Defining youth psychopathy

Psychopathy has been considered one of the most dangerous and pervasive of disorders known to date. The construct has been researched extensively in the adult male criminal population but an ongoing debate remains as to whether personality or behavioral criteria should be considered cardinal to this disorder. A preliminary construct for adolescent psychopathy has been based on downward extensions of adult criteria such as the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R). This process has been controversial, however, and yielded no conclusive findings. This study adopted a back to basics approach to define the construct of adolescent psychopathy using clinicians\u27 judgments