Citation

Feazell DM, Quay HC, Murray EJ. Crim. Justice Behav. 1991; 18(2): 166-179.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1991, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0093854891018002005

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The validity and utility of the Psychological Screening Inventory (PSI) was evaluated with a group of 351 male and 185 female adolescents in a juvenile court related agency. In addition, 174 noncourt controls were studied. Court records and psychological evaluations were used to obtain behavioral measures and ratings on the Life History Checklist. The PSI discriminated major emotional problems, offenses, peer relations, and cooperativeness and it was related to several measures of the Life History Checklist. However, the mean differences and correlations were small and of little practical use. Classification accuracy was poor. In a multitrait-multimethod analysis, the PSI showed poor discriminant validity from unrelated measures and method variance. Good discriminant validity from demographic variables was found. It was concluded that there are serious limitations in using the PSI in a juvenile population.

Keywords: Juvenile justice

Language: en