ABSTRACT
This idea of individuals being able to neutralise formerly internalised norms and values to facilitate deviant or offending behaviour had been a prominent element in Matza’s drift theory (see Chapter 7) where it was proposed that delinquent youth were ‘neither compelled nor committed to’ their offending activities but were ‘partially unreceptive to other more conventional traditions’ (Matza, 1964: 28). In short, delinquent youth could be depicted as ‘drifters’ who were relatively free to take part in offending behaviour and this was to become a significant challenge to other theories in the 1960s which emphasised status frustration and the adoption of oppositional values by delinquent youth. Matza proposed in contrast to the previous orthodox determinism that the delinquent merely ‘flirts’ with criminal and conventional behaviour while drifting among different social worlds. No specific constraints or controls were identified that keep young people from drifting, but those that did do were those who have few stakes in conformity and are free to drift into delinquency.
