Statement of Concerned Experts on the Use of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised in Capital Sentencing to Assess Risk for Institutional Violence

Psychopathy as measured by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991, 2003) is related to a range of rule-breaking and antisocial behaviors. Given this association, psychopathy has received considerable attention from researchers and legal professionals over the past several decades. Concerns remain, however, about using PCL-R scores to make precise and accurate predictions in certain contexts, including an individual's risk for committing serious violence in high-security custodial facilities. After a brief introduction to psychopathy and the PCL-R, we discuss capital sentencing in the United States and then summarize the empirical literature regarding the ability of PCL-R scores to predict violence, with a particular focus on the PCL-R's ability to predict serious institutional violence. As described, we believe the research demonstrates that the PCL-R cannot precisely or accurately predict an individual's risk for committing serious violence in high-security custodial facilities. Finally, we present a Statement of Concerned Experts that summarizes our findings and opinions, concluding the PCL-R cannot and should not be used to make predictions that an individual will engage in serious institutional violence with any reasonable degree of precision or accuracy, especially when making high-stakes decisions about legal issues such as capital sentencing.