The Psychopathy Checklist (PCL/PCL-R) continues to receive recognition among clinicians and researchers for its ability to predict violent and nonviolent recidivism. This article reviews the psychometric properties and the clinical utility of the PCL-R and reports a meta-analysis of 18 studies that Investigate the relationship between the PCL/PCL-R and violent and nonviolent recidivism. We found that the PCL and the PCL-R had moderate to strong effect sizes and appear to be good predictors of violence and general recidivism. As a component of dangerousness assessments, psychologists may want to consider utilizing the PCL-R when making probability statements regarding placement decisions in institutions, parole and conditional release decisions, and community placement decisions for psychiatric patients. The generalizabilfty of the PCL beyond these groups, which have primarily consisted of Anglo-American samples, is still in question and requires further research.

A review and meta-analysis of the psychopathy checklist and psychopathy checklist-revised: predictive validity of dangerousness

The prediction of violence occupies a prominent and controversial place in public mental health practice. Productive debate about the validity of violence predictions has been hampered by the use of methods for quantifying accuracy that do not control for base rates or biases in favor of certain outcomes. This article describes these problems and shows how receiver-operating characteristic analysis can be used to solve them. The article also reanalyzes 58 data sets from 44 published studies of violence prediction. Taken together, these data strongly suggest that mental health professionals' violence predictions are substantially more accurate than chance. Short-term (1-7 day) clinical predictions seem no more accurate than long-term (> 1 year) predictions. Past behavior alone appears to be a better long-term predictor of future behavior than clinical judgments and may also be a better indicator than cross-validated actuarial techniques.

Assessing predictions of violence: Being accurate about accuracy.

Aggression and violence are of increasing concern to American employees and employers; however, these issues have received limited research attention in the management literature. We focus here on those aggressive actions and violent outcomes that are instigated by factors in the organization itself, labeled organization-motivated aggression (OMA) and organization-motivated violence (OMV). Specifically, we define the terms OMA and OMV, provide a social learning model of OMA, and present research propositions related to the model.

Organization-motivated aggression: a research framework

This study evaluated the predictive validity of the HCR-20 (Historical, Clinical, and Risk Management) violence risk assessment scheme and the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV). Files of 193 civilly committed patients were coded. Patients were followed up in the community for an average of 626 days. Receiver operating characteristic analyses with the HCR-20 yielded strong associations with violence (areas under curve [AUCs] = .76-.80). Persons scoring above the HCR-20 median were 6 to 13 times more likely to be violent than those scoring below the median. PCL:SV AUCs were more variable (.68-.79). Regression analyses revealed that the HCR-20 added incremental validity to the PCL:SV and that only HCR-20 subscales predicted violence. Implications for risk assessment research, and the clinical assessment and management of violence, are discussed.

Assessing risk for violence among psychiatric patients: the HCR-20 violence risk assessment scheme and the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version.

Sociologists have long been interested in the consequences of psychiatrists' and clients' social location on diagnostic judgment. Previous research provided conflicting evidence on the effects of sex and race on diagnosis, but it has been suggested that with the institution of a formalized diagnostic system, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (Third Edition), the effects of gender and race on diagnosis have become minimal. We assess the accuracy of this claim using an analogue approach in which 290 psychiatrists evaluate two case studies. Case studies are manipulated so that approximately one-fifth of the clinicians, using DSM-III-derived criteria, evaluate a white male, a white female, a black male, a black female, or a client whose sex and race are not disclosed. Results indicate that sex and race of client and psychiatrist influence diagnosis even when clear-cut diagnostic criteria are presented. We conclude that it is premature to close the question of the influence of sex and race on diagnostic assessments.

Gender, race, and DSM-III: a study of the objectivity of psychiatric diagnostic behavior

I. PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE ON THE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF PSYCHIATRIC JUDGMENTS 697 A. The Reliability of Psychiatric Judgments ----------------699 B. The Validity of Psychiatric Judgments . .708 1. The validity of diagnosis 708 2. The validity of predictions of dangerousness ____ 711 3. The validity of predictions of the need for hospitalization and treatment ------------------------------717 4. The validity of predictions of the effect of hospitalization and treatment ----.............-----------718

Bruce J. Ennis

Papers

Psychiatry and the Presumption of Expertise: Flipping Coins in the Courtroom