ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses how applicable neutralization theory is to persistent, violent, street offenders by analyzing interviews with active drug dealers, armed robbers, and carjackers. It shows that such individuals are significantly different from those on whom Gresham Sykes and David Matza based neutralization theory, and that their presence in society warrants an expansion of the theory. Sykes and Matza originally proposed their theory as a counterweight to the notion that conventional values are unimportant to delinquents. They believed that offenders are attached to conventional society and neutralize their behavior cognitively, to reduce guilt over betraying conventional society. Sykes and Matza were concerned primarily with explaining the origins of delinquent behavior among a specific group of individuals. Neutralization theory can be used to explain the paradoxical behaviors of serious street-allied offenders as well as those of more conventionally attached criminals.
