an examination of the factor structure of the psychopathy checklist

demonstrated, the utility of differentiating between the PCL:YV factors and facets
among a female sample who have committed a violent offence was not supported.
Indeed, the author suggests that professionals continue to use total scores specifically
for this population and that caution should be taken when interpreting factor scores until
further research is conducted. This research should examine the factors and their
relations with other external variables, such as institutional behaviour, recidivism, and
treatment outcomes that may be of use in clinical settings. If further research can
provide evidence that the factor scores are useful in understanding external correlates
such as treatment compliance and responsiveness, and can establish the PCL:YV’s
utility in predicting negative outcomes such as offending with female youth, then the use
of factor scores may be justified.
Current findings also highlight the need to examine replicability of factor structures
in different kinds of youth samples in order to evaluate the generality of the latent
dimensions underlying scores on psychopathy measures across ethnicity and offence
severity. Indeed, ethnic minorities are frequently overrepresented in the criminal justice
systems of North America (e.g., Brzozowski, Taylor-Butts, & Johnson, 2006; Calverley,
2007), and given the clinical applications of the PCL:YV in criminal justice contexts, it is
reasonable to suggest that this measure may be used quite frequently with ethnic
minority youths. Although there was no significant difference in psychopathy scores
across ethnicity among this sample, which is consistent with research by Schmidt et al.
(2006), PCL:YV total scores were significantly different between Aboriginal and White
youth among a sample of male and female youth (Stockdale, Olver, & Wong, 2010).
Specifically, Aboriginal youth’s scores were frequently close to one standard deviation
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