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Adjusting to Genocide: The Techniques of Neutralization and the Holocaust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Alexander Alvarez
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In recent years, as social scientists questioned the intellectual boundaries set by customary perceptions of criminality, their discourse expanded to incorporate more than purely legalistic definitions of crime. In addition to conventional street crimes, some scholars began examining both interpersonal and collective actions and behaviors that were once considered to be outside the scope of commonly accepted definitions of criminality. For example, criminologists now study crime categorized as occupational (Albanese 1987; Cressey 1953; Green 1990; Hollinger and Clark 1983; Horning 1979; Nettler 1974; Tracy and Fox 1989), environmental (Block and Bernard 1988; Brady 1987; Stone 1987; Tallmer 1987), political (Barak 1994; Block 1989; Block and Chambliss 1981; Chambliss 1993; Quinney 1970; Schwendinger and Schwendinger 1970; Tunnell 1993; Turk 1969), and corporate (Clinard and Yeager 1980; Clinard et al. 1979; Coleman 1994; Reiman 1979; Sutherland 1949), using methodology and terminology once reserved for predatory street crime. This trend can be traced to the pioneering work of Thorsten Sellin (1938) and Edwin Sutherland (1940, 1949), who argued for broader, more inclusive definitions of criminality and less conventional approaches to the study of crime.

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Social Science History , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , Summer 1997 , pp. 139 - 178
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Copyright © Social Science History Association 1997 

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