Criminal Poisoning and Product Tampering: Toward an Operational Definition of Malicious Contamination

ABSTRACT

“Malicious contamination” encompasses multiple crimes that have received little previous academic attention, including poisoning and product tampering. While these acts may seem easy to distinguish, there are many areas of overlap, and so before these crimes and those who commit them can be understood clear definitions must be introduced. The presence or absence of 14 behavioral variables is proposed as a way of distinguishing product tamperings from poisonings, with the empirical definition then tested on 384 malicious contamination incidents. The operational definition successfully distinguishes 92.7% of the cases and allows for a comparison of the differences between poisoning and tampering.

Notes

¹ The numbers given in parentheses in this section indicate the frequency of occurrence across the whole sample.

² There are a small number of combinations that are not theoretically possible.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Margaret A. Wilson

MARGARET A. WILSON is a Forensic Psychologist best known for her research on terrorist behavior. She is currently based at Imperial College London and teaches on terrorism for The University of Maryland.

Sarah C. Kilbane

SARAH C. KILBANE is a Lecturer in criminology with the University of Greenwich. Her research interests include food safety and CBRN terrorism, extortion by product contamination, and predictive modeling as applied to criminal behavior.