<P> The idea of such techniques was first postulated by David Matza (born May 1, 1930) and Gresham Sykes (born 1922) during their work on Edwin Sutherland's Differential Association in the 1950s . While Matza and Sykes were at the time working on juvenile delinquency, they theorized that the same techniques could be found throughout society and published their ideas in Delinquency and Drift 1964 . </P> <P> Matza and Sykes' theory states that people are always aware of their moral obligation to abide by the law, and that they have the same moral obligation within themselves to avoid illegitimate acts . Thus, they reasoned, when a person did commit illegitimate acts, they must employ some sort of mechanism to silence the urge to follow these moral obligations . </P> <P> This theory rejects other theories which suggested that groups containing delinquents have set up their own permanent moral code which completely replaces moral obligations . Thus, Matza and Sykes were able to explain how offenders' drift' from illegitimate to legitimate lifestyles repeatedly, as they retain the moral code rather than wipe it clean to be replaced by a more illegitimate one as previous theories suggested . </P> <P> The theory was built up upon four observations: </P>

According to neutralization theory offenders who are in a state of transience