Is the revised psychopathy checklist clinically useful for adolescents?

Recent studies have provided evidence for the reliability and validity of H are's Psychopathy Checklist, Revised (PCL-R) for forensic samples. The pres ent study investigated PCL-R psychometric properties among Caucasian and Af rican-American adolescent males from forensic and school settings. The clin ical utility of the PCL-R was investigated in terms of predicting future de linquency above and beyond data that are more readily available. Good relia bility and validity for the PCL-R were found. PCL-R Total and Factors score s were greatest for participants with conduct disorder, followed by those w ith oppositional defiant disorder, with the smallest scores observed for pa rticipants with neither disorder. In a 1-year follow-up, PCL-R scores accou nted for a unique proportion of the variance in juvenile criminal justice s entencing above and beyond the baseline number of delinquent acts recorded in juvenile criminal justice records and above a baseline disruptive behavi or diagnosis continuum score. Compared to conduct disorder diagnosis, the P CL-R psychopath threshold score provided much better sensitivity with only slightly worse specificity for predicting delinquency during the 1-year fol low-up.