Psychopathy – An Evolving and Controversial Construct

Abstract

Since the mid-nineteenth century, psychiatrists and psychologists have struggled to conceptualise a group of behaviourally disturbed subjects who repeatedly engage in exploitative and violent acts.In 1941, Cleckley first operationalised the construct of psychopathy in The Mask of Sanity. In 1980, Hare produced a checklist for a more formalised, categorical definition of psychopathy. The subsequent 20 item Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) purports to identify a select population of callous and remorseless individuals who appear to have a specific defect of emotional processing and be generally insensitive to the negative consequences of their risky or criminal behaviour. Operationalising the construct of psychopathy continues to evolve. Whilst the utility of the construct of psychopathy to generally predict violence and recidivism has important public policy implications in the management of serious offenders, compelling sociological and ethical issues arise particularly when courts propose to apply idiographic and prescriptive outcomes on the basis of nomothetic expert opinion on future behaviour based on measures of a construct of psychopathy.