Describing, diagnosing, and naming psychopathy: how do youth psychopathy labels influence jurors?

Boccaccini, Marcus T.; Murrie, Daniel C.; Clark, John W.; Cornell, Dewey G.

doi:10.1002/bsl.821

Cited by 64 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Similar to adult psychopaths, juvenile offenders who have been described or labeled as psychopathic have also received harsher and more punitive sentences (Sharp & Kine, 2008). Labeling juvenile offenders as psychopaths has often led to the assumption that they pose a greater risk of reoffending and higher risks of violence in the future (Boccaccini et al, 2008), as the label creates the assumption that youth with psychopathic traits are just as unresponsive to treatment or intervention as adult psychopaths (Seagrave & Grisso, 2002). Therefore, treatment or other interventions may be denied to youth offenders with psychopathic tendencies and have possible ill effects on sentencing (Book, Clark, Forth, & Hare, 2013).…”

Section: Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain imaging research on psychopathy: Implications for punishment, prediction, and treatment in youth and adults

Umbach

Berryessa

Raine

2015

Journal of Criminal Justice

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While there has been an exponential increase in brain imaging research on psychopathy in the past two decades, knowledge on the brain basis to child and adolescent psychopathic-like behavior is relatively new. This adult and child research has potential future implications for the development of new interventions, prediction of future offending, and punishment. This review examines both adult and child literatures on the neural basis of psychopathy, together with implications for the criminal justice system. The adult imaging literature provides growing evidence for amygdala structural and functional impairments in psychopaths, and more variable evidence for prefrontal deficits. The emerging child and adolescent imaging literature with notable exceptions broadly parallels these adult findings and may help explain the development of fearlessness, disinhibition, and lack of empathy. This knowledge places policy makers at a crossroads. Should new biological interventions be developed to remediate these brain abnormalities? Would imaging be used in the future to predict offending? Could imaging findings help excuse psychopathic behavior or alternatively argue for longer sentences for public protection? This review attempts to address these issues at the child and adult levels and provides directions for future research that include the incorporation of biological measures into treatment programs. AbstractWhile there has been an exponential increase in brain imaging research on psychopathy in the past two decades, knowledge on the brain basis to child and adolescent psychopathic-like behavior is relatively new. This adult and child research has potential future implications for the development of new interventions, prediction of future offending, and punishment. This review examines both adult and child literatures on the neural basis of psychopathy, together with implications for the criminal justice system. The adult imaging literature provides growing evidence for amygdala structural and functional impairments in psychopaths, and more variable evidence for prefrontal deficits. The emerging child and adolescent imaging literature with notable exceptions broadly parallels these adult findings and may help explain the development of fearlessness, disinhibition, and lack of empathy. This knowledge places policy makers at a crossroads. Should new biological interventions be developed to remediate these brain abnormalities? Would imaging be used in the future to predict offending? Could imaging findings help excuse psychopathic behavior or alternatively argue for longer sentences for public protection? This review attempts to address these issues at the child and adult levels and provides directions for future research that include the incorporation of biological measures into treatment programs.4

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Section: Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain imaging research on psychopathy: Implications for punishment, prediction, and treatment in youth and adults

Umbach

Berryessa

Raine

2015

Journal of Criminal Justice

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“…), verdict outcomes irrespective of the trait evidence underlying this diagnosis (Boccaccini et al. ; Rendell et al. ).…”

Section: Psychobiological Evidence Relevant To Mitigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Neuroimages in the Sentencing Phase of Capital Trials

Saks

Schweitzer

Aharoni

et al. 2014

J Empirical Legal Studies

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Although recent research has found that neurological expert testimony is more persuasive than other kinds of expert and nonexpert evidence, no impact has been found for neuroimages beyond that of neurological evidence sans images. Those findings hold true in the context of a mens rea defense and various forms of insanity defenses. The present studies test whether neuroimages afford heightened impact in the penalty phase of capital murder trials. Two mock jury experiments (n = 825 and n = 882) were conducted online using nationally representative samples of persons who were jury eligible and death qualified. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions varying the defendant's diagnosis (psychopathy, schizophrenia, normal), type of expert evidence supporting the diagnosis (clinical, genetic, neurological sans images, neurological with images), evidence of future dangerousness (high, low), and whether the proponent of the expert evidence was the prosecution (arguing aggravation) or the defense (arguing mitigation). For defendants diagnosed as psychopathic, neuroimages reduced judgments of responsibility and sentences of death. For defendants diagnosed as schizophrenic, neuroimages increased judgments of responsibility; nonimage neurological evidence decreased death sentences and judgments of responsibility and dangerousness. All else equal, psychopaths were more likely to be sentenced to death than schizophrenics. When experts opined that the defendant was dangerous, sentences of death increased. A backfire effect was found such that the offering party produced the opposite result than that being argued for when the expert evidence was clinical, genetic, or nonimage neurological, but when the expert evidence included neuroimages, jurors moved in the direction argued by counsel.

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“…However, there has been much less focus on potential changes in the developmental manifestations of psychopathic features during the transition from late adolescence into early adulthood, particularly among serious juvenile offenders. Research in this area has a number of important real-world implications, particularly as psychopathy is routinely evaluated as part of juvenile and adult risk assessments (Viljoen, McLachlan, & Vincent, 2010), with some evidence indicating the term psychopath has a sizable impact on jury members, may result in harsher sanctions, and leads to pessimistic views about treatability (Boccaccini, Murrie, Clark, & Cornell, 2008; Viljoen et al, 2010). …”

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confidence: 99%

Structural coherence and temporal stability of psychopathic personality features during emerging adulthood.

Hawes

Mulvey

Schubert

et al. 2014

Journal of Abnormal Psychology

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Psychopathy is a complex personality disorder characterized by affective, interpersonal, and behavioral dimensions. Although features of psychopathy have been extended downwardly to earlier developmental periods, there is a discerning lack of studies that have focused on critically important issues such as longitudinal invariance and stability/change in these features across time. The current study examines these issues using a large sample of male adolescent offenders (N = 1,170) assessed across 7 annual time points during the transition into emerging adulthood (ages ~ 17 to 24 years). Findings demonstrated that features of psychopathy remained longitudinally invariant across this developmental period, and showed temporally consistent and theoretically coherent associations with other measures of personality, psychopathology, and criminal behaviors. Results also demonstrated that mean levels of psychopathic personality features tended to decrease into emerging adulthood and showed relatively modest rank-order stability across assessments with 7-year lags. These findings suggest that reductions in maladaptive personality features seem to parallel the well-documented decreases in offending that occur during the early 20s.

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Describing, diagnosing, and naming psychopathy: how do youth psychopathy labels influence jurors?

Cited by 64 publications

References 47 publications

Brain imaging research on psychopathy: Implications for punishment, prediction, and treatment in youth and adults

Brain imaging research on psychopathy: Implications for punishment, prediction, and treatment in youth and adults

The Impact of Neuroimages in the Sentencing Phase of Capital Trials

Structural coherence and temporal stability of psychopathic personality features during emerging adulthood.

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