SOC212: Chapter 27 – The Devil Made me do it: Use of Neutralizations by Shoplifters
-There are distinctions between excuses and justifications.
-The use of these neutralization (before the crime) and rationalization (ofter the crime) techniques help
individuals deflect the labeling process and the deviant identity.
-First, the neutralization theory was used as an explanation for juvenile delinquency.
-These justifications/rationalizations protect the individual from self blame and the blame of others,
thus they can remain committed to the value system of the dominant culture while committing acts
without experiencing the guilt associated with it.
-Neutralization theory assumes that delinquents who use this approach have an internalized sense of
morality, otherwise there would be no guilt to neutralize.
-Most research is incapable of whether neutralization occurs before or after the crime.
-However, neutralization theory depends on analysis of post-event accounts by the offender.
Techniques of Neutralization:
-Denial of responsibility: Allows victims to perceive themselves as victims of the environment. The
offender sees themselves as being acted upon rather than acting (such as: attributing bad behavior to
poor parenting).
-Denial of injury: justification through means of no direct harmful consequences to the victim.
-Denial of the victim: justification of the act as a retaliation upon a deserving victim (blaming larger
retail chains for overcharging consumers).
-Condemning the condemners: Shifts the focus from the offender to those who disapprove of his or her
acts. This neutralization views that the system is crooked and thus unable to justify making and
enforcing rules it does not itself live by.
-Appeal to higher loyalties: functions to legitimize deviant behavior when a non-conventional social
bond creates more immediate and pressing demands than one consistent with conventional society
(such as stealing for ones family or children).
-Defense of necessity: serves to reduce the guilt through the argument that the offender had no other
choice (usually used when the offender states that they were helping their family).
-Metaphor of the ledger:
-Denial of the necessity of law:
-Claim of entitlement:
-The claim that everyone else is doing it: arguing that the behavior in question is common (diffusion of
guilt).
-Justification by comparison: Justifying actions by comparing their crimes to more serious ones.
-Postponement: Suppressing guilt feelings at the particular instance of crime and then dealing it with
another time.
Statement of the Problem:
-Shoplifting may be the most serious crime with which most people have some personal familiarity.
-Unlike many other forms of crimes, offenders do not need any special tools to commit it.
-Those who shoplift do not conform to the people's perception of what a criminal offender is like,
instead shoplifters tend to be demographically similar to the “average person” (thus there is also not
particular profile of a potential shoplifter).
-Turner and Cashdan conclude that while shoplifting is clearly a crime, it borders on what might be
considered a “folkcrime”.
Method:
-Researchers attended an 8 hour therapeutic session in which offenders attended as a condition for first
time offenders to have their record expunged.
Findings
-Informants appeared to readily use neutralization techniques (only 5 out of 137 failed to express the
use of a neutralization technique).
-In many cases, the respondents offered more than one neutralization for the same offense.
Conclusions:
-By finding techniques such as justification by comparison, and postponement, the author can conclude
that even those who did not appear to be committed to conventional moral order used neutralizations to
justify or excuse their behavior.
-post crime rationalization may serve as pre crime neutralization the nest time a crime is contemplated.
-Once an actor has reduced his or her guilt feelings through the use of techniques of neutralization, he
or she can continue to offend.
-Continued neutralization can weaken social bond and eventually, neutralization may not be needed at
all.
-Neutralization may not be a theory of crime, but rather a description of a process that represents an
adaptation to morality that leads to criminal persistence. It serves as a form of situational morality.