“God Hates Your Feelings”: Neutralizing Emotional Deviance within the Westboro Baptist Church

Drawing on individual and peer-group interviews, participant observations, and analysis of media content, we examine the habitual emotional deviance and neutralization techniques employed by the Westboro Baptist Church. We argue that their notoriety is attributed to their persistent, intentional, and unapologetic disregard for cultural feeling rules including incongruous emotional responses to events, fusion of culturally oppositional sentiments, and denigration of “sacred” groups and symbols. Interviews reveal that while claiming to embrace their deviant status, members engage in common neutralization techniques including denial of responsibility for the pain and discomfort they cause, appealing to higher loyalties, and denial of victimization.     

Approaches to the Empirical Study of Convenience Theory for White-Collar Crime

Convenience theory suggests that members of the elite in society commit financial crime in their professional roles when alternative actions require too much effort. Convenience is a relative concept where white-collar crime is chosen over legitimate actions when there is a strong economical motive, ample organizational opportunities, and acceptance of deviant behavior. To study convenience theory, four investigations are presented in this article: statistical sample of white-collar criminals, autobiographies by white-collar criminals, internal investigations of white-collar crime, and student elicitation on white-collar crime. The strongest relationship within convenience theory seems to be the effect from willingness to commit crime based on deviant behavior on organizational opportunity to commit white-collar crime.     

Techniques of Affirmation: Deviant Behavior,Moral Commitment,and Subcultural Identity

Previous studies have examined how individuals act in ways that are considered deviant by mainstream standards and how these individuals neutralize their actions to maintain a positive self concept. But little is known about how individuals who defy social norms by “not doing” socially accepted behaviors construct meaningful subcultural identities. We explore the overlap between “deviant behavior” and subcultural identity through a case study of an abstinence-based subculture called straightedge. Through an analysis of online, textual interaction among participants of an internet forum dedicated to the straightedge youth subculture and focused discussions with forum members, we develop the concept of techniques of affirmation to frame how participants' beliefs regarding abstinence from drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous sex are articulated in subcultural discourse. We identify five affirmation techniques through which straightedge youths remain steadfast to their ideals, beliefs and non-actions: (1) acknowledgment of responsibility, (2) acknowledgment of injury, (3) acknowledgment of the victim, (4) discounting condemners, and (5) reference to priority relationships. We suggest that people and groups who orient themselves to subcultural frames of reference are more likely to utilize techniques of affirmation as part of constructing a positive sense of self.     

Accounts of Honesty: Refuting Allegations of Bribery

This article investigates the stories told by Swedish men charged with bribery. The interviews are drawn from a study of court cases relating to bribery. White-collar criminals often justify their actions with reference to business culture: “Everyone's doing it.” In this study, when refuting allegations, interviewees also invoke a “folk logic of bribery,” thus making use of mainstream cultural resources. Received ideas of a “real” bribe include the act itself, but also the moral character of the people involved. Accordingly, interviewees tailor a version in line with these ideas to refute the allegations against them.     

Presumed Guilty: Constructing Deviance and Deviants through Techniques of Neutralization

Techniques of neutralization have become one of the most ubiquitous concepts in the study of deviance. This article examines the way in which analysts who use neutralization theory construct the nature of deviance and those who engage in it. The author argues that by invoking the concept of neutralizations, analysts endorse the deviant label being applied to those they study and engage in the practice of “motive mongering.” In many cases, assumptions about the behavior and disposition of those who engage in deviant behavior have been accepted without empirical justification. The implications of this practice for objectivist and subjectivist approaches to defining deviance are examined.     

The Road to Hell: Neutralization of Killing in War

We explore how societies convince citizens to “go to hell,” where they kill strangers and risk their own lives. Our premise is that killing is difficult for most, regardless of context and widely considered a form of extreme deviance. Using Sykes and Matza’s techniques of neutralization, we show how this aversion to killing is neutralized by placing individuals in organized—both macro-level bureaucratic and micro-level small primary groups—to justify killing. Consequently, the neutralization of mass killing illustrates the role of power in defining deviance, and the failure of neutralizations may sometimes explain Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.     

Screwing the Pooch: Legitimizing Accounts in a Zoophilia On-line Community

This article seeks to extend existing research that addresses how deviant individuals use Internet technology to communicate accounts that neutralize hostile labels associated with their behaviors. Data were collected from a message board dedicated to zoophilia; the sample was comprised of 4,983 individual posts drawn from 87 discussion threads. Findings suggest that the posters routinely justify their actions through the production of neutralizing accounts. In particular, three new types of accounts were documented: appeals to enlightenment, claims of cultural diffusion, and neutralization by comparison.     

Le juge,le médecin et le détenu. Regard critique sur la suspension de peine pour raison médicale

The purpose of the article is to give a critical view of the “suspension médicale” (a kind of compassionate release), which is often considered as a “humanist” law. Based on a research conducted on the experience of prisoners at the end of their lives, it appeared that many more or less objective criteria are involved in the decision-making process. In this context, physicians and magistrates try to articulate their actions according to expertise. The decision of granting or refusal also depends on the perception of the prisoner's personality. The application of the law thus reflects the tensions and alliances between medicine and justice in the treatment of a deviant and vulnerable population.     

“It’s Just Paint”: Street Taggers’ Use of Neutralization Techniques

Neutralization theory posits that individuals use various linguistic techniques to free themselves from guilt associated with offending and/or to maintain a non-criminal self-image. Drawing on interviews with 25 active juvenile street taggers in a large metropolitan area of Texas, this study explores their use of Sykes and Matza’s five techniques of neutralizations and the reasons they give for drifting in and out of offending. Results suggest that offenders have several common stressors that lead them to engage in tagging and that they make extensive use of neutralization techniques to justify their actions.     

Of Monsters and Men: Exploring Serial Murderers’ Discourses of Neutralization

Techniques of neutralization are used by petty and serious criminals to verbally account for their behavior, mitigate responsibility, and socially construct identity. Since serial killers often appear “normal” while simultaneously killing, neutralizations may provide the process by which serial killers “drift” between conventional societal attachments and murder. These neutralizations may also function as a form of stigma management, as it does for other offenders, assisting in the maintenance of a positive presentation of self. To explore these propositions, a content analysis of narratives and case histories was used to examine serial murderers’ accounts to determine if neutralizations were offered, and if so, the implications of this theory as a general (or universal) theory of crime.     

Protecting Self-Image: The Rationalization of Cheating in an International Billiard League

ABSTRACT

The American Poolplayers Association, founded in 1979, is an international billiard league established in the United States, Canada, and Japan, with more than 250,000 members. The most difficult problem facing the American Poolplayers Association (APA)’s league operators is the deliberate cheating by the competing players. Players cheat to lower their skill level, allowing them to win more easily in important billiard matches such as the APA international championships. Qualitative interviews revealed that when asked about their cheating behavior, the players used all five “techniques of neutralization to rationalize their actions attempting to protect their self-image and to help insulate them from external judgments.     

The Morality of the “Immoral”: The Case of Homeless,Drug-Using Street Prostitutes

The wide-ranging literature on deviance and stigma rarely allows for disjuncture between action (behavior) and disposition (values): individuals act deviantly because they are deviant, or they re-present deviant actions as consistent with dominant morality through processes of stigma management. Drawing on research carried out with female homeless street sex workers in England, this article suggests there can be such disjuncture. The women participating in the research displayed mainstream values while also acknowledging the deviant nature of their behavior but rarely employed stigma management techniques. The article suggests that when prostitution is viewed as a functional act rather than one invested with value, the need to revalue is diminished.     

Persons, punishment, and free will skepticism

The purpose of this paper is to provide a justification of punishment which can be endorsed by free will skeptics, and which can also be defended against the “using persons as mere means” objection. Free will skeptics must reject retributivism, that is, the view that punishment is just because criminals deserve to suffer based on their actions. Retributivists often claim that theirs is the only justification on which punishment is constrained by desert, and suppose that non-retributive justifications must therefore endorse treating the people punished as mere means to social ends. Retributivists typically presuppose a monolithic conception of desert: they assume that action-based desert is the only kind of desert. But there are also personhood-based desert claims, that is, desert claims which depend not on facts about our actions, but instead on the more abstract fact that we are persons. Since personhood-based desert claims do not depend on facts about our actions, they do not depend on moral responsibility, so free will skeptics can appeal to them just as well as retributivists. What people deserve based on the mere fact of their personhood is to be treated as they would rationally consent to be treated if all they had in view was the mere fact of their personhood. We can work out the implications of this view for punishment by developing a “hypothetical consent” justification in which we select principles of punishment in the Rawlsian original position, so long as we are careful not to smuggle in the retributivist assumption that it is under our control whether we end up as criminals or as law-abiding citizens once we raise the veil of ignorance.     

Predicting Deviant Behavior by Neutralization: Myths and Findings

ABSTRACT

Neutralization theory states that deviant behavior is determined by the use of accounts rather than by an individual's acceptance of a social norm. A critical review of neutralization theory shows that (a) neutralization is only a weak predictor of norm-contradictive behavior, (b) high norm-acceptance seems to amplify the neutralization-behavior effect but might not be a prerequisite, and (c) in contrast to Minor's hardening process assumption, prior norm violation should increase impact of neutralization on behavior rather than decrease it. Future directions of neutralization research are suggested, based on a situational analysis of the neutralization process.     

“They Say That You Are a Danger But You Are Not”: Representations and Construction of the Moral Self in Narratives of “Dangerous Individuals” 1

This article is based on an analysis of narratives of 26 offenders with mental health problems living in the United Kingdom. It explores the impact of an ascribed dangerous status and the construction of the self as moral and responsible in response to this label with reference to the literature on denial, deviance disavowal and other “techniques of neutralization” and Goffman's presentation of self. Two dominant strands are identified in relation to the construction of moral self-hood: “Not my fault” and “Good at heart” narratives. “Techniques of neutralization” are widely drawn on, particularly denial of responsibility in the “Not my fault” narratives that seek to explain anti-social behavior with reference to external forces such as a hostile environment inhibiting their ability to control their lives. In contrast, “Good at heart” narratives draw on the essentially good and moral nature of the inner-self. Both are used as evidence of sharing and adhering to moral norms in order to present an acceptable and credible self.     

“Cult Commitment” from the Perspective of Former Members: Direct Rewards of Membership versus Dependency Inducing Practices

The experiences of involvement in a deviant “religious” group such as a cult or new religious movement is not well understood, with few qualitative studies having explored the experiences and perspectives of former members of such groups. To gain a better understanding of what compels individuals to be become committed to a cult or new religious movement, the current study is a qualitative investigation into “cult commitment” from the perspective of former members. Seven participants from four different groups were recruited, and in-depth interviews were conducted to explore the participants' accounts of their experience. This study found that participants' “decision” to remain in the group was influenced by both “direct rewards” of membership and levels of control exercised by the group and its leaders.     

The social organization of sadism and masochism

Sadism and masochism, traditionally studied as an individual psychopathology, may be more fully understood as a sociological phenomenon. Sadomasochists have developed a subculture characterized by a set of norms, shared ideologies, and a common argot. Contacts among sadomasochists are made through magazine advertisements, participation in clubs and organizations, through exposure to this behavior in other deviant subcultures, and fortuitously.

Sadomasochistic organizations, while differing widely among themselves, serve similar functions for their members: (1) they facilitate sexual and social contacts; (2) they provide members with information about techniques, events, other organizations, films, and so forth; (3) they develop and communicate justifications and apologias enabling people to accept their feelings and behavior as normal; and (4) they enable people to segregate their sadomasochistic needs and behavior from other areas of their lives.     

Radical therapy: A research note on the use of ideological work in maintaining a deviant subculture

A social protest movement which survived the demise of the New Left is explored in terms of ways in which a countercultural group preserved a particular kind of deviant subculture. Radical therapy developed from an opposition to American middle class values as they were institutionalized in psychiatric practice. While identifying themselves as Marxist revolutionaries, members reacted to the decline of social activism by adopting a hidden agenda of psychological transformation activities and duplicating traditional structures in their “radical” therapy. The longevity of radical therapy is explained in terms of its effectiveness in benefitting from the dominant culture while preserving members's deviant identities through various forms of ideological work.     

More Than a Sex Machine: Accomplishing Masculinity Among Chinese Male Sex Workers in the Hong Kong Sex Industry

Situated in the masculinity and deviance literature, this article examines a “deviant” masculinity, that of the male sex worker, and presents the ways men who engage in sex work cope with the job. Based on in-depth interviews of Chinese male sex workers (n = 18) in the Hong Kong sex industry, I argue that the stigma management techniques these men employ are simultaneously gender strategies they use to accomplish masculinity. It is through this process that they negotiate a masculine identity within the hierarchy of masculinities in order to become “respectable” and “responsible” Chinese men.     

Congress as a Deviant Organization: An Application of Ermann and Lundman’s Organizational Deviance Framework

ABSTRACT

In 1978, Ermann and Lundman put forth the most sophisticated organizational deviance framework to date. They conceptualized organizational deviance as actions by an organization that interfere with the flow of benefits to actors with legitimate claims upon that organization. Further, they stipulated that these claims are protected by “controlling organizations.” We apply Ermann and Lundman’s framework to Congress and conclude that it is a deviant organization. We then contemplate the challenges to social control that congressional deviance poses, and contend that the “exempt status” enjoyed by Congress – in that it writes its own rules and polices itself – should be removed.