An introduction to the special issues on juvenile psychopathy and some reflections on the current debate

The topic of ‘‘juvenile psychopathy’’ has exploded as a matter of interest in recent years, driven by overlapping theoretical and practical concerns. A growing body of literature reveals limitations in the current diagnostic system’s chief reliance on the single diagnosis of conduct disorder to identify youth with socially deviant behavior. Available evidence suggests that conduct disorder is a heterogeneous category, both phenotypically and etiologically (see, e.g., Frick, 1998). Moreover, conduct disorder as a diagnostic classification has little utility for identifying the small group of youth involved in a grossly disproportionate amount of crime during adolescence and adulthood (Loeber & Farrington, 2000; Moffit & Caspi, 2001). These theoretical developments have been accompanied by growing practical demand for tools that will identify this group of persistently violent youthful offenders. These are precisely the youth for whom increasingly punitive sanctions, ranging from transfer to the adult system to the death penalty, have been legislated (see Edens, Skeem, Cruise, & Cauffman, 2001; Seagrave & Grisso, 2002). Several scholars have argued that a select group of youth with serious conduct problems will mature into adults with psychopathic personality disorder (Frick, 1998; Lynam, 1996; Skilling, Harris, Rice, & Quinsey, 2002). As is the case with adults (Skeem, Poythress, Edens, Lilienfeld, & Cale, 2003), traits of emotional detachment may disaggregate the behavior-based category of conduct disorder into more useful variants (Frick & Ellis, 1999). To investigate such hypotheses, the ‘‘gold standard’’ measure of adult psychopathy (Hare, 2003) has been extended downward to youth in an effort to assess the same malignant constellation of interpersonal, affective, and lifestyle traits. This downward extension makes intuitive sense, given behavioral similarities between chronically violent youth and psychopathic adults. However, whether the construct of psychopathy can validly and should be applied to youth is a matter of considerable debate. Underlying this threshold question are empirical, policy, and ethical issues that have only been joined in the last few years. Contextually, three issues seem paramount: (i) the validity of applying psychopathy to youth, (ii) the meaning and malleability of psychopathy in youth, and (iii) the ethical and moral appropriateness of assessing psychopathy in youth.