Citation

Odgers CL, Reppucci ND, Moretti MM. Behav. Sci. Law 2005; 23(6): 743-763.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada. codgers@sfu.ca

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/bsl.664

PMID

16333812

Abstract

Over the last decade rates of violence among adolescent girls have increased. Within high-risk contexts, urgent calls for assessment options have resulted in the extension of adult and male-based instruments to adolescent females in spite of the absence of strong empirical support. The current study evaluates the downward extension of psychopathy within a population of female juvenile offenders (N=125). The convergent and predictive validity of the Psychopathy Checklist-Youth Version (PCL-YV) were evaluated within a structural equation modeling (SEM) framework. Results indicated that while a specific component of psychopathy, deficient affective experience, was related to aggression, the effect was negated once victimization experiences were entered into the models. In addition, PCL-YV scores were not predictive of future offending, while victimization experiences significantly increased the odds of re-offending. Implications for research, policy, and clinical practice are discussed.

Language: en