Juvenile Psychopathy

Scholars have focused upon youth in efforts to better understand psychopathy. While the term psychopath is an often-evoked term used to describe the worst among us; the serial killer, the sadist, the chronically violent criminal who preys upon the weak, the distance between the commonly used term and those who satisfy the criteria for the personality disorder is striking. Aggravating the understanding of psychopathy is the disagreement that exists in the scientific community concerning classification, identification and measurement -issues that are amplified when trying to apply the psychopath label to youth. This work is an effort to sort through the literature and to educate the reader with a burgeoning interested on the subject. It is a starting place to anchor the complexity of the issues toward further study and understanding. The orientation of this work, then, is one of simplicity aimed toward a broad audience. The reality that informs this work, and one that is essential to understand, is that while there is an avalanche of research on the topic of psychopathy, including developmental psychopathy, there are more questions than settled empirical findings. While it may appear that many issues are resolved, questions often remain insofar as there is disagreement over conceptual development and measurement of psychopathy -and juvenile psychopathy, in particular. These problems are not unique to psychopathy research, and such complexities are recognized in this writing. Chapters cover issues, such as the identification of psychopathy over time, the changing criteria, definition and measurement of juvenile psychopathy, variants or types of psychopaths, treatment strategies, legal issues and directions for future development. Some of the ideas that readers will become acquainted with are: --Whether there is a dark figure of psychopathy --Whether all psychopaths become violent criminals --Are there variants or types of psychopaths? --Can we improve upon the classification criteria for psychopathy? --Does treatment help psychopathy? --What are the legal consequences that attach to psychopaths By the end of the book, the reader should have a better grasp of the research and thoughts that inform the study of juvenile psychopathy. While the scholarly landscape is complex, this work breaks down the issues into broad, more easily understood ideas. The reader is also aided by understanding the debates in the literature that have characterized the psychopathy literature for some time.