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In today’s age, many artists incorporate topics or issues going on in the world in either a straight forward or subliminal way in their songs. Cage the elephant an American rock band from Kentucky released a popular song in 2008 called “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”. This song covers the topic of questioning why people commit crimes. Throughout this whole song, the singer comes across criminals and questions their motives. For this assignment we are asked to apply one of five criminological theories to the given song. The theory I will be choosing to apply to this song will be the neutralization theory. With this theory I will be applying the techniques of neutralization. I will apply this theory to three criminal acts described in the song; …show more content…
the three criminal acts being prostitution, robbery and embezzlement. I will apply the techniques of neutralization because I feel the actions of the three-people described in the song ties to what the theory entails. The techniques of neutralization were outlined by Gresham Sykes, an American sociologist and criminologist and David Matza, an American sociologist. The techniques of neutralization consist of five techniques that are used to provide reasoning for why some violate society’s norms. It could be described as mental gymnastics, for it is used by criminals to make them look as if they are not criminal. Criminals learn cognitive techniques to neutralize their values. In other words, the techniques of neutralization are used by criminals to justify their behavior. There are five techniques of neutralization that are used to justify criminal behavior, the first being denial of responsibility.
Most offenders deflect the blame for their criminal behavior on the outside forces, circumstances and other people; they do not take account for themselves. The second technique is denial of injury. With this technique offenders underestimate the harm caused by criminal behavior; most see their behavior as harmless fun or feel that it won’t affect people as bad. The third technique is denial victim. Here offenders deflect the blame for their criminal behavior on the victim; they believe the victim deserves it, that the victim was careless. The fourth technique being condemnation of the condemners. With this one, offenders move the focus away from criminal behavior and question the motives of those who disapprove of it; in which they believe the people disapproving are the problem, not them. One may have the views of “Everyone being dirty”, the police are the worst, and virtuous people are hiding something. Lastly the fourth technique, appeal to higher loyalties. An offender will deflect the blame for criminal behavior by claiming loyalty to a perceived higher goal. Some examples where some may claim loyalty to are gangs, honor and religion. With each technique now being described, I will explain how the theory applies to the lyrics in the …show more content…
song. The first verse of the song starts with the singer coming across this woman. She approached him and tells him, “"I never seen a man, who looks so all alone. And could you use a little company? If you can pay the right price, your evening will be nice”. This lyric subliminally tells about this woman being a prostitute. In need of money, this woman will sell her body to accomplish her set goal. As the song progresses he asks the woman why she decides to perform this act that is seen to be immoral and she replies, “Oh there ain't no rest for the wicked. Money don't grow on trees. I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed. There ain't nothing in this world for free”. These justifications for her behavior, apply one of the techniques of neutralization. The technique being denial of responsibility. She explains how she has responsibilities such as paying bills and having mouths to feed. With such responsibilities she is forced to prostitute herself in order to successfully collect funds. She also explains in further lyrics that she couldn’t stop doing it, even if she could because of the need for funds to survive. She removes the focus of her criminal behavior by blaming it on the world, for she says that there is nothing free in this world. With saying that, she expresses that she has no choice because you must pay for everything to survive and it is not her fault that she results to that. As the song progresses, the singer comes across a man, who then robs him. The lyrics follow as, “And then he swept up from behind, he put a gun up to my head. He made it clear he wasn't looking for a fight. He said, "Give me all you've got, I want your money not your life. But if you try to make a move I won't think twice". For this set of lyrics, I feel that three techniques of neutralization of apply. The first being, denial of responsibility. Again, the offender blames the outside world for his actions. Since he has responsibilities like the woman above, he must rob him. He has no choice but to rob people in order to acquire the funds needed to live. The second technique being denial of injury. The singer explains that the man made it clear that he was not looking for a fight. This shows that from the beginning the offender was not looking to hurt anyone. The third technique being denial of victim. Although, the perpetrator was not looking to hurt anyone, he would by any means go to that point. He used fear to get what he wanted for he said, “But if you try to make a move I won’t think twice.” With that, if it came to a point where the offender must hurt the person, he would blame the victim. He would have the idea that he told the person what would happen if they tried anything therefore it was their fault for what had to happen. Lastly, the singer describes how he watched the news as a priest was being arrested for embezzlement.
For this section of the song, the singer did not come face to face with the offender, rather he saw it through the television. The technique I feel applies to this scenario would be number five, appeal to higher beliefs. Perhaps, religion played a key role into why the preacher ma did what he did. He could have had the sense that God, told him it would be okay or that he needs to do so. It is not yet clear since the man did not give his own justification as to why he did so, but the singer makes it clear that he like the rest must survive and in order to do so he had to steal money from the
church. In conclusion, crime seems to be quite inevitable. Crime occurs all over the world in various forms, for numerous motives. For this very reason I chose to apply the five techniques of neutralization for this assignment. As I stated before, the singer describes three criminal acts occurring in the song. The first singer explains how he was approached by a prostitute and the second occurrence was him being robbed by a man and the third being how he watched a priest being arrested for stealing from their church. I feel that these are crimes that occur almost every day, at any given moment. The song seems to shed light on this acts for the same reason. The singer questions why these people commit these crimes and they all seem to have the same reasoning one way or another.
This first song goes well with Holden because we see throughout the whole book, how Holden experiences loneliness. Holden says, “The first thing I did when I got off at Penn Station, I went into this phone booth. I felt like giving somebody a buzz” (Salinger 59) This is just one example of Holden’s loneliness. At this time he is just getting of the train realizing he has nobody to go to and nobody to talk to so he feeling like calling someone even if it’s just to talk to. n the song Talking To Myself, The lyrics say “Is anybody out there?/It feels like I'm talkin' to myself/No one seems to know my struggle/And everything I come from/Can anybody hear me?”(Eminem) This song by Eminem is a good example of Holden’s loneliness because throughout the song it
As a social process theory, drift and Neutralization sees a crime to be a part of wider social interactions. It views social order as non objective and non consensual and posits that there is not a single fundamental social goal that is held by all social groups; rather there are many different overlapping social values within a society, both conventional and delinquent: legitimate and illegitimate. Drift and Neutralization Theory posits that individuals learn values and delinquent behaviours through their exposure to sub-cultural values. “Deviant or delinquent (or criminal) subcultures do not reject ‘dominant’ values and beliefs. Instead, there is tension between inclinations to adhere to mainstream values and beliefs.” This sees that criminals can drift between deviant and conventional behaviours and how to use various techniques of neutralisation to rationalise their criminal activity. In analysing McVeigh’s motives, his learned sub cultural values can be examined to demonstrate how he was able to rationalise his violations of the law and how he came to drift from non delinquent to delinquent actions. The techniques of neutralisation; denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of
Lilly, Robert J., Francis T. Cullen, and Richard A. Ball. 2011. Criminological Theory: Context And Consequences. 5th ed. California: SAGE.
Paternoster, R., & Bachman, R., (2001). Explaining criminals and crime. Essays in contemporary criminological theory. New York City, N.Y.: Oxford University
The article “Rap Lyrics on Trial” written by Erik Nielson and Charis E. Kubrin was about Vonte Skinner, a man who was convicted for attempted murder for 30 years based on the evidence of rap lyrics written before the crime. The court case didn’t have sufficient evidence to convict Skinner because the witness changed their stories many times to be considered consistent, but the jury felt convinced Skinner was guilty when they heard Skinner’s lyrics: “In the hood, I am a threat / It’s written on my arm and signed in blood on my Tech” and “I’m in love with you, death”. Neilson and Kubrin argued whether rap lyrics should be presented as a piece of evidence after Skinner’s conviction is overturned. They claimed that when rap lyrics are
Akers, R, & Sellers, C. (2009). Criminological theories: introduction, evaluation, and application. New York: Oxford University Press, USA.
Winslow, R. W., & Zhang, S. (2008). Contemporary Theories of Crime. Criminology: a global perspective (). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Lilly, J. Robert, Francis T. Cullen, and Richard A. Ball. 2011. Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences. 5th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Winfree, T., & Abadinsky, H. (2nd Ed.). (2003). Understanding Crime: Theory and Practice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth publishers.
They got caught up in a shootout between two gangs. Politicians and Ministers were quick to point the finger at today’s music. influencing gun crime in the U.S. The minister for tourism said, ‘The hateful. lyrics almost connote a culture killing is a fashion accessory”.
Criminology is the study of crime and criminals; a branch of sociology. More accurately, it is the study of crime as a social trend, and its overall origins, its many manifestations and its impact upon society as a whole. That makes it more a form of sociology than a law enforcement tool. But the trends it studies have a huge impact on the way the police do their jobs, the way society treats its criminals, and the way a given community goes about maintaining law and order. The writer will describe and give examples of the three perspectives of viewing crimes. The perspectives that will be highlighted are the consensus view, the conflict view or the interactionist view. Each perspective maintain its own interpretation of what constitutes criminal activities and what causes people to engage in criminal behaviors (Siegel, p.12).
On November 2nd I attended the Sweet Dreams and Honky Tonks concert. The concert was about different artists and their songs from back in the golden age around 1950-1969. The songs were from the following artists: Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, and Johnny Cash. The songs that were played and sang to during the play all had very different tones, pitches and rhythms. Each song had their own tone, pitch and rhythm but it varied throughout the song whether it was high or low pitched.
Understanding Criminology Theories | Criminology. n.d. - n.d. - n.d. Retrieved from http://www.criminology.com/resources/understanding-criminology-theories/.
Thomas. The next year he dropped out of school and made his way to New
This discusses that crime arises because people are a member of a subculture that has conduct norms. There are many different types of groups such as family, political, religious, and so on and each has their own norms they follow. In today’s society group and cultural conflicts is a very large issues that has risen due to high media coverage of it. Whether it be from the terrorist attacks to police ambushes to police shootings involving black citizens, they all contribute to the findings in this theory. Each of these situations breaks the conduct norms in the group or culture they are a part of and crime is considered what the misconduct is.