The Use of a Screening Device to Assess Psychopathy in Young Offenders

Abstract

The aim of this research was to determine to what extent a psychopath screening device (the APSD) is useful in forensic assessments to predict general and violent offending. For this purpose, a cross-sectional study was done and 238 young people serving a sentence were assessed. The gold standard instrument used to measure psychopathy was the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV; Forth, Kosson & Hare, 2003). The results indicate that the association found between the screening device scores and several indicators of risk is low if compared with those obtained with the PCL:YV, suggesting that it is less useful as a tool in order to predict offending or violent offences. However, an Area Under the Curve of .784 and a validity index of 62.5 support its use as a screening device or as a preliminary approach to assess psychopathy in this population. The usefulness of this instrument to make assessments with young people in the forensic setting is discussed.

A Prospective Study on Self-Reported Psychopathy and Criminal Recidivism Among Incarcerated Male Juvenile Offenders

“…This is consistent with some previous studies using youth and adult samples (e.g., Colins, van Damme, Andershed, Fanti, & DeLisi, 2017;Colins, Vermeiren, De Bolle, & Broekaert, 2012;Rock, Sellbom, Ben-Porath, & Salekin, 2013). Self-report measures may have some relevance if used with caution as preliminary screening devices (e.g., Silva et al, 2012), but they did not predict recidivism after taking aspects of criminal history (crime frequency and age at first incarceration) into account. Given that criminal justice systems routinely have access to criminal history information, self-reported psychopathy may not provide additional value in terms of predicting recidivism in these settings (Asscher et al, 2011;Lilienfeld & Fowler, 2006).…”

“…Results tended to show little overlap between the different measures and the different methods of assessment and that the predictive capability of some psychopathy measures usually disappeared or was substantially reduced after controlling for relevant variables such as past criminal offenses and conduct disorder diagnosis. Self-report measures of psychopathy in particular tended to show less utility because of reliability, convergent validity, and malingering problems (Munoz & Frick, 2007;Salekin, Leistico, Neumann, DiCicco, & Duros, 2004;Silva, Genoves, & Latorre, 2012). For example, Asscher et al (2011) found that clinical ratings of psychopathy had stronger associations with criminal outcomes compared with self-report measures of psychopathy, possibly reflecting the impact of social desirability or other response biases on the latter.…”

Impulsiveness and Child-to-Parent Violence: The Role of Aggressor’s Sex

“…In reference to personal factors, studies have found that perpetrators have a number of psychological characteristics in common, such as low self-esteem, anxiety, depression or personality disorders, a low level of school education and a low motivation and commitment to such education (e.g., Contreras & Cano, 2015; Ibabe & Jaureguizar, 2012; Ibabe et al, 2013b; Romero, Melero, Cánovas, & Antolín, 2005; Silva, Garrido, & López, 2012). Some studies have also found that children who commit CPV have higher levels of aggressiveness and low frustration tolerance (Nock & Kazdin, 2002).…”

Psychopathic features in young incarcerated females

“…Like the adult literature, the PCL:YV has been found to be predictive of recidivism and violence (Silva et al, 2012;Skeem and Cauffman, 2003;Shepard and Strand, 2015). However, the predictive power of the PCL:YV is largely due to the behavioural features of psychopathy (Vincent et al, 2008;Shepard and Strand, 2015).…”