Travis Hirschi--Criminological Theory

(Hirschi , 1967 . There is no warrant for assuming with Matza , that because these codes enable only a non-critical and inarticulate response that therefore their `implicit critique ' is not a critique at all but a neutralization . Indeed , even in the most extreme cases of verbal dis where linguistic utterances are hardly possible by the deviant (e .g . schizophrenia , it has been strongly argued that non-communication itself can be understood as political attack upon the double-bind concentration camp of the nuclear family . Moreover , Matza seems to assume that all his techniques of neutralization are

on the same level that is that they are all techniques which neutralize the moral bind of society in the same kind of way . Of course , he does allow that there are various degrees of freedom in using different techniques For example , he allows that disclaiming responsibility because one is sick is altogether different from denying one 's responsibility by `condemning the condemners . The problem with this convolution of different types is that even a full-blown ideology could be made to look like a neutralization . Moreover , the list of types is posed in a unilinear fashion : all of the techniques , or any one of them , is seen to neutralize conventional morality . However , it is perfectly apparent that they make different sense depending on what deviant action is being contemplated and upon what kind of morality is being `extended . A homosexual who says he cannot help being a homosexual because he is sick is very different from the homosexual who denies the fact of harm to the victim , who declares that `gay is good ' and that his partner agrees . Of course , deviants do switch from one position to another , but this is contingent upon the dialectical relationship between their deviant action and (not just the conventional morality ) and the...