Incorrigibility and the Juvenile Homicide Offender: An Ecologically Valid Integrative Review

Abstract

The United States Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama highlighted the importance of an individual’s “incorrigibility” and the prospect of “irreparable corruption” when weighing possible life sentencing for juveniles convicted of homicide. In this review, we study research in multiple content areas spanning homicide recidivism, life-course-persistent or career criminality, and psychopathology and incorrigibility that bears relevance to the risk assessment of juvenile homicide offenders. A well-developed corpus of research and scholarship in these domains documents the severe, lifelong behavioral impairments of the most violent delinquents. In contrast to studies of non-offender student samples and behaviors that bear no ecological validity to juvenile homicide, the research covered herein emanates from epidemiological surveys, birth cohort studies, large-scale prospective longitudinal studies, and correctional studies including homicide offenders and appropriate control groups of other serious delinquents. A rich research foundation in the social, behavioral, and forensic science informs relevant, reliable, and valid forensic assessments of future criminal deviance and incorrigibility in juvenile homicide offenders.