Techniques of Neutralisation

• Cohen draws from Sykes and Matza 1957 on how deviants use neutralisation tactics to justify their deviant behaviour 
• Cohen 2006: 

  1. Denial of Victim
  2. Denial of Injury 
  3. Denial of Responsibility 
  4. Condemning the Condemners 
  5. Appeal to Higher Loyalty
• Denial of Victim: ‘they exaggerate, they are terrorists’
• Denial of Injury: ‘we are the real victims, not them’
• Denial of Responsibility: ‘I was only following orders’
• Condemning the Condemners: ‘they are condemning us because of their anti-semitism’
• Appeal to Higher Loyalty: self-righteous justification that claim to be serving a higher cause
• Cohen 2006: ‘they seek to impose a different construction of the event from what might appear to be the case’. Argues that the US justification of torture in the war on terror as coercive interrogation practises was ‘torture light; due to the sleep deprivation and water boarding.