Elsevier

Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume 43, Issue 4, July–August 2015, Pages 274-289
Journal of Criminal Justice

Bringing psychopathy into developmental and life-course criminology theories and research

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2015.06.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • A review of the empirical support for psychopathy and the 10 major DLC theories is conducted.

  • How psychopathy contributes to the development of offending over the life-course is described.

  • Specific opportunities to integrate psychopathy in each DLC theoretical framework are identified.

Abstract

Developmental and life-course criminology (DLC) aims to identify the causes and correlates of offending over the life span, focusing on the within-individual variations that result in criminal and delinquent behavior. While DLC theories have been very successful and increasingly popular in the field of criminology, a key predictor of antisocial and criminal behavior- psychopathy- has been notably absent from the DLC field. In fact, psychopathy is sometimes referred to as the most important construct in the criminal justice system. Many risk factors and personality traits of psychopathy are also similar to those proposed by DLC theories for antisocial and criminal behavior. Therefore, psychopathy may be used in DLC research to help understand the development of offending over the life-course, and improve the ability of current models to predict antisocial and criminal behavior. This article aims to bring psychopathy into DLC research by reviewing the empirical support for psychopathy and 10 major DLC theories, and outlining the specific opportunities for the integration of psychopathy within each theoretical framework. By doing this, we hope to lay the foundation for a new alliance between psychopathy and DLC researchers, and further our understanding of the clear relationship between psychopathic personality, antisocial behavior, and crime.

Introduction

Psychopathy is a well-known construct to many criminologists, psychologists, criminal justice practitioners, and the public (see e.g., DeLisi, 2009, Farrington, 2005a, Harris et al., 2001b, Jones et al., 2011, Lynam et al., 2009b). In the centuries since Pinel’s (1801) original description of psychopathy as “insanity without delirium”, both the understanding of and empirical support for psychopathy has greatly increased (DeLisi, 2009). More currently, the psychopath has been conceptualized as an individual who shows an overall lack of remorse and empathy for others, does not care or consider what other people think or how his or her actions may affect others, feels little emotion, has low behavioral control, is manipulative, narcissistic, a pathological liar, and fails to accept responsibility for his or her actions (Hare, 2003).

Several instruments have been developed to measure levels of psychopathy and identify psychopathic individuals in the population. Among the most pervasive is Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) assessments, including the PCL-R (revised), PCL: SV (screening version), and PCL: YV (youth version) (Hare, 2003). The PCL-R is an itemized checklist composed of 20 traits and behaviors believed to represent psychopathic tendencies, such as low empathy, a conning and manipulative personality, egocentricity, impulsiveness, and low affect, and behavioral elements such as sexual promiscuity, juvenile delinquency, and criminal versatility (Hare, 1991). While the PCL-R has been the subject of considerable research with most studies having indicated support for the validity of the PCL-R and the PCL-YV to predict adult and adolescent criminal behavior and recidivism respectively (Cooke et al., 1999, Leistico et al., 2008, Neumann and Hare, 2008), there also have been strong and persistent critiques of Hare’s PCL assessments. These critiqueshave been based on the predictive predominance of antisocial behavior items of the PCL-R, especially the criminal versatility measures, over the affective and interpersonal items (the core dimensions of personality constructs) (see Skeem & Cooke, 2010).

The PCL-R commonly has been used in both risk assessment and the prediction of offending, and, again, much of the predictive validity of the PCL-R and PCL-YV regarding future offending involved only or primarily antisocial items (Corrado et al., 2004, Salekin, 2008). However, researchers more concerned with explanation than with prediction have argued that any measurement of psychopathic personality should be independent of the measure of antisocial behavior. This differentiation is essential in order to explore theoretically hypothesized causal linkages between this personality construct and serious anti-social behavior, particularly, serious criminality. More recently, the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP) instrument has been created to address these criticisms of the limitations of PCL based instruments. The CAPP consists of six domains and 32 items that emphasize core personality based psychopathic traits while excluding antisocial or criminal behavior items. The inclusion of the latter items has been the basis of tautological concern of several other psychopathy instruments (see Cooke et al., 2004, DeLisi, 2009). In this article we too conceptualize psychopathy using only the personality traits and interpersonal behaviors, and exclude the antisocial and criminal elements despite most research on psychopathy having included them.

While approximately 1% of the general population is estimated to be psychopathic according to Hare’s (1991) PCL criteria, research indicated that psychopaths were likely responsible for up to 50% of all violent crime, and that one in four prisoners in the United States were psychopaths (Patrick, 2007, Salekin et al., 1998). This extraordinary high prevalence has led some researchers to assert that “psychopathic traits are analogous to career criminality” (Vaughn & DeLisi, 2008, p. 39).

There has been a substantial empirical link established between psychopathy and a variety of antisocial and criminal behaviors, which persisted across community, clinical, and correctional samples, psychiatric, criminal, and professional settings, world culture, gender, age, race, and ethnicity (Brinkley et al., 2001, Cale and Lilienfeld, 2006, DeLisi, 2009, DeLisi et al., 2007, Frick et al., 2005, Hare, 1991, Harris et al., 2001b, Jones et al., 2011, Neumann et al., 2012, Salekin et al., 1997, Sullivan and Kosson, 2006, Vaughn and DeLisi, 2008, Vaughn et al., 2008b). Moreover, psychopathy has been identified as one of the strongest individual-level predictors of general offending, age of criminal onset, criminal career length, offending frequency, offense types committed, and time until recidivism (DeLisi, 2009, Vaughn and DeLisi, 2008).

Psychopathy is also one of the strongest predictors of both general and violent offending, even when controlling for factors such as delinquent peers, drug use, prior delinquency, family criminality, family background, socio-economic status, school attendance, intelligence, moral disengagement, self-control, education level, gender, race, and age (Hare, 1998, Salekin, 2008, Vincent et al., 2008)., Psychopathy, consequently, has been asserted to be the single best predictor of violence and recidivism currently identified in the criminological and psychological fields (Harris et al., 1991, Salekin, 2008, Serin and Amos, 1995, Vaughn et al., 2008a). However, as discussed above, there has been an extensive controversy about whether this relationship is based on the antisocial behavior items in the PCL measurement of psychopathy rather than the core affective and interpersonal items of this instrument. Typically, the PCL Factor 1 scores, which measure the affective/interpersonal features of psychopathy, have been less strongly related to offending than the PCL Factor 2 scores, which measure the irresponsible/antisocial features (e.g. Farrington, 2006). However, Cooke and Michie’s (2001) three factor model of psychopathy has, to some extent, helped address this issue by excluding antisocial behavior from the measurement of psychopathy, and studies utilizing this three factor model still suggest that higher levels of psychopathy increase the odds of chronic offending from adolescence through adulthood (see e.g., McCuish, Corrado, Lussier, & Hart, 2014).

Section snippets

Psychopathy and crime

Because of the strong empirical support for the ability of psychopathy to accurately predict a “wide universe of antisocial behaviors occurring in childhood adolescence, and adulthood” (DeLisi, 2009, p. 267), and the sheer number of psychopaths in criminal justice settings, psychopathy often has asserted to be the “most important construct in the criminal justice system” (Hare, 1998, Harris et al., 2001b). DeLisi (2009), for example, argued further that, of all the constructs emanating from the

Psychopathy and developmental and life-course criminological theories

The DLC perspective emerged fully in the 1990s when its proponents argued axiomatically that criminal career patterns, and the developmental, environmental, psychological, biological, and social risk and protective factors for offending, were not the same for all individuals (Farrington, 2003, Loeber and LeBlanc, 1990). DLC theories, therefore, focused on the identification and explanation of within-individual variations in criminal and deviant behavior from childhood to adulthood (DeLisi, 2005

Conclusions and directions for future research

Developmental and life-course criminology has been described as still being in its infancy (Piquero, Jennings, & Barnes, 2013). Despite the general accuracy of this statement, there has been a proliferation of DLC theorizing in the last couple of decades. Relatedly, the construct of psychopathy has existed in disciplines outside of criminology for quite some time, but recent pioneering efforts have brought it to the forefront in criminological theorizing (Barnes, 2014, Beaver et al., 2011,

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