Neutralisation techniques
Definition
The vocabulary of justifications identified by Sykes and Matza (1957) by which offenders deny the wrongfulness of their acts: denial of injury, denial of victim, denial of responsibility, condemnation of condemners, and appeal to higher loyalties. White-collar offenders frequently use these techniques, for example by framing corporate fraud as standard industry practice.
Related terms
- Corporate crime
- Illegal acts committed by or on behalf of a corporate organisation for the organisation's benefit. Distinct from occupational crime because the wrongdoing...
- Cybercrime
- Offences where a computer network is the tool or the target. Tool-based cybercrime includes fraud, harassment, and intellectual property theft conducted online....
- Enterprise theory
- A theoretical framework that analyses organised crime as a rational business enterprise responding to market conditions. Associated with criminologist Dwight Smith, who...
- Organised crime
- A structured group of three or more persons that operates continuously, with the aim of committing serious offences for material benefit, and...
- White-collar crime
- Crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of their occupation (Sutherland, 1939). The category covers...
Explained in
- Organised, White-Collar, Corporate, and CybercrimeThe vocabulary of justifications identified by Sykes and Matza (1957) by which offenders deny the wrongfulness of their acts: denial of injury, denial of victi...