An Introduction to the Personality Assessment Inventory – Adolescent (PAI-A) : understanding applicability for use with forensic adolescent males and investigation of clinical correlates

Published in 2007, the Personality Assessment Inventory – Adolescent (PAI-A) is rapidly becoming a widely used adolescent personality measure in psychological assessment, particularly with forensic/delinquent adolescents. The literature indicates forensic adolescent males differ in many domains from non-forensic adolescent males. It is important in adolescent forensic assessment research to align the PAI-A with the empirical literature. The goal of this literature review is understand the utility of the PAI-A for use with forensic adolescent males and provide a foundation for future research with the PAI-A and adolescent males. Particularly, this literature review seeks to identify particular PAI-A scales that are potentially descriptive of one’s forensic status and combine prior research findings to delineate among inherent characteristics of forensic violent, forensic non-violent and non-forensic community adolescent males.