Citation

Jones S, Cauffman E. Behav. Sci. Law 2008; 26(2): 151-165.

Affiliation

Department of Criminology, University of South Florida, 4202 EastFowler Avenue, SOC 107, Tampa, FL 33620-8100, USA. sjones@cas.usf.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/bsl.792

PMID

18344169

Abstract

In the burgeoning juvenile psychopathy literature, there is a debate on whether it is appropriate to apply this construct to youths. Some have suggested that labeling children/adolescents as psychopathic might result in negative consequences, such as being recommended for more restrictive placements. However, the scant evidence is equivocal. This study provides additional insights on this issue by assessing judicial perceptions and recommendations to a hypothetical case. Results indicate that psychopathy influenced perceptions of amenability (eta = .12) and dangerousness (eta = .25), and recommendations for placement (eta = .11). More specifically, youth who were both labeled as psychopathic and ascribed psychopathic traits were viewed as less amenable to treatment and more dangerous and were more likely to be recommended for a restrictive placement than youth who were neither labeled nor described as such. The effect of psychopathy on placement recommendations, however, was not significant after controlling for perceptions of dangerous. This suggests that the influence of psychopathy on judicial restrictiveness may operate through the perceived dangerousness of the youth.

Language: en