in themiddle of this.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
No, I'll have to grab a copy.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah, yeah, it's very cool man, it's very cool.
All right, I do.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Oh sorry.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
No, go ahead Go ahead .
Speaker 1 (43:35):
I was going to say I do like how you brought up
learning histories, because thatis a huge point for me.
I also, when I teach, I try toembed that in my students'
brains that everyone has a adifferent learning history, like
you say that right, and it'slike, well, obviously we're all
(43:58):
unique, we all da, da, da.
But I don't think anyone reallygets to the meat of what that
means, that we have all beenreinforced for different things.
We, something that you havebeen reinforced for I might have
been punished for.
I might not have even accessedright, so I might not have been
reinforced or punished.
Everyone's experiences aredifferent and I think that we
(44:23):
need to really look at becauseABA right, we typically look at
the present, present behavior,um.
I went to a talk actually atthat same comfort conference
that I presented on um, dr LindaLeBlanc.
She spoke about the behavioralworldview and I loved that
(44:45):
because that gets at that ideathat behavior we might engage in
the same behaviortopographically, the function is
different.
Our reinforcement histories aredifferent.
We're really moving towardstrauma-informed care and
understanding that if I or ifsomeone raises their hand and I
(45:09):
flinch, you know, okay, thatdoesn't mean that I have a
punishment history with thatperson who raised their hand to
me Right, it means that I have apunishment history with that
act.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
I'm glad you actually gave a really succinct example
of that, because I think we'rethrowing around the term trauma
too much and that would be likethat's probably a good indicator
that something's happened inthe past.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Yes, exactly, and so that doesn't tell me anything
about that relationship withthat person, right there.
It tells me about the learninghistory, right?
And so I really try to put thatinto my students' heads.
That you know, be nice for one,because everyone has a
(45:58):
different journey, everyone hasa different struggle, and when
you look at someone's behaviorand you judge it and you say I
would never do that, you have noidea what their contingencies
are, you have no idea what theirlearning history is.
Maybe that individual isstealing because they don't have
(46:19):
food at home.
Mom is working 18 hour shiftsand they have to take care of
their two young siblings andthey don't have food.
Yeah, so no one knowseveryone's contingencies, and so
just be nice.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
I agree with that so much.
And when you do judge you're nolonger looking, no, no, that
you're suffering from behavioralmyopia or no longer looking at
life through a behavioralanalytic lens.
This happens a lot in in myworld of OBM.
People seem to be verycompassionate when it comes to
like a student, someone withautism.
They see, you know, they lookat the function of behavior,
(46:58):
they try to adjust theenvironment.
But when it comes to like theemployees that are working with
that, they forget about it andthey gauge, blaming and like
coercive techniques, et cetera,et cetera.
Our field suffers from thismassively.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
So, as I'm thinking about this schools are a very
important place that I support Ithink about school shooting and
I think about they've poured aton of money, unfortunately,
into law enforcement as apreventative measure and I'm
like I don't think that's theright direction to go.
I think that I'm not saying thatwe shouldn't have security
(47:36):
guards around, but like ifsomebody really wants to shoot,
that's the first person they'regoing to shoot, probably in my
thought.
But if we had, if we use abehavioral approach and got all
this data, we can really, if wereally focus on designing the
environments in schools, that itwould probably drastically
(47:56):
reduce the likelihood that wewould have school shooting.
And unfortunately, in education, the only thing they grade that
schools are grading on is their.
The school grade right, basedon academics, but there needs to
be grades that have to do withsocial validity.
I believe, yeah, man, you feelsafe, support is secured, and I
(48:16):
think you know, I bet theschools that had high reports of
that, from the learner to theteacher, to the principal on up,
I bet there would be a directcorrelation to reduction in you
know, violent, you know thecrisis incidents, et cetera, et
cetera.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah.
So I have information for youon all of this.
So let's see, last June maybeit was June, I want to say June
last June here in Fargo, um, wehad a shooting.
It was not a school shooting,it was a police shooting.
(48:53):
Um, an individual was found tohave enormous amounts of ammo,
um and police believe that hewas on his way to the Fargo
street fair.
And police believe that he wason his way to the Fargo Street
Fair to cause a lot of damage.
(49:13):
But on his way there he wassidetracked by a.
It was just a fender bender,the cops were there.
So he pulled in across thestreet and he opened fire on the
cops.
He killed one, injured, Ibelieve, two others, and that
(49:33):
was huge.
We don't have that here.
I'd say we're relatively safe.
You know we had the case ofSavannah Graywind, but these
cases are out of the norm.
We typically don't have umviolence like that.
And after that shooting andthen there was an additional
(49:56):
there was a threat called into amiddle school that I work at,
um, the threat ended up being hewas a mentally ill individual,
um, but after after thatincident, the county sheriff um
decided to put together a threatassessment and threat
management team.
So I emailed him and I said,hey, I'm very interested in
(50:20):
helping out with this.
So I have been volunteering onthe Cass County Threat
Assessment and Threat Managementteam.
I am the only behavioralspecialist on the team.
Most of it is law enforcement.
We do have some like socialservices, social workers, but I
(50:42):
am the only behavioralspecialist and we so I went
through a training course withthe Department of Homeland
Security on threat evaluationand reporting and I'm working
with the FBI.
They're part of the team and Ijust had a meeting with the FBI.
(51:06):
They wanted to know what can wedo better, and so I discussed
with her.
Here are all of these gaps.
I know we can't fill them inall right now, but there are a
lot of gaps and we need to dosomething here and we need to
set up some of thosecontingencies when we can and
(51:30):
things like that.
So the school shootings and theas well, who is an
(51:51):
internationally known war crimesinvestigator and he teaches
school threat assessment.
So threat assessment is anotherone of my areas of interest.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Well, I'll tell you what.
You have a case example righthere.
I was dropped I was actuallyworking in an alternative school
as an assistant principal andthey had another school.
It was a very high title, oneschool, high poverty area, high
crime area, and they had lawenforcement being called out
there on average twice a week,being called out there on
average twice a week.
I got dropped in there inJanuary, right after winter
(52:30):
break, and we only had to callcops out there one time and it
was for a Baker Act, and Iremember the local union
president and the state unionpresident came out and declared
a miracle.
And of course you and I know itwas just a science of human
behavior, right, it was usingsome practical application of
the science, right, Practicalorganizational behavior
(52:50):
management, changing thebehavior of the adults in there
to change the behavior of thestudents, and I mean you know,
hey, that you know resulted inlaw enforcement getting to build
relationships with the studentsand you know, be on the other
end of that.
Now I think that one of theissues with law enforcement I
didn't mean for this to go inthis direction, but I'm actually
(53:11):
happy to talk about it I thinkthere's way too much, and I
don't want to overgeneralizethis because I don't know.
I know that there's good places, I'm certain, but I suspect
that there's too much coerciongoing on in the actual
departments themselves.
They're very punitive in nature.
I know of an area where theygot 50% turnover.
That's costing a fortune.
Now we're blaming officers waytoo much, right?
(53:35):
I don't believe they're notperforming to a standard.
It's a skill deficit or amotivational deficit, and they
lack both.
They're not being trained wellenough in these preventions.
They're not being trained wellenough how to communicate well.
They're also acting out of fear.
Sometimes.
I've been fighting my wholelife, you know, and I can look
at some of these guys.
They're not in good shape, youknow.
(53:57):
So when you get under theseconditions where people are
yelling at you and screaming atyou, you know you do things that
you shouldn't do and anybodywould.
They're not super human.
But if you are trained wellenough and you feel safe because
you are extremely-, Right, Well, and also, you were like.
You were like I'm a boxer, I'ma mixed martial artist, right,
(54:17):
you could scream at me.
I do all this stuff.
I don't feel threatened becauseI know I can handle my business
.
If they feel this way, I think,they can interact more calmly.
They won't be so quick toengage in these behaviors that
produce issues.
So when they do engage thesebehaviors, the result is now
that the citizens become fearfulof them and they have disdain
for them.
So now when cops areinteracting, you have people
(54:40):
that are not following theirdirections, which I have a
problem with, because I thinkthat as citizens, we have a
responsibility and this iscreating safety issues for them
and for other people, right?
And so this is also frustratinglaw enforcement, because now
they don't have, like there's nocontingency.
You can do whatever you want,you know, and I think that we
need to start by training themmuch better.
We need to start by positively,like the cameras are used to
(55:03):
punish, right, I think we couldtrain them in how to deescalate
and let's do random sampling ofthis stuff and possibly
reinforce them.
Catch them being good, let'sgive badges for that, right,
Like belt, like belt ranking,like you are a black belt
communicator, and let's givethem more money for that stuff,
and they would save so muchmoney on the back end from
turnover, from lawsuits and allthis stuff.
(55:24):
So I think behavior analysiscould dig in there.
Let's make it so as part ofjust like you go in there, like
you get to go to the gym totrain.
It's part of your regularcurriculum that you got to
become at least a purple belt insome specified and you have to
maintain that belt as well,which means you also have to
maintain your athleticism.
But we can't just expect tocram that into their day.
(55:47):
That's got to be part of theirweek where they're allowed to
stay in shape and do this stuff,because it's also costing them
in mental health, which iscosting issues, and it's also
hurting society.
So I'm up on my box.
I can see that we are veryaligned with these thoughts,
right, but I think we could do alot to help out in there.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
I think so, and that is actually actually one of when
I had that conversation with um, the fbi agent.
That was one of the things Irecommended was so I I don't
know what type of um are you indirect care right now?
Speaker 2 (56:18):
no, no, I'm not at all man.
Okay, I'm doing consulting or Ido stuff.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
Organizational behavior management, yeah okay,
so my, so my specialization.
Cool, Okay, so I'm in directcare autism and we have to be
trained in nonviolent crisisprevention and intervention.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
Oh, and let me pause you there you should be trained
in professional crisismanagement.
It's the only behavior basedsystem in the world that's
fluency based, the nonviolentPCM Yep M, yeah, pcma is and
just full transparency.
I work for them, but I don'tget any money on sales or
anything.
I went to work for them becauseof the integrity of their
(56:58):
program the only fluency-basedprogram in the world ground and
ABA from the ground up.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
So it's a plug for them because I believe it's what
everybody needs okay, I'm goingto write that down and bring
that up to my uh company.
Right now we do cpi training,so crisis prevention institute
I've done it so many times likedo it yeah but I I brought to
the fbi agent you guys need someof this, you know you.
(57:26):
I mean, don't just come in hot,you need to observe, be, you
know non-threatening, because weknow that behavior breeds
behavior.
So if you're coming in withyour body language being
threatening, the individual isgoing to be defensive and then
we have that power dynamic thatwe, we it's kind of hairy, um,
(57:50):
and I also.
So that is one another passionof mine is is the training we
need.
We need training on how to umdeal with individuals that might
be mentally ill.
Um, I gave a training earlierin April at the North Dakota
(58:11):
Emergency Medical ServicesConference on how to interact as
first responders withindividuals with autism.
We've seen all over the countrythere are these horrible
stories of autistic individualsbeing shot by police officers,
security guards, because theyare perceived as threatening.
(58:32):
So that is one of my areas aswell where I like to train.
But in general, handling youknow mental illness or whether
it just be you know just what wewould call, you know,
uncooperative behavior.
(58:52):
How do we handle this to ensureand maintain safety of everyone
involved?
Speaker 2 (58:59):
Yeah, and I want to.
I want to.
This is fresh out of my book,the positional authority and
leadership.
I want to say that this, right,we need.
We need four things.
I break down, like leadership,into four hats, and so it could
be used from anywhere.
It's just about improving andmaintaining performance.
We need a good leading whichcreates value for this stuff.
Right, it's an MO.
Right, we've got to have an MO.
So somebody engaged in goodleading behavior say hey guys,
(59:24):
here's what we need to do andhere's why it's going to make
your job easier.
It's going to keep you safe.
You're going to get more money.
Whatever it is, you know weyou're going to, you're going to
make a positive difference.
We got to tap into people'sreinforcers, right, their pain
points and you know their, their, their, their values.
Right, then, once, we create awant for that.
But then we got to trainfluency-based.
Right, we can't just give theseone-stop shops.
(59:46):
Right, you go in.
That's the problem with so manycrisis management systems.
You go, you get trained, youforget what you learned the next
day.
I've seen it, I've experiencedit.
It doesn't work that way.
We need to build fluency andkey skills.
It can't be everything.
What are some pivotal behaviors, some behavioral cusps that we
can focus on.
It will not stick withoutcoaching.
Coaching is about supporting thegeneralization of learned
(01:00:07):
skills into the naturalenvironment, which means that we
need to be able to help peoplebehave well enough long enough
that it produces naturallyoccurring positive reinforcement
for them.
So we've got to make surethat's available for them and
then we've got to make sure thatwe engage in managing, and
managing is about maintenance ofskills, right, and that is just
leveraging the system.
But the system has to bedeliberately developed to
(01:00:28):
possibly reinforce value-addedbehavior.
So those skills that they learnthey're coached with, we're
going to maintain them.
That's why I believe, likesaying, the cameras and let's
have a catch them being good,let's have them have a belt
ranking in, like nonviolentinteractions or whatever, and
let's have that belt ranking.
It could be just that they feelgood about it, but I bet, if it
was tied into a little bit ofincreased pay, that it's going
(01:00:50):
to make it even more meaningfulor increase access to some other
things, and I think thatthey're going to save a lot of
money on the back end.
I think that they're going tobuild relationships with the
community, but I think when theydo that.
I think we also need to put someonus back on the community as
well.
Cops tell you to do things.
I believe that you got to dothose things, you know, because
it's creating an issue whereother people like learning like
(01:01:16):
we don't have to follow.
You know police rules and Iwatched like somebody having a
DA spend an hour talking acouple people down.
Well, they're talking thisperson down because the person's
in their face, telling them tofuck off and do all this stuff,
which I don't think is okay.
Um, that means those copsaren't out patrolling the
community or doing these otherthings you know.
So I think that citizens do haveresponsibility, that they've
(01:01:36):
got to learn to interact with.
You know law enforcement betteras well, and they need to be
trained and have value.
And you know there's got to beagreed upon.
But I think it's gonna.
I think it's gonna start withthe cops building their skills
and stuff first and then, oncewe invest in that, then we say,
okay, community, now it's on you.
You need to now have thisresponsibility.
Here are the key behaviors thatyou need to engage in when an
(01:01:56):
officer asks you to do A, b andC.
Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Yeah, and I think too , like, like you said, you know,
first step, training the copsand then pairing Right.
We got to pair with thecommunity because right now the
community has only Well, Ishouldn't say only has a lot of
negative viewpoints towards thecops.
(01:02:20):
But if we can get cops back outthere and pairing with the
community in positive ways, um,a friend of mine, he he
mentioned, bring back beat cops.
You know who were part of thecommunity.
They were seen as people youcan go to and talk to and trust.
Um, we need to pair cops withthe community to build back up
(01:02:46):
that rapport and so everyone canengage in these behaviors that
we want to and need to see.
Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Well, and I think that again, another area for
behavior analysis we could havea metric for that.
Let's have some sociability outthere.
Let's find out the people thatinteract most with the cops
experience it.
Let's find out how they feelabout them.
But let's tie that in, let'snot use that to beat them up.
Let's find out a baseline of itand let's say here are the key
behaviors you want to engage in.
Let's use the coach andpositively reinforce.
(01:03:16):
I think when we have all thiswraparound which you know it's
got to start from leadershipcoming down in these departments
and the communities, and thecommunity is like everybody's
got to be involved, there's gotto be some responsibility, but
we can guide it with science.
So we've got something that wehave some shared values here.
Well, listen, it's beenfascinating to discuss this.
It's very cool to see that youand I think other people agree
(01:03:40):
that are doing somethingdifferent with the science.
I hope that this podcast getsin the hands of some law
enforcement somewhere and theywant to pick it up and pull you
in to do some more, becausebehavior analysis, we know, can
make a big difference anywherein the world.
So, presley, if people want toreach out to you what would be
the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
So we have.
So ABAI, Association forBehavior Analysis International,
has special interest groups.
I am the sitting chair of theForensic Behavior Analysis
Special Interest Group, so youcan find my email address on
ABAI's website.
We also have a Facebook groupForensic Behavior Analysis.
(01:04:25):
We'll be at ABAI end of Mayhere, so we're having a workshop
.
You can join the workshop.
You can come to our businessmeeting, chat with us right
there.
I'll be there.
Yeah, lots of ways, and I cansend you.
Well, you have my email too,Polly, right?
Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Send me anything that you want.
I don't know if there wassomething accessible you can
send me.
If you want something in theshow notes, I can certainly send
.
I usually link your LinkedInpeople's LinkedIn.
Oh, that'll work too, yeah, butif there's anything else you
want in the show notes, dropthem to me and I'll make sure
that people have access to them.
Cool, all right, prezi Thanks.
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