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

Can the causal mechanisms underlying chronic, serious, and violent offending trajectories be elucidated using the psychopathy construct?

“…With few exceptions, both traditional and modern theories/ developmental models of crime (Agnew, 1992;Akers, Krohn, Lanza-Kaduce, & Radosevich, 1979;Farrington, 2005b;Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990;Moffitt, 1993;Sampson & Laub, 2005;Thornberry, 2004) generally have not made reference to personality constructs commonly discussed in forensic psychology (for exceptions see Fox, Jennings, & Farrington, 2015). In addition to the lack of disciplinary crossover in criminological theories, there appears to be a preference for parsimony and the use of simple and essentially one-dimensional explanatory constructs compared to complex, multidimensional, and multi-indicator constructs common in personality based theoretical frameworks.…”

“…8 In contrast, to the unidimensional nature of the general theory of crime is the complex and multi-trait Five Factor model of Personality that has been the standard in psychology (Lynam, 2010). Although parsimony is a valuable attribute of criminology theories, there is also little doubt that temperament, if not personality themes, have been part, if not essential, in some of the key criminological theories historically (e.g., and increasingly so in the last several decades (Fox et al, 2015). It is the recognition of the complexity of criminal careers (Piquero, 2008) that helps support the need for a more complex, multidimensional theory of offending.…”

“…Psychopathy seems necessary, though not sufficient, for explaining the causal mechanisms associated with chronic, serious, and violent (CSV) offending trajectories. The articles in this special issue illustrate both strengths and weaknesses concerning psychopathy and (a) its integration into existing criminological theories (DeLisi & Vaughn, 2015;Fox, Jennings, & Farrington, 2015) and neuropsychological models of offending (Umbach, Berryessa, & Raine, 2015), (b) its use as a risk factor for the development of offending over time Walters, 2015), and (c) its use as a risk factor for specific types of offenders, including female offenders (Forouzan & Nicholls, 2015), institutional offenders (Shaffer, McCuish, Corrado, Behnken, & DeLisi, 2015), sexual offenders (Cale, Lussier, McCuish, & Corrado, 2015), and violent offenders . Given the research in this special issue and elsewhere (e.g., DeLisi, 2009;DeLisi & Piquero, 2011;Vaughn, Howard, & DeLisi, 2008), we believe that the construct is necessary, though not sufficient, for identifying causal mechanisms underlying CSV offending trajectories.…”

“…In the sixth section, although admittedly ambitious, specific symptoms of psychopathy from the CAPP concept map are hypothesized to be able to identify whether an individual will be associated with a chronic offending trajectory, a serious offending trajectory, or a violent offending trajectory. In the seventh section, this (tentative) proposed relationship between psychopathy and offending and its alignment with existing developmental life course (DLC) theories is discussed (see Fox et al, 2015 for a more complete discussion) and limitations and directions for future research are provided.…”

Physiological Arousal and Juvenile Psychopathy: Is Low Resting Heart Rate Associated with Affective Dimensions?

“…Psychopathy is commonly viewed as a personality construct or cluster of relatively stable traits, including impulsivity, callousness, disinhibition, manipulation, dishonesty, and grandiosity [8,9,10,11,12]. Copious research findings have shown that psychopathy is significantly associated with an array of antisocial and other problem behaviors, including conduct problems, delinquency, externalizing symptoms, crime, and violence.…”