Essay on Legal Psychology: Use and Social Consequences of the PCL-R

Abstract

This essay aims to problematize the agency between Psychology and the court system. For this purpose, we take the Psychopathy Checklist Revised scale (PCL-R ) - created by Robert Hare to assess and measure psychopathy - as an analyzer event. We conducted a qualitative research that used bibliographic and documentary research as methodological strategies. The data produced were analyzed considering the works of Foucault and authors of critical criminology. We think psychology and the judiciary as marked by normative logics that produce control practices over the ways of existence. By this perspective, when used with devices of the penal system, certain psychological practices instrumentalize the artifacts of control and repression. In our research course, we conducted a literature review of the Brazilian academic production related to use of the scale in the country (2005-2018). Based on the analysis of the publications found, most studies emphasize the psychometric properties of the scale and reinforce its alleged effectiveness in predicting criminal recidivism. Moreover, we verified that the publications do not analyze the ethical-political implications that applying the scale produces in criminal execution, and disregards the prison institution as a producer of delinquency. Finally, we questioned if the PCL-R scale was used more as a device for controlling and administering the lives of populations that are targets of the prison system.

Keywords:
Legal Psychology; Judiciary; Brazilian Prisons; Psychological Assessment; Human Rights