Gresham Sykes and David Matza (1957) have created a five-part model of justifications of deviant behavior that they call "techniques of neutralization. The five techniques include denying responsibility, denying the injury, blaming the victim, condemning the authorities and appealing to higher principles or authorities. Significantly, sociologist Robert Sampson (1996) found that juveniles from the lower classes who came into contact with the Seattle police because of delinquent behavior were more likely to be arrested and then indicted than were their middle-class counterparts engaged in similar activities. They attributed such discrepancies in treatment to an approach to deviance known as "labeling theory, whereby certain people are viewed as delinquent and therefore their behavior is automatically classified as delinquent.
Sykes and Matza argue that the will to delinquency arises from the feelings of desperation of lower class urban males. Such males attempt to deny their roles as passive victims of social processes through positive acts of delinquency. Such a theory could certainly be supported by the criminal activity of the founding members of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Furthermore, Sykes and Matza also note that delinquents remain committed to the social order they offend, demonstrated by their application of legitimate legal defenses to their crimes though they may have to distort the defenses to fit their own situation. Party leader Huey Newton's familiarity with the law offers support for the application of the techniques of neutralization to the methods used by the Black Panthers.
McCarthy also argues that neutralization theory proposes that offenders are not committed to oppositional values and norms but share the same value system as the dominant culture. Rather, offenders view illegal behavior as "wrong" but their techniques of neutralization allow them to temporarily disengage themselves from c...