Validation of the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version on Children in Conflict with the Law in India
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Abstract
The assessment and prediction of psychopathy are a concern in the determination of risk for offending in Children in Conflict with the Law in India. The Demographic Questionnaire, the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL: YV), the HEXACO Personality Inventory, and Past Antisocial Behaviour Variables were completed with n=108 male adolescent offenders in the present study. The study is a cross-sectional study which includes Children in Conflict with the Law incarcerated in various Observation Homes and places of safety in Delhi NCR, between December 2025 and April 2026. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, normality test, Spearman’s correlation and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis were performed. The PCL:YV showed adequate internal consistency (α = .94) with subscale reliabilities between .75 and .90 which is an indicator of high reliability. Normality analyses indicated that most of the study variables were approximately normally distributed and therefore parametric statistical procedures were used. The PCL:YV factors and total score were significantly positively intercorrelated, providing evidence for the internal coherence of the instrument. ROC analyses indicated discriminative accuracy of the PCL:YV total and factor scores across past anti-social personality behavioural risk indicators, partially supporting the predictive utility of the instrument. There were positive relationships between past antisocial personality variables, particularly previous offending, previous violent offending and age of first drug use, indicating a high level of overlap across these risk factors. The results give preliminary evidence for the reliability and construct validity of the PCL:YV among juveniles. The work adds to the growing literature on the assessment of juvenile psychopathy and underscores the necessity for longitudinal research to explore further its predictive usefulness within Indian forensic contexts.