Identifying youth with psychopathic traits is critical to understanding the factors that contribute to the development of adult psychopathy. The Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) is a 20-item rating scale for the assessment of psychopathic traits in male and female offenders aged 12 to 18.
Adapted from the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), the most widely used measure of psychopathy in adults, the PCL:YV uses an expert-rater format that emphasizes the need for multidomain and multisource information. Using a semistructured interview and collateral information, the PCL:YV measures interpersonal, affective, and behavioral features related to a widely understood, traditional concept of psychopathy. The PCL:YV yields dimensional scores for clinical purposes, but it can also be used to classify individuals into groups for research purposes.
