Neutralization theory and self control theory are just two of many theories that can explain and predict white collar criminals. Neutralization theory was developed by Gresham Sykes and David Matza; Self-control theory was created by Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi (Payne, 2013).
Neutralization theory was developed to explain how juvenile delinquents drift in and out of delinquent behavior. They know right from wrong before they commit the crime, but neutralize and rationalize their behavior as appropriate (Payne, 2013). Five types of neutralization used to rationalize their misconduct are denial of injury, denial of victim, appeal to higher loyalties, denial of responsibility, and condemnation of condemners. Denial of injury “refers to situations where offenders justify their actions on the grounds that no one was harmed or injured as a result of their misconduct” (Payne, 2013). Denial of victims “refers to situations where the offenders convince themselves that victims deserve the harm they experience” (Payne, 2013). Appeal to higher loyalties neutralization “occur when offenders justify their wrongdoing by suggesting that the misbehavior was done for the good of a larger group” (Payne, 2013). Denial of responsibility “refers to situations where offenders neutralize their behaviors by suggesting that they are not responsible for their misconduct” (Payne, 2013). Condemnation of the condemners is a “neutralization where offenders blame the criminal justice and social control systems for their misdeeds” (Payne, 2013).
While offenders use neutralization to give them the courage to engage in wrongdoing, accounts are offered after the wrongdoing to explain their actions. An account is a “statement made by a social actor to explain unanticipated or untoward behavior”(Payne, 2013). Three types of accounts exist: denials, justifications, and excuses. Denials involve situations where offenders deny a specific aspect of the crime; they deny they committed the crime, or they deny knowing anything about the crime. Types of denials attributed to white collar offenders include denial of crime, offenders say they did not commit the crime they are accused of; denial of fact, offenders deny specific aspects of the crime; denial of awareness, offenders indicate that they did not understand that their actions were violations of workplace rules; and denial of guilt, offenders admit doing something but deny that the action was criminal(Payne, 2013). Denial of guilt is especially common among white collar criminals. In contrast to denials where offenders reject responsibility for the act, justifications are “accounts in which one accepts responsibility for the act in question but denies the pejorative quality associated with it” (Payne, 2013). “Types of justifications offered by white collar offenders include denial of law, professionals describe the law as unfair; defense of entitlement, workers indicate that they are underpaid, overworked, and entitled to the funds; borrowing, workers say that they planned to return the money; metaphor of the ledger, workers suggest that occasional wrongdoings are okay; denial of wrongfulness, offenders suggest that there was nothing wrong with their behavior” (Payne, 2013). Excuses are different from justifications and denials. Excuses are “socially approved vocabularies for mitigating or relieving responsibility” (Payne, 2013). Excuses that are relevant to white collar crime include appeal to accidents, appeal to defeasibility, and scapegoating. Appeal to accidents refers to excuses where offenders describe the outcome as an accident. Appeal to defeasibility includes situations where offenders deny intent, deny knowledge, or minimize the harm surrounding the offense. Scapegoating refers to excuses where white collar offenders blame others for their wrongdoing(Payne, 2013). Four types of excuses that workers make for workplace misconduct are the authority excuse (“I was told to do it”), the institutional excuse (“everybody is doing it”), the minimization excuse (“my actions won’t make a difference”), and the ostrich excuse (“it’s not my problem”). Those who use the authority excuse might believe that their misconduct was the result of their being ordered by their boss to engage in the wrongful behavior. With regard to institutional excuses, “offenders know their actions are wrong, so they look around the workplace to find others engaging in similar acts”(Payne, 2013). The minimization excuse parallels denial of injury neutralization. The ostrich excuse “refers to situations where workers ignore their coworkers’ misdeeds because they believe that is not their responsibility to stop misconduct”(Payne, 2013). Rationalizations and accounts serve four purposes for white collar offenders. According to the text written by Payne (2013) these four purposes are
First, given that white collar offenders know right from wrong, rationalizing behavior allows them to engage in behavioral drifting: they can drift in and out of acceptable and unacceptable behavioral patterns. Second, rationalizations and accounts promote intrinsic identity management, which simply means that they allow offenders to ‘maintain a positive self-image.’ Third, rationalizations and accounts promote extrinsic identity management, meaning that offenders are able to control that others see them in a positive way. Fourth, accounts allow offenders to try to minimize the types of sanctions given to them. In effect, by making excuses or using justifications, offenders can avoid punishment, reduce the sanction, and delay the sanction altogether (Payne, 2013).
Self control theory was created to argue that all types of crime were caused by the presence of low self-control. Self control was described by the theorists as “the individual characteristic relevant to the commission of criminal acts” (Payne, 2013). They characterized individuals with low self control as “impulsive, insensitive, physical (as opposed to mental), risk taking, short sighted, and non verbal” (Payne, 2013). Self control levels are tied to parenting, with bad parenting resulting in low self control, and levels of self control are stable throughout one’s life after early childhood. The concept of “criminality” is used to describe what is now known as self control. The authors wrote
criminality is the tendency of individuals to pursue short term gratification with little consideration for the long term consequences of their act … people high on this tendency are relatively unable or unwilling to delay gratification; they are relatively indifferent to punishment and to the interests of others (Payne, 2013).
Hirschi and Gottfredson compared arrest data for fraud and embezzlement with murder arrests. They suggested that similar age distributions for offenders across offense types showed evidence for a general theory, with their premise being that “a major correlate of ordinary crime is similarly correlated with white collar crime” (Payne, 2013).They also compared gender and race data for the three offense types and found that arrest rates were similar across the offenses. Hirschi and Gottfredson were extremely critical of white collar crime theories that explained the behavior by focusing on the nature of the occupation rather than the characteristics of the individual offender (Payne, 2013). They argued that focusing on motives and opportunities limited to the workplace “confuses social location with social causation” (Payne, 2013). In their view, the cause of white collar crime lies within the individual: those with self controls should be more prone to engage in white collar misconduct. They also suggested that when low self control interacts with opportunity, misconduct results (Payne, 2013).