Hare Psychopathy Checklist PCL
Hare Psychopathy Checklist PCL overview
Creator and Context
The Psychopathy Checklist is a clinician rated forensic instrument for assessing psychopathic personality traits in justice involved populations.
The original 22 item research scale was published by Robert Hare in 1980. It was superseded by the 20 item Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), first published in 1991 and revised in 2003. The PCL-R is the instrument in current use.
The PCL-R is commercially published by Multi-Health Systems, restricted to qualified users, and requires a licence.
Presenting Conditions
The PCL-R is organised into two factors and four facets:
Factor 1: interpersonal and affective traits
Factor 2: lifestyle and antisocial traits
Ratings describe a lifelong pattern rather than a current state.
Administration
Clinician rated. It requires a semi structured interview of around 90 to 120 minutes, plus review of collateral and file information, plus the rating itself. It is not a self report questionnaire, and it cannot be completed without file material.
Each item is rated 0, 1 or 2.
Desired Audience
Adults aged 18 and over, in forensic populations: justice involved people and forensic psychiatric patients. It is validated in those populations and should not be used outside them.
The PCL-R is the reference instrument in forensic mental health, and its results carry real consequences for sentencing, parole and release. That weight is precisely why it is restricted, and why it does not belong in general mental health practice.
Considerations
This is a forensic instrument and not a general mental health measure. Hare himself has published on its misuse, warning that the potential for harm is considerable if it is used incorrectly or by a user unfamiliar with the literature.
Users are expected to hold an advanced degree, be registered with the relevant regulator, have forensic experience and have PCL-R specific training. Averaging two independent raters is recommended.
Field reliability is materially worse than research reliability, and adversarial allegiance effects have been demonstrated: trained clinicians rating identical files scored the same individuals differently depending on which side had retained them.
The cut off is contested. A score of 30 is conventional in North America, while research on cross cultural generalisability supports a lower threshold of around 25 in the UK.
The label carries serious stigma and serious consequences.
The PCL-R is commercially licensed by Multi-Health Systems at its highest qualification tier. Item content cannot lawfully be reproduced or embedded without a licence.
Self report psychopathy questionnaires are not the PCL-R and must never be presented as such.
How to score the Hare Psychopathy Checklist PCL
Conducting the assessment
A qualified, trained clinician rates each item 0, 1 or 2, based on a semi structured interview together with collateral and file information.
Interpretation
The 20 items are summed to give a total from 0 to 40.
A score of 30 or above is the conventional North American threshold for a categorical diagnosis of psychopathy. Research on cross cultural generalisability (Cooke et al., 2005) found that a North American score of 30 does not represent the same trait intensity in the UK, and that a score of around 25 is the closer equivalent. This remains contested.
The total can also be used dimensionally, as a degree of match to the prototype.
Clinical Considerations
Do not use it outside forensic populations, and do not use it without the required qualifications and training.
Use two independent raters where the stakes are high, as the author recommends.
Be explicit about which threshold is being applied and why, because the choice materially changes the conclusion.
Hare Psychopathy Checklist PCL use cases
Forensic assessment of psychopathic traits in justice involved populations
Structured professional judgement in forensic mental health
Research in forensic psychology
Category
Risk Assessment
Research Summary
Hare, R. D. (1980). A research scale for the assessment of psychopathy in criminal populations. Personality and Individual Differences, 1(2), 111 to 119.
Hare, R. D. (2003). Manual for the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (2nd ed.). Toronto: Multi-Health Systems.
Cooke, D. J., Michie, C., Hart, S. D., & Clark, D. (2005). Assessing psychopathy in the UK: Concerns about cross cultural generalisability. British Journal of Psychiatry, 186(4), 335 to 341.
Hare, R. D. (1998). The Hare PCL-R: Some issues concerning its use and misuse. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 3, 101 to 122.
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Note on Assessment licensing
Some assessments are copyright protected and require a licence or the copyright holder's permission for clinical, commercial or digital use. Where that applies, obtaining and maintaining that permission is the responsibility of the practice or organisation using the assessment. Tacklit provides the digital administration, scoring and reporting. We do not grant, transfer or supply rights to the underlying instrument.
