a fair trial: exploring juvenile psychopathy from legal and medical standpoints
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
1/19
Nora Gair
Neuroscience and Criminal Justice
Fall 2013
A Fair Trial:
Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
In the early summer of 1968, eleven-year-old Mary Flora Bell (Fig. 1)was found guilty of
strangling two toddler-age boys in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England2. At her trial, she was deemed
as demonstrating classic symptoms of psychopathy by court-appointed psychiatrists, as well as
being externally described as cunning and a show-off by people who knew her. Dr. Samuel
Orton, a psychiatrist who saw her soon after her incarceration, said I've seen a lot of
psychopathic children...But I've never met one like Mary: as intelligent, as manipulative, or as
dangerous. Though she was found guilty and sentenced to Detention for Life, she was
released at age twenty-three and, with the daughter she had conceived during an escape years
previously, she went on to lead a life under a new name, committing no acts of recidivism in any
years since. Each of the three times she and her daughters identities were found out, she fought
hard to get new identities to keep them both safe, an act of caring that seemed beyond the realm
of a true psychopaths caring. Too, in one of the books written with her about her childhood,
she is quoted as saying, ...what I want most of all is a normal life (Blanco, n.d.c) Whether or
not these more human acts later in life are true remorse or from ulterior motives, and though
testing for psychopathy has improved vastly in the past sixty years, there is enough doubt raised
in this and several other accounts of juvenile psychopathy to beg deeper investigation into the
validity of this diagnosis during adolescence from both legal and medical standpoints. This paper
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
2/19
seeks to look at both sides of the trends in sentencing for adult psychopathic murderers and then
look at evidence supporting and opposing the current norm for the sentencing of juvenile
psychopathic murderers found guilty.
To begin to understand the nuances of the application of the diagnosis of juvenile
psychopathy in the court system in regards to violent crime, we must first look at the general
treatment of adult psychopathic violent criminals by the court
system. Three of the most famous psychopathic murderers of all
time--Edward Theodore Gein, Theodore Bundy, and Jeffrey
Dahmer--were all sentenced in
different ways--confinement to
hospital, execution, and life in
prison, respectively.
Edward Theodore Gein (Fig. 2) of Wisconsin was found
incompetent to stand trial by reason of insanity in 1957, the year
he was accused of having murdered two women and the year
police had found numerous female1human body parts fashioned into gruesome objects--a
necklace of lips, bowls made of skullcaps--all over his house, though many were found to have
been from grave-tampering rather than murder. He underwent a wealth of tests and was deemed
a borderline schizophrenic and a sexual psychopath, though the diagnosis of schizophrenia was
inconclusive to an extent. He was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for
1This obsession with solelyfemalebody parts is attributed to his relationship with his mother, in line with other
early suspicions about psychopathy resulting from purely environmental factors. In May Bells case, it was thought
that her unstable home life with a prostitute for a mother and a professional thief for a father was the root of her
psychopathy.
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
3/19
ten years, at which point his doctors deemed him sane enough for trial. He was found guilty of
first degree murder, but then found not guilty by reason of insanity due to his diagnosis as a
psychopath. He was sent back to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for the
remainder of his life, and there he was touted by his doctors as the model patient, with zero acts
of recidivism until his death. (Blanco, n.d.d) Thus at least in the mid-twentieth-century,
psychopathy was a valid condition to rate insanity in the legal sense.
Theodore Bundy (Fig. 3)was found guilty on every count of murder he was accused of
and tried for, beginning in 1979 with the Chi Omega2murders in Miami, Florida and beyond. He
plead innocent, against the defense councils wishes, but was found guilty and sentenced to
death, partly because, some argue, he served as his own lawyer and poorly so, but mostly
because the evidence against him was so incontrovertible. Bundy, however, managed to get his
actual execution put off for many years for various reasons. In 1987, during one of the appeals
during which Bundy did not represent himself, Polly Nelson called to witness Dr. Emanuel
Tanay, a psychiatrist who had studied Bundy back in 1979 during the first trial. Tanay defined
him assuredly as a psychopath in his own expert opinion, and told the court that Bundy had
sabotaged pretty consitently [sic] what the defense lawyers had worked out. His conduct was
symptomatic of his illness, and it was outside his control. Tanay added that he had thought as
much even before court proceedings went into effect, saying I did not think that Mr. Bundy
would cooperate...with the advice of his lawyers [and] take the guilty plea, because...that
would terminate the show, his ability to be the celebrity would come to an end, he would be just
someone who was spared from the death sentence, and the show would be over. Whereas, his
need was to have the proceedings go on and on in order to gratify his pathological needs. All of
2Again, Bundy only murdered women that we know of, in this case attributed by Bundys own testimony to early
exposure to pornography, especially of the violent type.
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
4/19
this interview was in an attempt to invalidate Ted Bundys actions during his trials and render
him insane at the time, corroborated by Tanays statement that Bundys behavior was a lifelong
pattern. It was not a temporary phenomena. It was an expression of his basic persoanlity [sic]
structure3(Blanco, n.d.a). This defense did not exonerate him in any way, although only twenty
years earlier a diagnosis of psychopathy, among other factors, had let
Gein live out the rest of his days in hospital.
3Here we see the evolution of the diagnosis of psychopathy to an integral part of ones nature, rather than solely an
environmental issue, though both opinions were held at the time and, indeed still are.
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
5/19
Jeffrey Dahmer (Fig. 4), in 1992, was found guilty of fifteen murders and sentenced to
fifteen consecutive life terms in jail, totalling just a couple of years
fewer than 1000 years in prison (though he was beaten to death in
a prison bathroom by a schizophrenic fellow prisoner two years
after his conviction, after again being a model prisoner la Gein.)
Pros to his final trial he had been accused of molestation and other
crimes, but when police investigated him for the final specific
murders he was suspected in they found decomposing body parts
in his cupboard, four heads in his refrigerator and freezer, and
countless Polaroids Dahmer had taken himself showing other gruesome, murderous corporal
crimes. At the trial for these murders, in contrast to Bundy, Dahmer was nearly silent; the longest
sentence he uttered the entire time was I understand, your Honor, when asked if he
comprehended the charges against him at the preliminary hearing. He pled completely innocent
originally, and then switched to not guilty by reason of insanity. This changed the entire trial.
The defense now had to prove that he did it and incredibly so, while the prosecution had the
prove he did it but with intent. As in the previous two cases, the defense eventually boiled down
to something to this effect, a concise labelling of the debate over psychopathy as a defense of
insanity:
Defense: ...This is Jeffrey Dahmer, a runaway train on a track of madness..."4
Prosecution: "He wasn't a runaway train, he was the engineer!"
4Again, this underlines the developing theory of psychopathy as an implicit facet of the nature of the psychopath.
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
6/19
From the three above cases, it is clear that over the twentieth century psychopathy has
been viewed in several different ways resulting in several different outcomes in the legal court
system. As mentioned in passing in the footnotes, as well, it is evident that the expert opinion on
the causes of psychopathy as a mental disorder have begun to evolve (this will be spoken of
more in depth in the next section of the paper.)
One can glean from the above cases that insanity is one of the preferred defenses for
those deemed as psychopathic murderers. How, though, does that plea match with the current
expert definitions for psychopathic culpability in terms of the law? The Law Library of
American Law and Legal Information asserts in its entry on psychopathy that psychopaths are
firmly in touch with reality...consequently, it appears that the law can affect the behavior of
psychopaths (n.d.); this in no uncertain negates insanity as a defense for psychopaths. Many
studies have been conducted on knowing objective right from wrong in psychopathic minds:
In the journal Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, Cima, Tonnaer, and Hauser
presented their findings after delivering a version of the Moral Sense Test to psychopathic
criminals, non-psychopathic criminals, and non-psychopathic non-criminals. They wrote that
subjects in each group judged cases of personal harms (i.e. requiring physical contact) as less
permissible than impersonal harms, even though both types of harms led to utilitarian gains.
These similarities can be seen in Fig. 5 below. They went on to add that, however, psychopaths
pattern of judgments on different dilemmas was the same as those of the other subjects. This
makes a clear distinction that the emotional part of morality, in this case when applied to law,
need not apply to a criminal in order for him to understand what he has done wrong--again,
insanity does not appear to be a viable plea. And yet, in what is self-described as a general
overview of psychopathy as it is currently treated in the law about how responsible is the
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
7/19
psychopath for criminal wrongdoing, it is concluded by the authors after looking at numerous
texts that the nature of psychopathy appears to involve a sort of agency that bears a striking
departure from that of a normally functioning adult (Fox, Kvaran, Fontaine, 2011), which
agains brings psychopathy into the realm of perhaps a too-altered a state of mind for full
culpability for ones own criminal actions.
How, though, have these varying definitions of psychopathy affected sentencing? Surely
these studies cannot attempt to exist in a
vacuum outside of public use. Again, the Law
Library of American Law and Legal
Information takes a very hard line on the
subject: since they can understand in at least
some form the law, psychopathy would then
rationally be considered an aggravating factor
that would warrant a harsher sentence and
even death in jurisdictions that impose capital
punishment (n.d.). This is in line with one of
the points made in the Supreme Court Case Jurek v. Texas from 1976. One of the Texas
decisions granted a writ of certiori by the Supreme Court was to require the jury to answer three
specific questions about the defendant in order to sentence him to capital punishment, including
(2) whether it is probable that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence
constituting a continuing threat to society. There is a high rate of recidivism of psychopaths,
which fits this question, as well as the ease with which psychopaths attain conditional release
relative to other inmates, and the rate of unsuccessfulconditional release once retained of
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
8/19
psychopathic criminals (Hkknen-nyholm, Hare, 2009). All of this would suggest that
psychopaths are likely to receive harsher sentences than other, non-psychopathic accused of the
same crime. And yet in the same study cited just above, Hkknen-nyholm and Hare found that
out of 546 psychopathic murderers, 101 had been convicted and sentenced for a criminal
offense that was less serious (e.g., manslaughter) than the crime for which they had been
prosecuted (e.g., murder). And that out of those 101, 42 had been convicted for only
involuntary manslaughter (2009).5This again challenges the assertion of psychopathy as an
aggravating factor warranting harsher sentence (Law Library of American Law and Legal
Information, n.d.).
5Too, they found that those individuals who ranked higher an individual scored on the PCL:R test (which
will be discussed later, but it measures psychopathy by ratings of 0-2 on various statements) were morelikely to get a reduced sentence. Interestingly, the variable that went along with the highest rate ofreduced sentence--a rate of 4.3 times more likely to be given less time, to be exact--was pathologicallying (Hkknen-nyholm, Hare, 2009).
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
9/19
As stated above, the nature of the thought process on the roots of psychopathy has been
evolving over time, from purely environmental to environmental, yes, but also neurological. This
recent news on this second biological derivation of psychopathy is looking to further cause
sentence lengths to drop. In a study conducted on 181 state trial judges, all, in four groups
(prosecution/(biological argument) present, prosecution/absent, defense/present, and
defense/absent), were given a psychopathic violent assault case to evaluate. Though they all
listed aggravating factors more than mitigating factors in their judgment, the half that was shown
evidence of psychopathy took into account more than half again as many percent mitigating
factors as those who hadnt seen the biological evidence (Aspinwall, Brown, Tabery, 2012) (see
Fig. 6 below).
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
10/19
(And the biological evidence for psychopathy is very much real. In a twin-based study on
genetics-based callous-unemotional (CU) traits6, the monozygotic twin were 73% similar to one
another in terms of CU, whereas the dizygotic twins, for whom psychopathy would allegedly
arise more from environment than genetic make up (though they are still siblings), were only
similar to one another at a rate of 39%. The study further claimed that the environmental effect
appeared to be only around 5% responsible for the similarities (Viding, Blair, Moffitt, Plomin,
2005).)
The past psychopathic murderer cases above have shown, in truth, each possible outcome
for a psychopath who ends up admitting to having committed the crimes. However, with the rate
that psychopaths recidivate and their ability to leave jail to do so through conditional release, and
too the lighter sentences many get in the first place, perhaps the current view on psychopathy is
6Again, discussed later, but its a list of characteristics thought to be indicative of socio- or psychopathic
behavior especially useful in the evaluation of juveniles for these mental disorders.
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
11/19
not serving justice and the courts well enough. If so many found guilty are receiving lighter
charges for the same crime as compared to other criminals, perhaps the hard line suggested by
the Law Library of American Law and Legal Information (n.d.) is not the best nor most
rational approach when dealing with this particular mental illness.
With all the above information in mind, we can now turn to the questions of juvenile
psychopathy as in play in the courtroom. To be able to make judgements on this topic, we must
look at first the norms for the sentencing of this specific type of criminal, the juvenile
psychopath, and then weigh the evidence for and against the application of this diagnosis in the
first place from both legal and medical standpoints.
The general trend in sentencing for juvenile psychopathic murderers can be summed up
in one modern case example, rather than several, as this is the only real viable sentence these
days for psychopaths who are not pleading innocence is a long jail time, rather than execution7.
Because of the Supreme Court Case Roper v. Simmons (2004), execution of minors or juvenile
offenders, even if being tried as adults as some juvenile psychopaths are (to be discussed below),
is now considered a violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Young Andrew Conley (Fig. 7) pled and was found guilty in an adult court in 2010 of the
murder of his younger brother by strangulation. He was deemed a psychopath by police
psychologist Dr. James Daum, who cited characteristics such as his fantasies about skinning
people alive, setting them afire and making them drink bleach, as well has Conleys
exhibition of boredom after the murder, signifying his dissociation of emotional responses and
his self-admitted fascination with and desire to emulate the protagonist from the television show
7Not guilty by reason of insanity is a negligible choice, as it is assessed as a possible plea even less of
the time for psychopathic juveniles (at 1.3% of the time) as compared to adult psychopaths (7.4% of thetime) (Viljoen, McLachlan, Vincent, 2010)
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
12/19
Dexter. Conley pled guilty, and the speculation of a long prison sentence as his desserts was
confirmed by the judges decision. He was
sentenced to life in jail without parole. This is the
trend and the norm for any cases pertaining to
psychopathic juvenile murderers of the modern era.
If this sentencing is so black-and-white
from the get-go, at least in the eyes of the justice system, why delve deeper? Juvenile
psychopaths can be tried in either an adult court or in the juvenile system. In deciding which
system to go with, judges typically consider the youth's potential for future violence and
amenability to treatment in the juvenile system (MacArthur Foundation Research Network on
Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, n.d.b) Therefore, to validate even considering
trying them in adult courts and possibly giving these individuals the harshest sentence possible--
life without the possibility of parole--we must look at both their potential for recidivism and the
ameliorability of their condition.
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
13/19
To understand these points at all, we must look at how one is diagnosed with
psychopathy as a juvenile in the first place. The three main methods of diagnosing psychopathy
in youths are the the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV), the Youth Psychopathic
Traits Inventory (YPI),
and the Inventory of
Callous-Unemotional
Traits (ICU).
The PCL:YV is
the 2004-revised
version for juveniles
aged 13-18 of the
Psychopathy Checklist:
Revised (PCL:R),
devised by Dr. Robert
Hare in the 1970s to be
administered by clinicians. The PCL:R is a twenty-item list of factors that are rated at zero, one,
or two for manifestation in the subject of the test. The factors have to do with either antisocial
behavior or affective personality functions. The PCL:YV and the PCL:R differ in very few ways,
the differences largely having to do with the availability for the subject involve himself in the
behavior indicated (MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and
Juvenile Justice, n.d.a) (see Fig. 8 above). The PCL in any context, juvenile or not, is the most
relied upon and common assessment of psychopathy. The typical cutoff score for psychopathy
with the PCL-R (adult version) is 30. No common cutoff currently exists for the PCL:YV. Some
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
14/19
suggest 25, others 30, but the research on these topics is so young there has been no consensus as
of yet (Kimonis, Monahan, 2010).
The YPI, created in 2002, is a fifty-item self-reporting test for individuals 12-18. With
this scale, they rate themselves again on a scale of zero to two on various psychopathic traits that
are listed as positive attributes (e.g. dishonest charm is listed as When I need to, I use my smile
and my charm to use others.), though there is no yet data on whether this creates false positives
of any type (MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile
Justice, n.d.a). The major difference between PCL:YV and YPI is that the YPI focus[es]more
tightly on core interpersonal and affective features (Skeem, Cauffman, 2003) than behavior
(MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice,
n.d.a).
Finally, there is the (least commonly used) ICU, a 24-item test from 1998 that has five
iterations: Youth Self-Report, Parent Report, Teacher Report, Parent Report (Preschool
Version), and Teacher Report (Preschool Version) (Frick, n.d.), which unlike the previous two
tests can be used separately or in conjunction with one another for a fuller picture of the subjects
behavior and characteristics. Scoring high on the ICU is indicative of a unique temperamental
style, [and] low behavioural inhibition, which [make] the child poorly responsive to
socialisation8and at high risk for a later diagnosis of socio- or psychopathy.
In any case, officially diagnosing a juvenile with psychopathy by using any of these tests
is still fraught with danger regarding the possibility of making an incorrect diagnosis of this
8This would seem to indicate environmental factors are the major ones in the development of
psychopathy, but subsequent studies in children with conduct disorder indicated that the style parentsuse to socialise their child has less impact on the development of conduct problems than others hadpreviously conjectured. (Dolan, 2004)88
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
15/19
disorder particularly tricky to identify correctly in adolescents. These caveats largely sort into
two categories: problems with testing, the nature of adolescence, and
Many sources point out various inconsistencies between the results of the different
methods for testing for psychopathy in adolescents. When testing a group of youths with three
different methods, Kimonis and Monahan found that the subjects were often identified as
psychopathic by 1 measure but not by others...the inconsistent psychopathy designations...raise
serious questions about the use of such measures as the basis for legal or clinical treatment
decisions (2010). This serious disparity, also demonstrated in a separate study focusing on the
difference between YPI and PCL:YV outcomes, seems inconsistent with the notion that adult
models of psychopathy can simply be extended downward to youth (Cauffman, Skeem, 2003).
The other question is about the wisdom of diagnosing a person with such a serious
disorder during the stage of life that is adolescence. Relative to adults, adolescents [sic]
psychopathy scores are not as stable (Cauffman, Skeem, n.d.), with a good portion of youth de-
escalat[ing] in psychopathic characteristics over time (Salekin, Rosenbaum, Lee, Lester, 2009),
these characteristics including proneness to boredom, thrill-seeking, impulsivity, and poor
behavioral control, which are also normal and often transient developmental characteristics of
adolescence, not just markers of an irredeemable character as they are seen in adults
(MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice,
n.d.a). However, these claims or adolescent exceptionalism to the diagnosis are refuted with a
similar vehemence elsewhere, with sources saying that although adolescents exhibit
impulsivity, irresponsible behavior, and egocentricity, the bulk of research would suggest that
youth do not exhibit these characteristics to [as] high [a] degree as confirmed psychopaths do
(Salekin, Rosenbaum, Lee, Lester, 2009). Too, psychopathic traits as currently assessed in
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
16/19
youths puts a juvenile on a path that sets him up to have an earlier onset of offending...commit
more crimes, and reoffend more often... and more violently...than non-psychopathic criminal
youth (Dolan, 2004). These data underscore the validity of the diagnosis of psychopathy, at
least insofar as it matches the predicted dangerousness of the subject.
As concisely summed up by Salekin, Rosenbaum, Lee, and Lester, findings on child
psychopathy raise many more questions than they answer (2009). For a while yet, we may not
know the direct ins and outs of juvenile psychopathy from a medical or neurological standpoint,
but it is accepted as a diagnosis legally as yet, no matter any doubt, and so we must proceed as
such until any doubt is ultimately erased or confirmed.
The above information discusses the medical aspects of juvenile psychopathy. In the eyes
of the court, however, juvenile psychopathy is another beast entirely. This side of the debate
deals almost exclusively with the possibility of recidivism, and the possibility of treatment.
In Jurek v. Texas, determining future delinquency is only a question necessary to answer
if considering the death penalty; however, since capital punishment is off the table, and this is
one of the factors a judge considers when sending a young psychopath on his way to the adult
justice system, this is simply the best way to deal with whether or not a juvenile deserves chance
of early/conditional release or not.
According to many studies, having psychopathic tendencies, however tested, is a robust
predictor of violence and reoffending (Viljoen, McLachlan, Vincent, 2010). However, there
needs to be conducted more research that looks specifically within the adole scent population at
the predictive utility of those elements of psychopathy that are not themselves indicators of
current antisocial behavior (Steinberg, 2001) because the non-antisocial variables, especially on
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
17/19
the PCL tests, are more correlated with recidivism in adults and there is a gap in the knowledge
with this in regards to adolescents.
Too, there is doubt if these predictions of recidivism in psychopaths are enough to form
firm opinions on the matter. for example, of the studies done on inmate violence perpetrators in
US prisons, none has obtained a significant correlation between psychopathy (as
operationalized by the Hare PCL measures) andphysicallyviolent behavior (Edens, Guy,
Fernandez, 2003). Too, Edens, Guy, and Fernandez argue that despite the connection established
between psychopathic tendencies and future run-ins with the law, research fails to support the
claim that psychopathy predicts the types of violence that are at issue in capital cases (2003)
(which the majority of these cases would be were the defendants older, so the statement stands.)
This casts doubt onto the true predictability of exact replicas of crimes committed if
allowed back into the general society, especially with some doubt already cast onto the validity
of the diagnosis in the first place.
No one is arguing that individuals admittedly having committed these crimes are not
dangerous or are entirely blameless in their guilt. But, as it is a mental disorder, and as they are
evaluating juveniles, it bears some amount of right thinking that each and every danger of
prejudice or incorrectness be looked at twice for these individuals. As Cunningham and Reidy
state in conclusion of their study, in common usage the terms used to describe [psychopathy]
have a connotation of dangerousness and arguably an emotional flavour that strongly militates
against rational evaluation of their objective value in predicting assaultive conduct (1998). This
unfair leaning should be prevented at all costs, especially in regard to adolescents.
As such, it would seem that life without parole being applied to an adolescent who has
been diagnosed with psychopathy is a choice fraught with risk of incorrectness and injustice.
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
18/19
There is so very much room for doubt among all the legal and medical cautions dealing with this
diagnosis that it seems foolhardy to apply the harshest sentence possible--life without parole--to
the individuals. But if not harsh jail time, then what?
Rehabilitation9is an angle rarely thought of for psychopathic individuals. Because the
definition of psychopathy largely includes the descriptor untreatable, it would follow that
treatment be rarely applied to them. As stated in one study, few clinicians who work with
psychopathic [prisoners]...offer much optimism for rehabilitating a truly psychopathic youth in
that period of time (Petrila, Skeem, 2003). Steinberg adds that juveniles who are branded as
psychopaths are more likely to be viewed as incorrigible, less likely to receive rehabilitative
dispositions (2001).
However, some are now coming to think that assumptions of untreatability are just that:
assumptions, with recent evidence [suggesting] that psychopathic youth could develop into
nonpsychopathic [sic] adults as a result of various therapies (Petrila, Skeem, 2003). In fact, six
of eight studies on psychopathic youth under treatment show them to be improving or
becoming less psychopathic as a result (Salekin, Worley, Grimes, 2010). This is promising
because it shows that the effects of this disease, previously thought to be incurable, can be
mitigated somewhat over time, even if not fully erased10
.
Similarly, and more explicitly, as noted by Reidy, Kearns, and DeGue, after reviewing
certain juvenile psychopaths rehabilitated at one center, no relation between psychopathy scores
and violent or general recidivism existed at 4 year follow-up, despite the past associations made
9There are many strategies currently being used and improved upon for the rehabilitative therapy of
psychopaths, but the pros and cons and type of those are another paper entirely.10
Three out of the eight studies also showed improvement in the adult psychopathic group--a lesspromising estimate, but impressive nevertheless (Salekin, Worley, Grimes, 2010).
-
8/13/2019 A Fair Trial: Exploring Juvenile Psychopathy from Legal and Medical Standpoints
19/19
about this correlation(2013). Also, they noted that the high psychopathy youths incarcerated and
treated [there] were significantly less likely to violently recidivate at two year follow-up (Reidy,
Kearns, DeGue, 2013).
This research is in its infancy, and there are of course some studies where rehabilitation
or treatment have been shown not to have helped the mental condition of these juvenile
psychopaths, like the two out of eight not showing improvement to Salekin, Worley, and Grimes
(2010), or several others noted by Reidy, Kearns and DeGue (2013). However, with the
glimmers of hope for treatment and rehabilitation in the very near future as the burgeoning area
of research is furthered in every direction, who is anyone to deny a youth at least a gleam of a
chance for a future not defined by their condition? The real concern is, as Steinberg puts it, that
assessments of juvenile psychopathy are not being used to recommend further evaluation but are
instead forming the basis for definitive dispositional decisionmaking [sic] (2001). With the
possibility that the disease is nigh undiagnosable in juveniles, or at least not as a stable condition;
with the past view of the disease being so negative any hope now for these individuals is
squashed out; with the possibility of real treatment just over the horizon--how can we condemn
these adolescents in this so bleak and defined way? It looks as if we shouldnt. And with more
research conducted, now and in the future, we can keep improving our picture of juvenile
psychopathy to keep us all safe, yes, but to keep our country fair and just.