Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Jul;52(7):1089-1103.
doi: 10.1007/s10802-024-01169-x. Epub 2024 Feb 26.

Psychopathy Scores Predict Recidivism in High-risk Youth: A Five-year Follow-up Study

Corey H Allen  1 , Aparna R Gullapalli  2 , Michaela Milillo  2 , Devin M Ulrich  2   3 , Samantha N Rodriguez  2   4 , J Michael Maurer  2 , Eyal Aharoni  5 , Nathaniel E Anderson  2 , Carla L Harenski  2 , Gina M Vincent  6 , Kent A Kiehl  2   4
Affiliations

Psychopathy Scores Predict Recidivism in High-risk Youth: A Five-year Follow-up Study

Corey H Allen et al. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol. 2024 Jul.

Abstract

Psychopathic traits have been associated with rearrest in adolescents involved in the criminal legal system. Much of the prior work has focused on White samples, short follow-up windows, and relatively low-risk youth. The current study aimed to evaluate the utility of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) for predicting general and violent felony recidivism in a large sample of high-risk, predominantly Hispanic/Latino, male adolescents (n = 254) with a five-year follow-up period. Results indicated higher PCL:YV scores and lower full-scale estimated IQ scores were significantly associated with a shorter time to felony and violent felony rearrest. These effects generalized to Hispanic/Latino adolescents (n = 193)-a group that faces disproportionate risk of being detained or committed to juvenile correctional facilities in the U.S. These results suggest that expert-rated measures of psychopathic traits and IQ are reliable predictors of subsequent felony and violent felony rearrest among high-risk male adolescents.

Keywords: Delinquency; Impulsivity; Juvenile; Psychopathy; Rearrest; Violence.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Kaplan-Meier curves showing rearrest rates (in months) with 95% confidence intervals and survival risk tables across Felony Rearrest and Violent Felony Rearrest
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Centered and scaled results of Cox proportional-hazard regression bivariate analyses examining the predictive effect of age at release, TBI, SUD, IQ, PCL:YV Total, Factor 1, Factor 2, Facet 1, Facet 2, Facet 3, and Facet 4 on a general felony and b violent felony rearrest for the full sample, and c general felony and d violent felony rearrest for the Hispanic/Latino subsample. Scaling includes normalization of values via the mean and standard deviation: analogous to a z-score. Sample size, Beta HR (95% CI for HR), and p-values are shown for each measure
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Kaplan-Meier curves showing felony rearrest rates (in months) based on median splits of IQ and a PCL:YV Factor 2, b PCL:YV Facet 1, and c PCL:YV Facet 3 for the sake of visualizing observed significant interaction effects
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Aharoni E, Vincent GM, Harenski CL, Calhoun VD, Sinnott-Armstrong W, Gazzaniga MS, Kiehl KA. Neuroprediction of future rearrest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2013;110(15):6223–6228. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Allen CH, Aharoni E, Gullapalli AR, Edwards BG, Harenski CL, Harenski KA, Kiehl KA. Hemodynamic activity in the limbic system predicts reoffending in women. NeuroImage: Clinical. 2022;36:103238. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2022.103238. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Anderson DA. The aggregate burden of crime. The Journal of Law and Economics. 1999;42(2):611–642.
    1. Anderson NE, Kiehl KA. Psychopathy: Developmental perspectives and their implications for treatment. Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. 2014;32(1):103–117. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Andrews DA, Bonta JL, Hoge RD. Classification for effective rehabilitation: Rediscovering psychology. Criminal Justice & Behavior. 1990;17:19–52.

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources