Juvenile Psychopathy from a Developmental Perspective: Implications for Construct Development and Use in Forensic Assessments

D. Seagrave and T. Grisso (2002) provide a review of the emerging research on the construct of juvenile psychopathy and make the important point that use of this construct in forensic decision-making could have serious consequences for juvenile offenders. Furthermore, the existing literature on the construct of psychopathy in youth is not sufficient to justify its use for most forensic purposes. These basic points are very important cautions on the use of measures of psychopathy in forensic settings. However, in this response, several issues related to the reasons given for why concern over the potential misuse of measures of psychopathy should be greater than that for measures of other psychopathological constructs used to make decisions with potentially serious consequences are discussed. Also, the rationale for some of the standards proposed to guide research on measures of juvenile psychopathy that focus on assumptions about the construct of psychopathy that are not clearly articulated and that are only peripherally related to validating their use in forensic assessments is questioned.