The Pros And Cons Of Neutralization Theory

Theories have often been developed to explain how delinquents violate social norms and still manage to maintain positive self images of themselves. Neutralization theory, developed by Gresham Sykes and David Matza in 1957 set out to do just this. Critics, however, have claims that the theory, on it’s own, is not a sufficient explanation for adolescent’s participation in crime in delinquency. It has also been claimed by critics that neutralization theory is best viewed as a components of larger theory of crime and can be incorporated into other theories such as social bond theory. As mentioned above, neutralization theory was developed by Sykes and Matza in 1957 in which sought to explain delinquency as a result of adolescents using the techniques

One of the more common theories often used to explain this trend is general strain theory. General strain theory was first introduced Robert Agnew when he was trying to revise anomie theory from a micro level, social psychological perspective (Akers and Sellers, 2013). According to Agnew’s revised theory, he claimed that, crime and delinquency were often an adaptation to stress. For example, if an individual was in desperate need for money, Agnew claims that this individual would often feel frustrated, angry, or experience a range of negative emotions, which could result in this individual coping with this strain through crime (Cullen, Agnew, and Wilcox,

Chen (2010) also concluded that depending on the context, the desire for autonomy and delinquency could result in creating greater strain for these adolescents by dealing with stricter constraints and limiting their ability to exercise autonomy (As cited in Akers and Sellers, 2013). The desire for autonomy is just one example of strain, as noted above, in which individuals face through out the age of sixteen to twenty, in which could be used to explain why more crime tends to take place during this specific time frame in an individuals