the devil made me do it: use of neutralizations by shoplifters

Abstract

Interviews with 137 apprehended shoplifters revealed widespread use of techniques of neutralizations. Two new neutralizations were identified: Justification by Comparison and Postponement. The authors argue that while earlier formulations of neutralization theory contend that deviants must neutralize moral prescriptions prior to committing a crime, research is incapable of determining whether the stated neutralization is a before-the-fact neutralization or an after-the-fact rationalization and that neutralization more typically follows rather than precedes deviance. They agree with Hirschi (1969:208) who states that an after-the-fact rationalization in one instance may be a causal neutralization in another instance and that the assumption that delinquent acts come before justifying beliefs is the more plausible causal ordering.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 271 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.