Juvenile Psychopath: Fads, Fictions, and Facts

• NCJ Number: 194913
• Author(s): Laurence Steinberg
• Date Published: March 2002
• Length: 30 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/NCJRS; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: From "Perspectives on Crime and Justice: 2000-2001 Lecture Series," V 5, March 2002.

Annotation

This paper examines the potential overuse of the label of "psychopath" for juveniles, a label that makes them more likely to be viewed as incorrigible, less likely to receive rehabilitative dispositions, and more likely to be transferred to the criminal justice system for disposition as an adult.

Abstract

The paper first distinguishes between "psychopathology" and "psychopathy." Most researchers use the term "psychopathology" loosely to refer to a continuum of problems that range from mild discomfort to full-blown psychosis. "Psychopathy," on the other hand, refers to a specific and distinctive type of psychopathology. It is a type of personality disorder defined chiefly by a combination of antisocial behavior, callousness, and emotional detachment. For the diagnosis of psychopathy, studies of adults have shown the effectiveness of the revised version of the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL). A slightly revised version of this measure, the PCL Youth Version, is now available for use with adolescents. This paper raises three questions about the use of the PCL Youth Version to assess juvenile psychopathy for the purposes of making sentencing, transfer, and decertification decisions. One question is whether measures of psychopathy mean the same thing when used in adolescent populations as they do when used in adult populations (construct validity). The second question is whether scores on measures of psychopathy derived during adolescence correlate with scores on measures of psychopathy derived during adulthood (stability). The third questions is whether scores on measures of psychopathy derived during adolescence predict antisocial behavior and violence during adulthood (predictive utility). The author advises that before the use of psychopathy assessments in dispositional decision-making for juveniles can be recommended, more research must be conducted, primarily through well-designed longitudinal studies, to determine the construct validity, stability, and predictive utility of the diagnostic tools being used with adolescents. 1 exhibit, a question-and-answer session, and 30 notes