Psychopathy-focused literature has primarily been situated in the positivist school of thought, aiming to understand this concept through cognitive, biological, neurological, and behavioural perspectives. Much of this research has been carried out in prisons, conflating the relationship between psychopathy and criminality. The findings from this knowledge base have contributed to the development of different practices and legislation in judicial settings. Some of the consequences of these practices, such as diagnosing psychopathy in the courtroom, have led to harsher sentencing outcomes at the expense of rehabilitation and treatment options. This is despite the lack of consensus as to the definition, cause, and treatment of psychopathy. Traditional research methods have largely overlooked how sociopolitical and cultural contexts have contributed to how psychopathy is understood and responded to. No research exists that sets out to examine how psychopathy is discursively constructed in courtrooms internationally, including in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Therefore, this thesis adopts a Foucauldian discourse analysis approach to uncover the discursive structures that contribute to the construction of psychopathy in Aotearoa New Zealand courtrooms. Four key discourses were uncovered: ‘the psychopath’ as a moral failure, psychopathy and risk, psychopathy and pathology, and ‘the psychopath’ as untreatable. The findings highlighted how psychopathy as a construct has evolved over time in the courtroom. The findings uncovered how shifts in discourses, discipline-specific practices, and technological knowledge have implications for how psychopathy is provided meaning and managed in judicial settings. Through the available discursive frameworks, truths about psychopathic individuals as deviant outsiders who posed a risk to the broader population were constructed. These truths often led to their incarceration and further exposure to practices such as assessment, diagnosis, monitoring and treatment. Through this process, the experiences and authority of those individuals labelled as psychopathic were marginalised.