NCJ Number
193728
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 47 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2002 Pages: 103-106
Date Published
2002
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article presents a framework for criminal biting behaviors, using a range of psychological models.
Abstract
In the context of a criminal investigation the human bitemark provides the forensic dentist with physical and biological evidence. In addition, expert witnesses have also testified in court regarding the behavioral aspects of biting behavior. This study reviews the research literature in an effort to explain biting behavior. The literature revealed that only two papers related to the topic. The reason for increased understanding of biting behavior came about primarily from a need to clarify and inform legal proceedings in cases that linked biting behavior to suspects in criminal trials. The empirical research on violent crimes that served as the basis for the development of criminal personality profiling began as a pilot project at the Federal Bureau of Investigation Academy. Subjects who were incarcerated for serial sexual murders were identified and interviewed by special agents. The project provided data regarding offender characteristics and their behaviors in the commission of crimes. The profilers were able to develop typologies, understand the link between crime scenes and the characteristics of offenders and develop information that is useful in violent crime investigations. In the analysis of a homicide that involves human bite marks, the profiler would consider the number and location of the bitemarks and the estimated time the bites were inflicted. It is also useful to view biting in terms of different kinds of biters: the experimental biter, the frustrated biter and the threatened biter. Each type of biter is associated with a specific theoretical signpost: the experimental biter with sexual deviation, the frustrated biter, with offender cognition, and the threatened biter with personal constructs. At present, there does not appear to be a satisfactory answer to criminal biting behavior. This paper was written as a way of stimulating debate and furthering research on the subject of biting behavior. 29 References