Although narrative reviews have suggested that "youth psychopathy" is a strong predictor of future crime and violence, to date no quantitative summaries of this literature have been conducted. We meta-analyzed recidivism data for the Psychopathy Checklist measures across 21 non-overlapping samples of male and female juvenile offenders. After removing outliers, psychopathy was significantly associated with general and violent recidivism (r (w)'s of .24 and .25, respectively), but negligibly related to sexual recidivism in the few studies examining this low base rate outcome. Even after eliminating outliers, however, considerable heterogeneity was noted among the effects, with some of this variability being explained by the gender and ethnic composition of the samples. Effect sizes for the small number of female samples available for analysis were mostly small and nonsignificant, and psychopathy was a weaker predictor of violent recidivism among more ethnically heterogeneous samples. In relation to predicting both general and violent recidivism, psychopathy performed comparably to an instrument designed specifically to assess risk, the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (Hoge & Andrews, 2002).

Contemporary motivational theories of psychopathy (Lykken, 1995) employ constructs from Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST; Gray, 1982), behavioral inhibition system (BIS) and behavioral activation system (BAS) functioning, to explain etiologic differences in psychopathy subtypes. Carver and White's (1994) BIS/BAS scales are the most widely used measures of these constructs, yet there is a dearth of research on how these measures perform with offenders. Using a sample of 1,515 offenders, we found evidence that five, rather than the usual four factors, underpin the BIS/BAS scales. Importantly, BIS items that tap into anxiety and fear sensitivity, respectively, split to form separate factors, yielding a structure that is more consistent with the revised (Gray & McNaughton, 2000) than with the earlier version of RST. Implications for the use of the BIS/BAS scales to study psychopathy in offenders are discussed.

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The mortality experience of 68,153 men, 35 to 64 years of age, over a period representing 482,658 person‐years of observation during which 4,706 known deaths occurred is related to their cigarette smoking habits. The findings are compared to the several other prospective studies reported in recent years relating mortality to cigarette smoking. All studies are in essential agreement that cigarette smoking increases the risk for cancer of the mouth, larynx, esophagus, lung, kidney, and bladder. A few other tissue sites appear to carry increased risk of cancer as a result of cigarette smoking in one or another study but without unanimity. The risk gradient for lung cancer by age and amount of smoking increases in successive 10‐year age groups to be maximal at 55 to 64 years in our study. Other diseases related to cigarette smoking in this and other prospective studies are gastric ulcer, emphysema, aneurysm, general arteriosclerosis, and arteriosclerotic heart disease. The latter is especially important because of the large number of deaths involved. The relative risk gradient for arteriosclerotic heart disease by age and amount of cigarette smoking was found to be maximum in the youngest age group comprising men 35 to 44 years of age and lessens with increasing age. Future studies should be directed toward identifying other variables with which cigarette smoking interacts in those individuals developing disease.

The early detection of dementia carries implications for clinical management for patients and their families and is of utmost concern if an effective pharmacological treatment is to be found. The utility of an enhanced cued recall paradigm for predicting dementia in a group of elderly subjects was examined. Forty-five subjects referred for clinical evaluation who did not meet the criteria for dementia at initial assessment were reassessed 12-18 months later. Eighteen of these subjects were diagnosed as having possible or probable Alzheimer Disease at reassessment and the diagnostic status of 27 remained unchanged. At initial assessment the 'change' group performed more poorly than the 'no change' group on measures of retrieval, acquisition and retention derived from the cued recall procedure. As would be expected, the performance of the 'no change' group remained stable over time whereas the performance of the 'change' group deteriorated, resembling the performance of a group of subjects with mild possible or probable Alzheimer disease. When the sensitivity and specificity of the memory variables were examined, the retrieval measure (i.e., free recall) appeared most useful as an early predictor of dementia. Continued longitudinal evaluations of subjects with questionable dementia are needed to address more fully the natural history of early memory changes associated with dementia.