Juvenile Psychopathy and Community Treatment Response in Youth Adjudicated for Sexual Offenses

The present study examined the association of juvenile psychopathy features and treatment response in a sample of 102 youth, court adjudicated for sexual offenses and followed up more than 11 years in the community. The Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL: YV) was rated from comprehensive archival sources, along with a youth sexual offense risk assessment and treatment planning measure scored pre-and posttreatment. The PCL: YV converged with domains of sexual offense risk and change in conceptually meaningful ways, and significantly predicted nonsexual violent, general violent, and any recidivism; it did not significantly predict sexual recidivism. Higher levels of psychopathy-related personality features were significantly associated with noncompletion of youth sexual offense-specific treatment, while changes in risk were associated with decreased recidivism controlling for PCL: YV score and baseline risk at p < .10. The findings underscore the importance of intervention and support services for youth convicted of sexual offenses as well as the clinical and risk relevance of the juvenile psychopathy construct to decrease violent victimization to others.

Multidimensional scaling analysis of psychopathy in male juveniles using the PCL: YV

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the structure of juvenile psychopathy, as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL: YV). Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of 2,042 male youths from the USA, Canada, and the UK, the study was a conceptual replication of Bishopp and Hare’s (2008) multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis of adult male offenders assessed with the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. Findings The scaling analyses generally replicated those obtained by Bishopp and Hare, providing support for a multidimensional, four-factor model of juvenile psychopathy similar to that obtained with adults. However, a small number of items fell outside their predicted regions. Slight differences in the structure of juvenile psychopathy were found for incarcerated and supervised samples of youth, with the four-factor model breaking down slightly for the supervised sample. Item misplacements may indicate that certain items on the PCL: YV are being misinterpreted, reflect different dimensions for different samples, or cannot be reliably measured. Future research should examine these possibilities, with special attention being paid to supervised samples. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first known attempts to use MDS analysis to examine the psychopathy structures that emerge for male juvenile offenders. The greater nuances afforded by using MDS offer a more comprehensive understanding of psychopathy between incarcerated and supervised youth using the PCL: YV.