Warning Behaviors

Abstract

The typology of eight proximal warning behaviors for targeted violence was first introduced a decade ago. Since that time, a number of studies have continued to support its interrater reliability and its criterion, discriminant, and predictive validity. Among the warning behaviors, the three most validated in discriminating between attackers and nonattackers are pathway, identification, and last resort. All of the other warning behaviors—fixation, novel aggression, energy burst, leakage, and directly communicated threat—are found at various frequencies throughout all the samples tested to date, including intimate partner homicide perpetrators, school shooters, adult mass murderers, public figure attackers, and lone actor terrorists.

TRAP-18 indicators validated through the forensic linguistic analysis of targeted violence manifestos.

“…Other research (Meloy & Gill, 2016) suggests that less than 20% of lone actor terrorists directly threaten their target before an act of violence, with the most obvious reason being a tactical one: “the subject does not want to lower his probability of success by forewarning the target he has selected” (Meloy et al, 2019, p. 12). The finding of a very low frequency of direct threats in any act of targeted violence is a very robust finding in threat assessment research—with the exception of spousal homicides where direct threats are quite common (Meloy, Hoffmann, Bibeau, & Guldiman, 2021).…”

“…Although acts of targeted violence are extremely difficult to predict, largely due to their low base rates, it has become apparent that subjects who embark on a pathway to violence consistently exhibit warning behaviors that alert threat assessors to engage in management of the emerging threat (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2017). These patterns of warning behaviors have been shown to both correlate with, and in some cases predict, acts of targeted violence, and have been widely adopted as a means by which a person of concern’s behavior can be analyzed prior to an attack (Meloy, Hoffmann, Bibeau, & Guldiman, 2021). A principle structured professional judgment instrument for assessing the risk of a lone actor terrorist attack is the Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18; Meloy, 2017), which incorporates these proximal warning behaviors.…”

Violence in a place of healing: Weapons-based attacks in health care facilities.

“…We examined several distal risk factors, including violent history, substance use, and history of mental illness, along with several proximal warning behaviors, such as “pathway to violence” (Calhoun & Weston, 2003), fixation, identification, novel aggression, energy burst, leakage, directly communicated threat, last resort (Meloy, Hoffman, Bibeau, & Guldimann, 2021), approach behavior, and end-of-life planning (Amman et al, 2017).…”

“…Fixation behavior (Meloy, Hoffman, Bibeau, & Guldimann, 2021) is any behavior that reveals an increasing obsession or preoccupation with a person or a cause. It can be accompanied by increasing negativity and anger, reduced willingness to consider other opinions regarding the person or situation, and social or occupational deterioration as the person loses interest or ability to focus on other aspects of his life.…”

“…Certain proximal behaviors have emerged of late as strong correlates of planned violence. In the case of school attacks, the most salient risk factor for future violence is leakage (Meloy, Hoffman, Bibeau, & Guldimann, 2021). Leakage occurs when an individual intentionally or unintentionally reveals intent to harm via any expressive means other than a direct threat (Amman et al, 2017).…”