Adolescent Development and the Measurement of Juvenile Psychopathy

• Published in: Law and human behavior Vol. 26; no. 2; pp. 219 - 239
• Main Authors: Seagrave, Daniel, Grisso, Thomas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers 01.04.2002; American Psychological Law Society
• Subjects: Adolescence; Adolescent; Adolescent Development; Adolescents; Adult; Adults; Adversarial Forum; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Antisocial Personality Disorder - diagnosis; Behavior disorders; Child; Child development; Childhood; Children & youth; Criminal Justice; Criminals; Experimentation; False positive errors; Female; Forensic Evaluation; Forensic psychiatry; Forensic Psychiatry - methods; Forensic Psychiatry - standards; Human; Humans; Hypotheses; Juvenile courts; Juvenile delinquency; Juvenile Delinquency - legislation & jurisprudence; Juvenile Delinquency - psychology; Juvenile justice; Juvenile offenders; Male; Measurement; Parents; Psychological Tests - standards; Psychometrics - standards; Psychopathy; Reproducibility of Results; Sensitivity and Specificity; Studies; Teenagers; Theories; Trials; United States; Young offenders; United States; United States > US
• ISSN: 0147-7307; 1573-661X
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1014696110850

Researchers are currently seeking antecedents of psychopathy among children and adolescents. Instruments developed for this purpose are likely to be used in the future in ways that may have serious implications for youths in delinquency and criminal cases. In this regard, and because the concept and measurement of psychopathy have been developed in reference to adults, there is reason to be concerned about potential developmental sources of false positives when measuring psychopathic traits in juvenile offenders. We provide the basis for our concern, as well as standards regarding the types of research evidence that should be provided before psychopathy measures are accepted for use in juvenile forensic assessments.