Crime and behavioral addictions

DEFINITION: Behavioral addictions involve the compulsive repetition of negative behaviors independent of the ingestion of drugs and alcohol. While far less prevalent than substance abuse addictions, behavioral addictions, when they involve criminal acts, can be equally destructive to the person with an addiction, their family, and society in general. Several particular facets of behavioral addiction commonly result in criminal activity, including ludomania (compulsive gambling), hypersexuality (compulsive sexual behavior), kleptomania (compulsive stealing), and pyromania (an impulse control disorder characterized by the uncontrollable urge to set fires). However, not all behavioral addictions are attributable to criminal behavior.

Introduction

Behavioral addictions are closely related to maladapted impulse-control abilities as defined by the repeated failure or inability to resist harmful behavior or impulsive actions. Behavioral addictions involve a variety of common behaviors and peculiar activities.

Many individuals with behavioral addictions develop a compulsion for activities that other persons engage in only occasionally, such as shopping, sexual activity, eating, or gambling. Scientists estimate that between 3 and 8.6 percent of the American population have a sexual addiction. Additionally, an estimated 5 to 8 percent of Americans may shop compulsively, while prevailing research suggests that 1 to 6 percent of adults worldwide have a gambling compulsion disorder. Behavioral addictions to food, shopping, technological devices, exercise, and appearance are conventionally only harmful to the individual with the addiction. Several addictions, however, result in criminal activity.

Criminal Behavior and Compulsive Gambling

Compulsive gambling is a behavioral addiction that manifests itself as an obsession with placing financial wagers for the possibility, however scant, of a profitable return. Gambling addiction spans the entire gamut of games of chance, from sports betting and card games to billiards, casino gaming, and lotteries. Gambling was one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States in the first decades of the twenty-first century. At the same time, illegal wagering maintained a cultural presence so large and long-standing that law enforcement agencies could only contain, not prevent, it.

Conventionally, individuals who are addicted to gambling resort to criminal behavior only after all other avenues of potential income are no longer available. This behavior includes the sale of personal property, the sale of property of friends and family, or petty theft from spouses and family.

Aside from engaging in illicit acts like petty and grand theft, research indicates that individuals with addictions also engage in a variety of other criminal activities. These activities range from fabricating auto accident claims to health insurance fraud, arson, and making false claims about thefts, fires, and property damage. Data indicate that compulsive gambling can lead to involvement in drug trafficking, assault, and sex work. Many parallels exist between gambling and substance addictions—each addiction lends itself to erratic tendencies, poor judgment, and violent behavior that often results in criminal activity.

Gambling disorder is listed as a substance-related and addictive disorder in the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR), published in 2022. The listing reflects growing evidence that gambling disorder is similar to substance use disorders in terms of its effects on the brain’s reward system.

Criminal Behavior and Sex Addiction

Each year in America, 69 percent of men and 40 percent of women view online pornography. Among these individuals, research indicates that between 3 to 8 percent of adults have some form of sex addiction, though some studies found this percentage to be up to 11 percent in men and close to 3 percent in women. Additionally, around 25 percent of men who admit to watching pornography on a regular basis say they hide it from their spouse. This type of deception can be the start of an addiction. Sex addiction can range from the constant desire for sexual activity or stimulation to an inability to control sexual urges, behaviors, and thoughts. Sex addiction enters the realm of criminal behavior when it involves the improper coercion, exploitation, or duress of other persons. It also involves forcing others to act out sexual behaviors in a public forum without discretion or respect for societal norms.

Not all individuals with a sex addiction partake in criminal activities or are addicted to perverse sexual behaviors. However, some engage in criminal behaviors, including sexual assault and rape, sex work, incest, pedophilia, harassment, voyeurism, and exhibitionism. Like many other behavioral and substance addictions, sex addiction may be related to the effect of dopamine on the brain.

The rise of the internet and its perceived anonymity is linked to the growth of illegal online sexual behaviors such as viewing child pornography, soliciting sex from minors, and engaging in cybersex. Over 50 percent of convicted sex offenders receive sex addiction diagnoses. Among individuals convicted of molesting a child, over 70 percent are addicted to sex. Generally, these individuals commit sexual offenses against members of their family or close friends.

Kleptomania

Kleptomania, or compulsive stealing, is, by definition, an addiction to criminal behavior. While petty thieves and shoplifters customarily steal for want of items they cannot afford or steal for profit, kleptomaniacs impulsively steal from all locations and for any reason; they steal for the sake of stealing. According to 2022 statistics from Pacific Teen Treatment, 0.3 to 0.6 percent of the American population has this behavioral addiction. Two-thirds of those with the addiction are female.

The cause of kleptomania is unknown and widely debated among both medical and sociological professionals. While some experts believe it is related to the release of dopamine during the act of theft, others believe it also may be a behavior symptomatic of other underlying psychological or social development problems. The DSM-5-TR lists kleptomania as one of several disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders.

Pyromania

Pyromania is an extremely rare but potentially lethal behavioral addiction involving the compulsive starting of fires. According to a study in the British Journal of Criminology, pyromaniacs account for only about 1 to 4 percent of all arsonists in the United States each year. Between 2 and 3.5 percent of adolescents may have pyromania, according to some studies. Unlike arsonists, who ignite fires for personal or financial gain or as an act of assault, pyromaniacs achieve euphoria by creating fire as a destructive force. Pyromaniacs also take pleasure in surveying the damage left behind by fires.

Much like kleptomania, pyromania is believed to be rooted in underlying psychological trauma or impaired social development of some kind. This trauma often includes a childhood history of psychological, physical, or sexual abuse. Experts believe that pyromania may be caused by an aggression rooted in childhood abuse and by poorly developed problem-solving skills and cognitive maladjustment. The DSM-5-TR lists pyromania as one of several disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders.

Strategies for Treatment

Although persons with behavioral addictions have several similarities with persons with substance abuse addictions, there remains a great deal of debate on whether behavioral addictions can be classified as addictive behavior. A wide sociological and scientific gap exists between the concepts of addiction and impulse control disorders.

Research indicates that the neurological patterns between individuals addicted to substances and those addicted to behaviors have many similarities, but not enough is known about these neurological functions to present a clear delineation between the two. It is perhaps because of these similarities that the treatment strategy for behavioral addictions closely mirrors that of substance abuse recovery.

Treatment for gambling, sex, shopping, and other compulsive behaviors often involves cognitive therapy to attempt to highlight the underlying psychological factors that lead a person to act on such impulses. This connection has been further established by the effective use of substance abuse treatments such as group therapy and by the use of antidepressant medications in persons with impulse control disorders.

Individualized therapy coupled with immersion in support groups has also shown to be beneficial for improvements in impulse control. Like their substance abuse counterparts, behavioral addiction support groups strive to deconstruct the common repetitive cycle of isolation and shame inherent in addictive behavioral patterns. These programs also focus on the development of new coping skills with which to combat the anxieties that may lead to compulsive behaviors.

Much of the debate lies in the neurological of pleasure-inducing chemicals such as beta-endorphins and serotonin function in the brain. Scientific research has shown that persons on medications that boost production of such chemicals are more likely to develop addictive behavioral patterns.

A major disruption to the development of early screening, treatment, and prevention of impulse control behaviors is the lack of agreement in determining what behaviors constitute the diagnosis of addiction and where behavioral addictions land on this spectrum. Another source of disruption is determining the relationship between these disorders and criminal behavior.

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