Interrater reliability of the comprehensive assessment of psychopathic personality disorder among a sample of incarcerated serious and violent young offenders

Over the past several decades, the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) has demonstrated utility in predicting general and violent criminality. However, the PCL has been criticized for over-reliance on potentially tautological characteristics such as criminal behaviour to assess its validity, as well as the absence of conceptually related characteristics such as a lack of anxiety. Such criticisms are central to any reconceptualizations of psychopathic personality disorder (PPD). The Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality Disorder (CAPP) presents a hierarchical conceptual model of psychopathy with six dimensions: attachment, behavioural, cognitive, dominance, emotional, and self-styles of functioning. This thesis analyzes the interrater reliability of the CAPP with a sample of 30 incarcerated youth. The results indicate that the CAPP total scores have excellent interrater reliability while the domain scores have good to excellent interrater reliability. Utilizing this data set, future research will include the validation of the CAPP as a more comprehensive measure of PPD.