Is Neutralization Necessary for Criminal Behavior?

• NCJ Number: 75758
• Journal: Deviant Behavior Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Dated: (October-December 1980) Pages: 49-72
• Author(s): J F Sheley
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 24 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Revision of a paper read at American Sociological Association, Annual Meeting, 1977.

Annotation

Using a questionnaire survey of college students, this study tested the neutralization thesis which contends that individuals extend or distort socially acceptable norms in order to free themselves from moral constraints and violate the law.

Abstract

Following a summary of the literature on neutralization, key assumptions underlying this concept are identified. The basic premise is that individuals hold global notions of right and wrong that are not easily applied to special situations of possible illegal behavior and that little variation exists within society regarding moral views. This research addresses the implications of variance in moral values for neutralization and whether neutralizations needed for early forays into crime are later converted into crime - facilitating beliefs that eliminate the need for neutralization. A sample of 835 males over 18 was selected from a group of college students who had completed a questionnaire in 1974 concerning their involvement in crime and beliefs in conventional norms. Qualifications in beliefs were assessed through denial of injury, condemnation of victim and condemner, and responsibility scales. Analysis of the data indicated that respondents varied moderately in the extent to which they granted moral validity to conventional norms and more so in the degree to which they gave qualified allegiance to these norms. Commitment to society's norms was inversely related to criminality. No evidence suggested that neutralizations required for initial offenses become crime - facilitating beliefs upon repetition. Multiple regression analysis attributed almost 18 percent of the variance in criminality scores to the belief that it is all right to skirt the law when possible and the qualified belief that an act's morality depends in part on the victim. These findings suggest that variations in beliefs are more important in explaining criminal behavior than the neutralization approach which assumes homogeneity in the general population. Tables and over 30 references are included.