In their 1957 article, Sykes and Matza overstated the similarities between the value systems of delinquents and nondelinquents, and subsequent theorists have treated neutralization as a theoretical counterpoint to subcultural perspectives on delinquency. To overcome this artificial and unproductive dichotomization, a revision of neutralization theory is proposed that makes it compatible with subcultural interpretations of delinquency. Prior neutralization research is flawed because it fails to (1) establish the correct causal order between excuse acceptance and delinquency and (2) con trol for youths' moral evaluations of delinquent behavior. This paper presents the results of a two-wave panel study designed to overcome these shortcomings. For several forms of minor deviance, excuse acceptance is found to be related to subsequent behavior in the manner predicted by the theory. Controlling for moral evaluations and prior behavior, these relationships hold primarily for youths who disapprove of the behavior in question (as expected) but who have previously engaged in that behavior (contrary to expectation). Theoretical im plications of these findings are explored.
The present research is a replication of the Saltzman et al. study concerning deterrent and experiential effects in perceptual deterrence research. Despite certain design differences in the two studies (e.g., we used a shorter lag between Time One and Time Two), our findings replicate theirs in that (1) perceptions of risk are not particularly stable, even over a period as short as three months, and (2) experiential effects are consistently larger and more often significant than deterrent effects. Both in our data and in the Saltzman et al. data, we find interactions which specify the experiential effect as most likely to occur among those with initially high perceptions of risk (a naiveté effect) rather than among those for whom a given form of behavior is new (a novelty effect), as Saltzman et al. had contended. We conclude that the substitution of experiential effects for deterrent effects is not justified, that studies which have done so are moot on the subject of deterrence, and that longitudinal designs may be essential for resolution of the causal order problem.
Economists and criminologists have long tried to establish linkages between job markets and crime. Most prior research, however, used large areas such as the whole nation, states, metropolitan areas, or counties to identify job markets. Such large units are heterogeneous, and there may be more variation within such units than between them. This research uses two GIS-based methods to measure job access across census tracts in Cleveland, Ohio in 1990. The first is a ratio of jobs to resident workers (JR ratio) within catchment areas defined by reasonable commuting times. The second approach is a gravity-based job-accessibility index, which accounts for job competition among workers and longer commute times for public transit riders. Controlling for spatial autocorrelation, we find consistent inverse relationships between gravity-based job accessibility and crime rates. These relationships tend to be stronger for economic crimes than for crimes of violence.
A previously untested proposition from Sykes and Matza's neutralization theory is that certain types of offenders will favor certain types of neutralizing excuses. Murderers, for example. may tend toward denial of responsibility or denial of the victim. A competing hypothesis, derived from Hindelang's challenges to neutralization and drift theories, is that offenders would favor excuses keyed to offenses similar to their own. Robbers, for example, may favor excuses for robbery over excuses for other offenses. regardless of the content of the excuses themselves. The data presented in this article, based on o survey of inmates in four Florida prisons, fail to support either hypothesis. This may suggest that the two perspectives from which the hypotheses are derived are overly simplistic‐that the nature of crime and delinquency is more subtle and complex than indicated by either the subcultural or antisubcultural theoretical traditions.
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