doi:10.

1093/bjc/azu100

BRIT. J. CRIMINOL. (2015) 55, 286302

Advance Access publication 12 December 2014

NEUTRALIZATION WITHOUT DRIFT: CRIMINAL

COMMITMENT AMONG PERSISTENT OFFENDERS
Bruce A.Jacobs and HeithCopes*

Key words: neutralization theory, criminal commitment, drift

This is a paper about how carjackers experience what they do. We apply an interpretive
perspective, under the larger umbrella of neutralization theory, to shed light on criminal commitment and the contradictory ways in which people perceive participation in
carjacking. We argue that these carjackers neutralize but do not drift. Neutralization
without drift is a feature of persistent offenders who account for their actions, but who
never meaningfully oscillate between conventional and illicit worlds. That is, they know
what they are doing is pernicious, do it despite that awareness, explain it away with
often circular logic and remain entirely open to repetition.
Criminal Commitment
Few concepts are more central to criminology than criminal commitment. Fewer still
are as enigmatic. Indeed, defining precisely what it means largely has escaped theorists. Criminal commitmentwhich essentially refers to lawbreakers buy-in to offendingeither is assumed or captured by proxy terms such as criminality and propensity.
Commitment also tends to be presupposed by the act of offending itself: Offenders are
committed because they engage in crime, and because they engage in crime, they must
be committed.
Although the aetiology of criminal commitment dominates the discipline of criminology, far less attention has centred on how offenders perceive it. Indeed, its interpretation by offenders may be one of the least studied concepts in the field. Qualitative
criminologists have long argued that a full understanding of rule-breaking is best
achieved by exploring how crime is experienced by the offender. Yet, even qualitative
*Bruce A. Jacobs, School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Rd.,
Richardson, TX 75080; Heith Copes, Department of Justice Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1201 University
Boulevard, Suite 210, Birmingham, AL 35294; jhcopes@uab.edu

286
The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD).
All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

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Prior research suggests that serious predatory offenders are sufficiently committed to illicit conduct
that they must neutralize good behaviour, rather than bad behaviour. Drawing from a sample of
offenders who commit carjacking, we question that assumption. Specifically, our data reveal the
manner in which such offenders neutralize bad conduct without meaningfully drifting. The notion
of neutralization without drift represents a theoretical refinement of neutralization theory and an
extension of core conceptualization in the interpretation of criminal commitment. Through this
concept, we attempt to make sense of how persistent predatory offenders who commit carjacking
are able to embrace aggression, explain that its not really them, neutralize bad rather than good
conduct, yet retain their status as committed criminals.

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research is dominated by attention to the structure, process and contingent forms of

crime rather than offenders interpretation of it. Actions are one thing, but the reasons
behind them are another (Mills 1940), especially among predatory street offenders who
talk about their conduct in seemingly contradictory ways (Sandberg 2009a, 2009b).
The question of criminal commitment and its perception by offenders is further complicated by whether commitment refers to a lifestyle, a value system or a discrete act.
Commitment to values or acts is by no means necessary for commitment to a lifestyle,
but the obverse also is true: Offenders frequently enact crimes out of habit or impulse
and little else. Commitment, in other words, may only be as deep as the trigger of the
moment. The tautological relationship between commitment and criminality is a separate but equally significant issue: Uncommitted offenders can offend, but committed
offenders are not necessarily driven to crime. Despite the fact that commitment is not
always inferable from conduct, many analysts continue to presume that itis.
Then there is the uneasy relationship between criminal commitment and morality.
Are committed offenders lacking dedication to conventional lifestyles, pursuits and
moralities, or does criminal commitment accompany an alternative worldview and
identity? Morality and crime are thought to be mutually exclusive, but crime frequently
is enacted for moralistic reasonsto respond to a grievance, to pay back a perceived
affront, to teach a lesson or to make some broader statement (Black 1983; Jacobs and
Wright 2006; Jacques 2010). Even offenders who may have put little thought into why
they acted often conjure up motivations after-the-fact to make themselves feel better or
to make others perceive them less negatively (Scott and Lyman 1968). These reasons
justify not only the type of crime they select but also the victim they target and the
specific ways in which they enact their crimes. Morality is both subjective and relational
and frequently, offenders position themselves and their conduct in moralistic ways,
even if these beliefs counter conventional thought (Cooney 2012).
No criminological perspective has underscored this point more emphatically than
neutralization theory. Developed more than 50years ago out of the need for a more
nuanced treatment of criminal commitment than subcultural theorists could offer
(Sykes and Matza 1957), neutralization scholars opined that offenders were not entirely
wedded to crime. Instead, offenders vacillated between criminal and non-criminal
worlds. The use of linguistic devices (i.e., neutralization techniques) permitted such
drift to occur (Matza 1964). Over the years, neutralization theory has been the subject
of dozens, if not hundreds, of studies (Fritsche 2005). Qualitative research examining
neutralization theory shows overwhelmingly that offenders of all types seek to align their
actions with personal and social expectations (Maruna and Copes 2005). Offenders do
this by justifying or excusing their actions with culturally existing accounts in a way
that assuages guilt and manages stigma (Sykes and Matza 1957; Scott and Lyman 1968).
Although neutralization theory was initially developed to explain delinquency
(through soft determinism), it has been adapted and re-fashioned by narrative criminologists to explain the process by which all offenders make sense of their lives and
their selves (Maruna and Copes 2005). When confronted with their own deviant conduct, actors seek to align that conduct with normative expectancies. Doing so allows
them to maintain a desired identity (see Orbuch 1997 for a review of this literature).
Viewed in this manner, linguistic devices such as neutralizations and accounts can be
seen as outward manifestations of a persons self- and social identity (McAdams 1993).
Thus, when offenders are confronted with wrongdoings, the way they explain their

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actions (i.e., neutralize or account for their crimes) becomes a way of maintaining a
particular sense of self. They can commit violence but not be violent (Presser 2008);
they can use methamphetamines but not be dysfunctional addicts (Copes etal. 2014);
they can embezzle but not be thieves (Cressey 1953). The ability to tell the story of their
actions allows many offenders to continue with their criminal pursuits.
The bulk of research on neutralizations has focused on actors who violate conventional norms, but recent research suggests that virtually everyone who violates normative beliefs systems uses these devices either to maintain desired identities or to
continue a line of action (Garot 2010). The value of neutralizations for violating subcultural value systems has been articulated in an innovative paper by Topalli (2005). Using
interviews with persistent street offenders, he demonstrates how these individuals are so
uncommitted to conventional society that they seldom express guilt or account for their
crimes. They do, however, justify and excuse conduct that violates street codes. Thus,
when showing mercy after being disrespected, they claimed that they did so because
they were moved by the appeals of others to forgive the transgression or because they
reinterpreted the original insult to be minor and unworthy of a response (Topalli 2005
2006; see also Garot 2010; Copes etal. 2013a). Topalli argues that when being good is
bad, being good must be explained.
Neutralization theoryand the broader sociology of accountshas brought the
ambivalence of criminal commitment into focus. Prior research suggests one of two
things as it relates to commitment and offenders perception of it. Consistent with traditional neutralization theory, offenders presume: Im not bad, in fact, Im good and
heres why Idid what Idid. Second, and consistent with Topallis persistent criminals,
offenders claim, Im bad and Im not going to excuse or apologize for what Idid, and,
if Ido apologize, its because Iwas good and should have been bad. Both beliefs are
conducive to criminal persistence because such stories allow offenders to more easily
construct identities and make sense of their actions. Offenders who believe in the first
ethos are the subject of most neutralization research (see Maruna and Copes 2005).
Offenders who are serious and committed but who attempt to neutralize that conduct
in more conventional ways typically are not the subject of research.
Such offenders represent persistent, predatory criminals who should not feel the need
to offer accounts, yet still do. Using a sample of predatory carjackers, we argue that such
offenders can do really bad things and explain them away without ever meaningfully
straying from the clutches of committed criminality. We refer to this as neutralization
without drift. Neutralization without drift requires that accounts offer an illusion of
conventional morality, but it is an illusion because the explanations are excuses without
a moral substructure. These excuses explain why the offender did what s/he did but
fail to reconcile with any objective buy-in to conventional morality. Matzas (1964) treatise explained that drift requires movement between conventional and criminal value
systems and is made possible by excuses or justifications that reveal such a buy-in to
conventional moral ideals. Indeed, all five founding neutralization techniques reflect
offenders self-positioning as moral people: No one really got hurt; the victim deserved
what s/he got; people are shifting the blame onto me unfairly; Idid it for a larger good;
its really not my fault because of extenuating circumstances (Sykes and Matza 1957).
Offenders who construct a morality that either is relativeI was bad, but Icould have
been much worseor circularI was bad because Iwas doing other bad things
does not reflect morality in the Sykes/Matzian sense, nor does it betray drift between

CRIMINAL COMMITMENT AMONG PERSISTENT OFFENDERS

Carjacking
Carjacking has long been a problem in North America and particularly in the United
States. The offense first grabbed American headlines in 1992 after the robbery-homicide of a woman in suburban Maryland (Topalli and Wright 2004). Two men commandeered her luxury vehicle as she dropped off her young child at school. When the
offenders drove away, the victim remained stuck in the seatbelt, and she was brutally
dragged to her death. Following a public outcry, the offense became the subject of
federal legislation (Topalli and Wright 2004). The seriousness and attention-grabbing
nature of this crime is by no means limited to the United States. Other countries have
grappled with it as well as related crimes (for the South Africa experience, see Davis
2003; on Brazil bus robberies, see Paes-Machado and Levenstein 2004; in Australia, see
Young and Borzycki 2008).
Carjacking involves the seizure of a motor vehicle using force or threat of force.
Statistical data reveal that carjackings typically involve more than one offender, as well
as offenders and victims who are strangers to one another. The modal carjacking takes
place in a parking lot or on the street and is committed by an armed offender. Despite
the presence of weapons, victim resistance is frequent, although carjackings rarely
involve death or serious injury (see, e.g., Fisher 1995; Klaus 2004).
Like other forms of robbery, carjacking tends to be triggered by acute financial need,
although other motives can play a role (see Jacobs et al. 2003; Young and Borzycki
2008; Miethe and Sousa 2010). In the typical carjacking, the assailant forcibly extracts
a driver from his or her running vehicle and drives it away, but other modalities exist
and occur with reasonable regularity (Miethe and Sousa 2010). For instance, some carjackers lurk near parked cars and wait for victims as they approach or exit their vehicles
(Young and Borzycki 2008).
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conventional and unconventional worlds. These are persistent offenders who do really
bad things and give explanations for it, but whose explanations never meaningfully
dislodge them from deviant norms. They drift from bad to good, but still remain firmly
anchored to bad. This contrasts typical neutralizations where individuals are anchored
to good but drift tobad.
Whether such accounts reflect fundamental conflict between real-time criminal
commitment and retrospective talk about it is unclear. If so, serious offenders may be
committed to an act but not a status (i.e., they do not have a self-identity as bad), contradicting most of what we know and presume about persistent criminality. If that is true,
the prospective value of such accounts should be irrelevant: Offenders do not perceive
the need to neutralize before an offense, but then neutralize afterward in ways that
require no meaningful drift. In other words, serious offenders do not believe they need
to neutralize, then they do, but the neutralizations themselves never really require the
offenders to oscillate between illicit and licit worlds. They are bad, but not that bad.
We believe that by examining this commitment paradox, we can make sense of how
persistent predatory offenders are able to embrace aggression, explain that it is not
really them, neutralize bad as well as good conduct and yet retain their status as dedicated offenders. Asample of predatory carjackers provides data with which to explore
this assertion. We offer a brief literature review on carjacking to situate our empirical
researchgap.

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Methods
We base our findings on the accounts of carjackers that the second author (H.C.) gathered in semi-structured, ethnographic interviews in two separate medium security
Louisiana (US) prisons.1 Respondents were offenders who engaged in diverse forms of
predatory crime, persistently over time, despite multiple and repeated contacts with the
criminal justice system. These offenders were career criminals who operated with little
or no regard for the law (Topalli 2005: 806). Although we identify them as carjackers,
they were not specialists and they did not identify as such. They engaged in a variety
of serious rule-breaking behaviours, ranging from robbery and assault to drug dealing
and common-law property crime. They all used illegal drugs, and the majority admitted to having addictions either to heroin or cocaine. They were heavily engaged in and
surrounded by the drug economy and streetlife in poor neighbourhoods. Generally
speaking, they were obsessed on the one hand with a constant need for cash, drugs,
and alcohol to keep the party going and limited by self-defeating and reckless spending habits on the other, both of which promoted predatory crime (Topalli 2005: 807).
In addition, they self-identified as hustlers who lived by the oppositional culture and
who excelled at making a living by various hustles including theft, drug dealing and
fraud. Finally, in Andersons (1999) words, they were streetplacing a high value on
deterring disrespect through violence, regardless of the long-termcosts.
Their persistence in crime and drug use led to frequent contacts with agents of the
criminal justice system. All had been arrested numerous times (most could not accurately recount the number of times they had been arrested). All respondents had at
least one adult conviction, but the majority of respondents had multiple convictions for
serious felonies. Crimes in their adult records ranged in severity from low-level drug
distribution to robbery to attempted murder. Despite early and continued contact with
the criminal justice system, they all returned to further crime commission. In short,
1

This research was conducted with the approval of the second authors (H.C.) University Institutional Review Board.

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Undoubtedly, advances in anti-theft technology have enhanced the appeal of carjacking (Miethe and Sousa 2010). Compared with breaking into a car that may be outfitted with tamper-resistant countermeasures and trying to get it started, carjacking is
simple: Threaten the victim, take control of the vehicle and drive it away. The simplicity of carjacking facilitates impulsive crimes and, like other forms of robbery (Feeney
1986; Jacobs 2000), carjacking is often a spur-of-the-moment affair.
Although social scientists have studied robbery as it occurs in a variety of settings
and circumstances (Lejeune and Alex 1973; Feeney 1986; Shover 1996; Wright and
Decker 1997; Jacobs 2000), carjacking has received comparatively less attention. This
is especially true of the interpretive aspects of the crime (but see Topalli and Wright
2004; Copes et al. 2012; Jacobs 2013) and more specifically, the connection between
what offenders do and how they talk about what they do. We believe that carjacking
is an ideal crime for examining such concerns. Prior qualitative research on carjacking confirms that the offense tends to be committed by offenders in either particularly motivated or especially desperate states and who possess rather extensive criminal
backgrounds (see, e.g., Jacobs et al. 2003). The backgrounds of our respondents are
consistent with this picture.

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they are [people] who failed to learn their lesson despite severe penalties and modest
returns from their crimes (Shover 1996:xiii).
With the help of prison clerks and staff, the second author (H.C.) used purposive
sampling to locate offenders who committed carjacking. Although Louisiana has a statute that regulates carjacking, he was unable to find a sizable number of individuals who
were sentenced under this statute. To expand the sample, he asked correctional officers
if they knew inmates who had used force or the threat of force to steal vehicles. Using
this strategy, he located and interviewed 30 such individuals. Respondents ranged in
age from 21 to 40 (mean age=25). Six participants were White and 24 were Black. All
but two weremale.
Researchers who interview inmates should take precautions to ensure that participants are neither coerced into participating (due to excessive prodding from staff or
from mistakenly believing that they will gain legal benefits for doing so) nor exposed
to any undue harm. However, recent research on inmate-based research indicates
that those under state supervision understand they are not obligated to participate.
More importantly, they are aware that their decisions about participation will have no
effect on their criminal justice status, including parole decisions (Copes etal. 2013b).
Nevertheless, to address the possibility of coercion and harm, participants were ensured
that their names would be kept confidential to the best of the interviewers abilities and
informed that researchers could not help their position in the prison or their case for
release in anyway.
Participants were interviewed in private rooms where correctional officers were not
present. Only the study participants and a lone interviewer were in the room during
the interview. Although correctional officers were nearby, they were unable to listen
in on the conversations. The interviews, which were audio-recorded, ranged in length
from 30 to 90 minutes. The interviews were transcribed by trained personnel to mirror
the spoken words as closely as possible; however, we did edit quotes to aid readability.
We manually coded the interviews. That is, we developed coding schemes by reading
hardcopies of the transcribed interviews and making notes about dominant themes on
them rather than relying on qualitative software packages.
The initial goals of the interviews were to determine how participation in street culture constrained their decision-making process and to elaborate on situational aspects
of decision-making, including involvement and event decisions. During the interviews,
participants were asked to elaborate on their motivations to commit carjacking, the
target selection process, perceived risks and rewards of participating in carjacking, risk
and fear management, and the techniques and skills used to accomplish their tasks.
More importantly for this study, the research was interested in interpretive issues such
as perceptions of self and how offenders defined themselves and their crimes. For
example, respondents were asked if they thought they were violent people and whether
others saw them as such. Here, possible inconsistencies (at least from our perspective)
were probed about their violent acts and their conceptions of self as violent people, a
central topic of inquiryhere.
When interviewing people about their lives and beliefs, we must decide on how such
data are to be viewed. Are the stories told by participants factual recounting of events
or are they social constructions where participants are doing identity work (see Presser
2004)? We see the importance of narratives not so much in the substantive events these
stories depict (i.e., what happened during their crimes), but in the meanings storytellers

JACOBS AND COPES

2
If given the chance, they likely would have talked about other aspects of their lives. For example, in another setting, they
may have only briefly discussed violence and chosen instead to talk about their religious beliefs, their love of family, the pains
and lesson of imprisonment, or some other topic the researchers encouraged in conversational exchange. Like all others, our
respondents had complicated lives and identities. Still, the participants took care to resist designations of violent selves. Our
findings suggest that overwhelmingly they sought to resist the violent label (Hochstetler et al. 2010). Like those violent men
interviewed by Presser (2004 2005 2008), those we interviewed actively resisted being defined exclusively as violent. They admitted to engaging in violent acts, but relied on a variety of linguistic techniques to sidestep the label. They presented themselves
as complex charactersas being both decent and street (Sandberg 2009a 2009b). The context of interactions influences the
style (and content) of stories in all situations, both in research settings and beyond (Gubrium and Holstein 1997). This is inescapable. The influences of settings and other stimuli in the interview exist regardless of who the interviewer is or where the
interview takes place. This necessitates the need for reflexivity in writing as there is no true story waiting to be told (Presser
2004). Interviewers and authors must reflect and be aware of the potential influences structuring the directions that interviews
take and subsequently the content of participant accounts.

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attach to them. Peoples identities are embedded in the stories they tell, and these stories are shaped and constrained by the setting in question. This includes the larger
social location where the events took place and the more local research setting. Thus,
reflexivity is important.
Although much of the social sciences stress the importance of neutral researchers,
current thought among narrative theorists suggests that this goal is not possible. Simply
by conducting interviews in artificial settings, we shape the stories people tell and that,
in turn, shapes the data. In this study, the location of the interviews (prison), the status
of participants (inmates) and the status of the interviewer (professor) set the parameters of the research and encouraged informants to respond within those parameters
(Presser 2004). What is more, the nature of the project (to study participation in carjacking) defined participants as violent offendersthey had to have forcibly stolen a
vehicle to participate. Participants then either accepted this definition or resisted it,
which the open-ended nature of the questions allowed them to do. Despite these constraints, participants had a great deal of flexibility in how they recounted their crimes
and their roles in them. Still, the very subject of the interviews defines to a large degree
what they talk about and how they position themselves in the account.
Our findings may create the impression that violence was the dominant feature of
participants lives and that they are one-dimensional characters. It is true that much of
the interview consisted of participants talking about violence in some form. But this is
because we focused the interview on this aspect of their lives and asked them to explain
discrepancies between claims of non-violent selves and described violent acts.2 No doubt,
the setting of the events described also affected the way they told their stories (Holstein
and Gubrium 2000). The participants were largely from south Louisiana, primarily New
Orleans. Most had lived in poor urban areas, and all had committed forcible auto theft.
Accordingly, street culture and impoverished, crime-ridden neighbourhoods played a
large role in the narratives they conveyed. Although the participants did not specialize
in carjacking, they were self-defined hustlers, and carjacking was one of many ways they
earned cash and reputations. Respondents larger identification was with street culture.
That is, they placed a high value on fast living, conspicuous consumption, retaliation
and respect. This value system is not unique to those we interviewed or to people living in the same areas. Indeed, such values have been found among people living in
Philadelphia, United States (Anderson 1999), Oslo, Norway (Sandberg and Pedersen
2011) and Cardiff, Wales (Brookman etal. 2011). These attitudes are common among
persistent male and female offenders in both North America and Europe (Brunson
and Stewart 2006; Brookman etal. 2007). Although the prevalence of carjacking varies

CRIMINAL COMMITMENT AMONG PERSISTENT OFFENDERS

globally, there is much less variation regarding the focal concerns of street life. It is
because of this that we believe our findings are applicable outside of the United States.
Although it is possible that the specific style and content of neutralizing is unique to
this group, we argue that the process of sense-making or neutralizing without drift is a
more universal one. Detailing the differences in the style of neutralizing without drift
is an important next step in understanding the importance of culture and setting on
narrative sense-making. Reflecting on the things that shape interview content across
contexts sometimes adds confidence that what is heard is fundamentally truth, at least
as the participants seeit.

When describing their crimes, the interviewees reported that they were motivated to
carjack because they needed immediate transportation, they desired quick cash or
because they wanted to joyride in their neighbourhoods (see also Topalli and Wright
2004). In addition to describing motives, the offenders offered personal evaluations of
their actions, which is a common feature of offender narratives (Labov 1972). Here, we
elaborate on the most common evaluations of their crimes.
I wasnt really violent
Participants made categorical distinctions between real violence and the brand in
which they engaged. Certain types of violence were beyond the pale, other forms were
acceptable and juxtaposing the categories was key for the respondents (cf. Presser 2004;
Hochstetler etal. 2010). Juxtaposition vested credibility in the offenders beliefs because
carjacking was less noxious than what they could have done. Thus, for Chantey, Rape
and all that junk there was going too far, but carjacking was a different story. He
claimed that he was not a violent person and that he considered a violent person someone who, Does a lot of things just for the hell of it, just for the sport. but me, stealing
[is not violent] cause Ihave a reason. Or as David explained, When it comes to killing
somebody out of cold blood for no reasonthats not me. He added that he has shot
at people. But not intentionally trying to kill them. Imight pull a gun on somebody just
to scare them.
Intent figured prominently in the offenders perceptions of acceptable violence.
Richard claimed he did not consider himself a violent person because he didnt want
(emphasis added) to hurt nobody. Leroy remarked similarly, I didnt never really
intend to injure nobody. Ihavent never injured nobody. Iaint into doing nothing to
innocent people. Igot a conscience. Gerald insisted that he was the most humblest
person you could probably ever meet. Still to this day, Ihave a lot of compassion for
people. Although Michael struck his victims in the head, strangled them a little too
hard, scratched them in their face, [and tussled with them] a little too much, he aint
never shot them and thus did not consider himself violent. I can be the coolest person
you know, he said. Gerald commented that he could grab you and Iknow that aint
gonna really hurt you, but Ican punch you a couple [times] or hit you in your stomach
to knock your wind out Thats enough time for me to get in the car. But Inever
was a violent person. Such statements suggest that these carjackers made distinctions
between doing violent acts and being violent people (Hochstetler etal. 2010). Although
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Carjackers Evaluations of Crimes andSelf

JACOBS AND COPES

Mostly everybody Icarjack was mostly drug dealers. It wasnt really no ordinary person like you
because we know one day this drug dealers getting all his back. As soon as we take it he gonna get
it back the next day. He gonna get it back just like that [snaps fingers]. It aint gonna affect them.
It would be on my conscience a while [to rob someone] thats not in the dope game [vs. someone]
thats living the life that Im living, you know what Im saying.

The notion of acceptable and unacceptable victims did occasionally infuse the offenders accounts, claims that harken back to Sykes and Matzas (1957) original conception
of victim denial. Jarrett professed that old people were taboo. Old, old, old, very old
decrepit people, Iwouldnt touch them. Iwouldnt touch nothing of theirs, you hear.
Iwouldnt do it. Echoing this sentiment, Derrick posited that women and children were
off-limits. I got a momma too you know, he said, [so] Iwouldnt want nobody to do
that to mine. Yall free to go, you all exempt. He added, Kids, you safe. Men with kids
go on do your thing. We had a little morals so to speak you know. Shawn reported
aborting a carjacking in progress when he realized a child was inside the vehicle. I ran
up on this Mercedes Benz station wagon and when Ilook in the backseat they had a little girl, you know, she was lookin at me in my eyes. Idone ran up on a little girl so Ilet
it go. Imean children Idont mess with. My conscience play with me.
Such claims of virtuousness must be greeted with a healthy dose of scepticism, however.
The actual offense was not necessarily consistent with the ideal crimes they conjured in
their minds or which they relayed to inquiring researchers. Offenders may claim not to
target people with kids, but they would not necessarily back out after discovering young
occupants in the vehicle. Although Michael insisted that he never intended to carjack
a vehicle with a child insideI had a guilty conscience, believe me. [I]ts like a spur of
the moment type cause if Iknew there was a child Iwouldnt have did itthe way he
described the offense scarcely betrayed concern for the child or his conduct.
[The victim says,] I got my child So Im like, I dont give a fuck. Which Ireally dont give a fuck.
Im like, Man, look give me what you got you understand, give me this car or Im going to kill you
and your baby right now. Get your baby then you walk off. So she got her baby like Isee she kind of
nervous like she almost dropped her little baby.

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they may engage in discrete acts of aggression, they still sought to portray themselves as
not being violent at theircore.
Sometimes, the perception of non-violence flowed from the efficiency with which
the offenders enacted their crimes. This efficiency failed to endow their acts with evil.
Carjacking was not really vile if committed in a calculated, methodical and purposive
manner. Id just put a gun to em and get it over with, Brennon recounted. Never
thought I was really a violent person. Recalling a victim he carjacked at gunpoint,
Chantey just made him get out and went off with the car. [W]hen he [the victim]
seen the pistol [to his head], he basically knew what it was. Philip claimed that because
he did not really do anything gratuitous to the woman he carjacked, his conduct was
reasonable. I didnt do her no wrong, he recalled, she would have probably given
me [a ride if Iasked] you know. Philip said this despite the fact that the victim was so
frightened during the crime that she was saying her prayers. Thats when Iwas like,
Oh man, this lady, you know, she a nice church going woman. Portraying oneself in
a less-than-sinister light was perhaps easiest when the selected target was deserving of
victimization (Sykes and Matza 1957). As Derrick explained:

CRIMINAL COMMITMENT AMONG PERSISTENT OFFENDERS

I had real reasons for violence

Casting more doubt on the offenders benign intentions were the lengths to which they
went to make the crime successful. The contrast between claims of not being violent
and their readiness to use incapacitating force was stark. Tony thus revealed that he
would have shot the woman he carjacked, but because she panicked and dropped the
keys and her purse, he did not. Rufus, who carjacked a young woman he knew from
his school for a ride to a rap concert, explained that she was young and scared, and
that if she resisted he would have knocked her clean out, smacked the hell out of her.
Chantey claimed that he would not have hesitated to use lethal force against his victims:
[I]f it wouldve came down to it, Id have popped a cap in they ass. As for Derrick, he
said he probably would have shot his victim had he resisted, but because he just got
out of the car and Ipointed the pistol at him and he just backed up from the car and
Ijumped in and just smashed out.
The most threatening aspect of carjacking, and the one to which the offenders
appeared to be most attuned, was victim resistance (Copes et al. 2012; Jacobs 2013).
Victim resistance is quite common despite offenders being armed (Klaus 2004). The
offenders recognized that explosive violence was a tool to secure rapid compliance
(Wright and Decker 1997). Yet the more ruthlessly they dominated their victims, the
more likely they would have to come to grips with their conduct laterparticularly
when the violence began to creep into their identities as conventionally moral people.
At the time of the offense, such concerns seemed to be far from pressing. Like robbery in general, carjacking was a desperate solution to a pressing problem (Jacobs
etal. 2003). Explosive violence, or at least its threat, was a way to remove an immediate problem as quickly as possible. The use or display of lethal weapons was a simple
and effective means to this end. Weapons vested the offenders contingent threats with
credibilitywhich is central to securing rapid compliance (Wright and Decker 1997).
Jarrett thus put a gun to one victims back to get her purse and keys, at which point
she got tears in her eyes [and was] about to cry; he laid the victim on the ground and
escaped with the vehicle. David hid in wait for several hours prior to his victims arrival;
when the victim exited the car, Davids partner ran up [and] pistol-whipped him. Beat
him up. [He] hit him hard enough to where, dude, he didnt shake back. Dude was
in a coma for a long time. [He] ended up with brain damage. Terrys co-offender,
meanwhile, attacked a pregnant woman while Terry stole the vehicle. He hit her in the
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Even Jarrett and Charles, who said they would not victimize old people, suggested that
the real reason was more selfish than anything else: It might give them a heart attack,
then [Im] up for [a death charge], they reported. Indeed, a number of offenders
appeared to have no compunction whatsoever about targeting innocent victims (even
women and children) if the situation warranted. Everything [revolves] around money
and business, Charles explained. Its business. They got it, Ill get em. Women, kids,
Id still get em. Indeed, Terry and his co-offender carjacked and pistol-whipped a
woman who was visibly pregnant. I kind of laughed at it, you know what Im saying, but
about two days later [when Igot arrested], Iwasnt laughing no more. Even Michael,
who reportedly felt bad about the child-involved carjacking, recognized the intrinsic
appeal of predatory violence (Katz 1988). Its a thrill knowing you can just take something from somebody and see the expression on they face, he remarked.

JACOBS AND COPES

I was out of control due to drugs

When offenders beliefs and conduct differed, they often blamed the discrepancy
on drugs. Economic compulsion and psychopharmacological aggression have long
been implicated in predatory violence (Goldstein 1985), and these forces certainly
fuelled our respondents narratives. In short, violence was not the real them. I got
a drug habit [and] got to do whatevers necessary, Michael remarked. Or, as Leroy
put it, If it wasnt for drugs Iwouldnt even do nothing like that. Gerald explained
that, When Iwas on drugs Iwas just deranged and crazy. [I was] not in my own
mind. Ijust blanked out from normal, you know what Im saying. Nothing about it
was normal. Avoracious crack user, Richard explained how an evil force took over
him to fuel one carjacking. I guess Ijust had the demon in me, you know, thats all
I can say because I jerked him through that window like he wasnt even nothing,
and Ipopped him upside the head and he started hollering and kicking. My mind
wasnt right. Engaged in the persistent use of fry sticks (marijuana blunts dipped
in embalming fluid and then smoked), Shawn felt invincible, its a feeling outta the
ordinary, you know, its wild. On that formaldehyde, Iwouldnt let nothing stop me.
During one offense, Brennon reportedly got his victim on the ground, put a gun
to his head and pulled the trigger for no apparent reason, but the gun dry-fired. I
was doing bad, he recalled. I was on that dopecrack. Iwas just so messed up on
dope it was just a reaction, you know, if Ikill him, Iget away with it. Iwasnt planning to kill him. Although Brennon claimed he felt sick about his botched murder
attempt, he went about his business shortly afterwardtrading the car for $1,100
cash and 6 ounces of crack (which he and his friends promptly smoked). Later in the
interview, Brennon said, it was the drugs, it wasnt me that did it. It was the drugs
that was doing it.
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head with a bat or pipe or something that came from outside the house, he recalled.
Even though Richards victim did not appear to resist, Richard manhandled him anyway. I jerked him through that window like he wasnt even nothing, he recalled, and
Ipopped him upside the head a couple of times. Ididnt pay no mind. Ijust opened the
door, climbed in, and Ihauled it. To initiate one carjacking, Adrian knocked on the
victims residence. Shortly after a 2-year-old girl answered the knock, he shot the adult
female victim. [I] went up to the lady, held the gun up to her head, and started telling
her to be quiet. Idid shoot herin the chin.
Such actions seem to contradict the offenders earlier contentions of not really being
violent and make a mockery of the distinction between real violence and the conduct
described herein. Although the offenders may not have wanted to engage in hurtful
violence, they would readily do so if it suited their purposes or if they had to (i.e., the
victim forced them to by resisting). In this regard, David, who earlier did not consider
himself cold-blooded, reportedly carjacked an older gentleman whom he perceived to
be a grandfather-type figure. During the offense, the man asked too many questions,
at which point David became agitated and pistol-whipped him. I didnt think it would
turn out like that, David reported. Shawn, similarly, beat a female victim in the head
because she would not exit the carI had to whack her, knock her out, he recalled.
Blood just went everywhere. Brennon, meanwhile, stripped his victim naked and beat
him repeatedly with a gun when the victim started to resist.

CRIMINAL COMMITMENT AMONG PERSISTENT OFFENDERS

Q:Did one of you make any remarks that maybe you shouldnt dothis?
Richard:I cant say that wedid.
Q:Was there any mention of what could gowrong?
Richard:No, nothing about what could gowrong.
Q:No mention of the police?
Richard:No, we didnt care. Didnt even talk about it, didnt even come up.

When asked if he ever worried about the police, Sidney explained, You know it just its
a messed up mentality, but you just dont worry about the police. The police dont really
be a factor. Nothing. The potential risks of their actions were typically far removed
from their thoughts (Shover 1996).
Gross insensitivity to risk is consistent with offenders whose concern for the present
and general disregard for wrongs committed in the moment produced a monumental
need for identity reconstruction later. Indeed, it was often only after looking back that
the offenders could grasp what they did and see the wrong in it. Tony thus thought
nothing of what he was doing when Iwas out there on the streets Iwas just moving.
[Now] Ihave time to think about it. Iwas like thinking what if its my mom? What if
that was somebody in my family that somebody was doing this to? Or, as Richard put
it, I didnt feel bad. Not until later, not until afterwards. Iwas gonna get mine no matter what. Iwanted my dope. Later, Ireally felt bad cause thats not the type of person
Iwas raised and that drug pulls you out and you aint in your own mind. For Michael,
time and distance revealed the foolishness of his actions. Sometimes you sit back and
you laugh at it, he explained. But then sometime you get back and you like, damn
Idont know why Idid it, you know what Im saying. Itd be like sometime Ibe having
Ibe switching sides you understand. Ibe like, damn why Im doing this, Then Ibe
like, Man, fuck its done. You know Icant take that back. Iwould have some guilt not
after the fact [but] maybe a while later. For Adrian, a violent robbery in which he shot
a female homeowner after confiscating her keys in front of two very young children
served as his wake-upcall:
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The reckless manner in which many of these offenders committed their crimes corroborated the out-of-control identity they claimed to have at the time of the offense
(Pogrebin etal. 2009). For as serious an offense as carjacking, many demonstrated little
concern for apprehension. Derricks offensecommitted in a grocery store parking
lot in broad daylightis emblematic. Yeah it was 11 or something in the morning. You
got Popeyes [Louisiana Kitchen] right there, a lot of cars in the drive-thru waiting for
they food, people coming outta Winn Dixie. Nope, dumb, thats all Ican really say Iwas
dumb for doing it. Overall, the offenders conduct was grossly insensitive to risk. Not
infrequently, they committed crimes in plain view of eyewitnesses, in contexts where
the intrusive potential for informal social control was high. They rarely wore masks and
enacted offenses with co-offenders who could inform on them to the police. Some of
their carjacking attempts failed, resulting in serious and foreseeable personal injury to
themselves. Shawn, for example, was stabbed by a woman he attempted to carjack as
he got in the car. Both David and Tony were fired upon by their victims; neither ceased
carjacking despite being nearly killed.
When asked specifically about risk concerns, the following exchange with Richard
was representative of this general lack of concern:

JACOBS AND COPES

I had the gun in my pocket and Iwalked up to the door, a little girl answered. The lady came and
Iasked Ineed to use the phone and thats when everything took place. [The little girls were] like
a year old, two years old, so they didnt know nothing that was going on. All Iwanted was the keys.
All Iremember is the gun went off, you know, Ifired the gun. Iseen her [the lady victim] go down.
When Istarted thinking [later] about if Icould have killed that girl and Iseen her little baby that put
a turning point in my life.

Discussion

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Three central findings emerge from the offenders perspectives about their crimes and
their selves: (1) Im not really that violent; (2) Ihad reasons for what Idid and (3) Iwas
a real menace and out of control, Ihad reasons for that too, but Ihad to be that way
given the lifestyle Iled. Findings 1 and 3 seem to contradict one another. It is difficult
for people to claim to beat, pistol-whip and bloody their victims and then claim that
they are not really violent. Findings 2 and 3 contradict Finding 1.If Finding 1 fully captured their beliefs, there would be no reason for Findings 2 or 3, but the offenders still
claimed they were acceptable people. Finding 3 speaks to the serious/chronic nature
of the offenders we interviewed here: Impetuously violent individuals who put other
peoples lives in jeopardy for monetary gain, who were open and accepting of explosive
aggression, who went back to predatory crime repeatedly over time and who had little
concern for authorities or others who might get them caught or injured.
The respondents accounts of their crimes suggested that the primary reason for
using neutralizations may not be merely to free themselves from guilt as originally
proposed by Sykes and Matza (1957). Instead, neutralizations allowed the offenders to
portray themselves as not that bad even when describing very bad things. Doing so
seems to give offenders agency in choosing specific lines of action and in constructing
a sense of self (Presser 2005 2008). In other words, they are not disembodied actors.
Justifying their decisions to be violent allows them to more easily continue offending.
Persistence does not merely come from removing guilt before a crime. Instead, it comes
from describing crimes in a nuanced way. They can choose to act but also be constrained by circumstance.
Neutralizations such as the ones offered here are therefore more than soft determinants that precede crime. Rather, they are a part of a larger sense-making process
that fuels decisions to continue offending, real-time and persistently. Actors such as
our carjackers can bring them up before, during and after specific offenses to make
sense of being bad and being good (depending on the context and questioned behaviours). Our findings support the claim that neutralizations are better suited to explain
criminal continuance rather than initiation and that neutralization theory needs to be
further theorized (Maruna and Copes 2005). Our findings also suggest that by subsuming neutralization theory under the larger umbrella of offender narratives, analysts can
better understand the complexity of offender accounts as they relate to the interpretive
aspects of criminal commitment.
Commitment in carjacking appears to relate to both the act of offending and the
status of persistent offender. The fact that the offenders adjusted their neutralizations
on the fly rather than simply backed out of the crime when that crime did not fit their
ideals (e.g., children in car or elderly victims), and that they continued offending

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despite encounters with resisting victims and formal sanctions, suggests that they are
committed to the act itself. At first glance, their use of neutralizations to justify or minimize their violence may suggest that they are not committed to the status of persistent
offender. But further consideration suggests that this may not be the case. Their use of
neutralizations was not done in an attempt to drift towards conventionalitythe modal
expectation among criminologists. Indeed, the offenders were firmly anchored in their
subcultural belief system and made no claims of being regular citizens. This is likely
why scholars such as Topalli (2005) have argued that they do not experience guilt for
their crimes. For these offenders, the use of neutralizations when discussing their acts
seemed to be geared toward distancing themselves from being seen as unidimensional
brutes. They accepted that they were bad when judged by conventional standards, but
this does not mean they wanted to be seen as irredeemablybad.
The gratuitous violence reported here (e.g., jerking a victim through a window,
attempting an execution), the selection of obviously sympathetic victims (e.g., a pregnant woman or adults with children present) and the utter lack of concern for sanction
threats seems to support the notion that these offenders liked to commit violence for
violences sake. At the same time, denial of injury (what Idid really was not that violent)
and denial of responsibility (drugs made me do it), coupled with the articulation of at
least some guilt, support the appearance of ambivalence long suggested by Sykes and
Matza (1957).
Our carjackers decisions to explain their conduct in traditional ways does not
make them less committed to crime. The most committed offenders of all may be those
swayed by the vagaries of the moment to commit explosive conduct, not caring about
its consequences at the time, vaguely aware that they can explain it away later, doing
exactly that, and being entirely open to repeating it. Our respondents knew what they
were doing was bad, did it anyway, had the awareness to justify it later and the hubris
to do it again despite repeated contact with the criminal justice system. Although such
offenders may sound like traditional neutralizers, they are not. They neutralized but
remained firmly entrenched in street culture, meaning they did not meaningfully drift.
Moreover, their neutralizations seemed to rely on a morality that either was comparativeI was bad, but Icould have been much worseor circularI was bad because
Iwas doing other bad things. Neither reflects validation of conventional morality nor,
in a global sense, drift between conventional and unconventional worlds. These offenders neutralized without materially oscillating between these two worlds. If there is any
movement at all, it was a qualified wobble, notdrift.
We believe that the concept of neutralization without drift frees criminal commitment from the bonds of prospective rationality, a problem that long has plagued drift
theory. By prospective rationality we mean the idea that neutralization comes before
crime and triggers it (Sykes and Matza 1957: 666). Although research has questioned
whether neutralization is exclusively prospective (see, e.g., Hirschi 1969), scholars have
not, to our knowledge, determined whether it can be contemporaneousi.e., whether it
can occur within discrete criminal acts. Within-crime neutralization was exemplified by
our respondents capacity and willingness to make moral choices as offenses unfolded.
Continuing crimes even though children were present, or using gratuitous violence
against obviously defenceless victims, betrays the evolution of crime after the prospective involvement decision but within the real-time event decision (Cornish and
Clarke 1986). The temporal focus of neutralization is almost always on the involvement

JACOBS AND COPES

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