Delinquency and Drift (Matza)

DelinquencyMinor or youthful offending that violates legal or social norms, often associated with juvenile behavior. and Drift by David Matza (1964) represents a landmark critique of both positivist criminology (e.g., Lombroso) and contemporary theories of juvenile delinquency like Cloward & Ohlin’s differential opportunity theory and Cohen’s subcultural theory. Matza challenges the behavioral determinism in these approaches and argues instead for a nuanced, interactionist understanding of delinquency as a temporary, morally ambivalent process of „drift.“

Key Points

Theory: Delinquency and Drift

In Delinquency and Drift, Matza criticizes theories that treat juvenile delinquency as a deterministic outcome of subcultural socialization or blocked opportunities. He argues that these models ignore the moral consciousness and agency of young offenders, who are not permanently committed to deviance but move in and out of it.

Building on his earlier work with Sykes on techniques of neutralization, Matza challenges the assumption that delinquents have fully internalized deviant values. Instead, he contends:

• Delinquents often feel guilt or remorse, suggesting they retain conventional moral standards.
• They show respect for law-abiding figures such as teachers, clergy, or family members.
• Victim selection is non-random, indicating moral boundaries (e.g., avoiding harm to peers or in-group members).
• Many participate in conventional institutions, such as churches or schools, even while offending.

According to Matza, delinquency is characterized by drift—a “soft determinism” where individuals move between normative and deviant behavior. Young people are aware of the law’s moral claims but may temporarily „drift“ into delinquency when social controls weaken and opportunities arise. Crucially, this drift is not inevitable: it depends on circumstances and individual choices.

Matza identifies a moral dilemma at the heart of drift: delinquents know and value mainstream norms but occasionally violate them when situational pressures, temptations, or perceived injustices arise. He describes five conditions that shape the sense of injustice driving drift:

• Cognizance: Whether offenders recognize their actions as wrong.
• Consistency: Whether they believe sanctions are applied equally to all offenders.
• Competence: The perceived fairness and legitimacy of those judging their actions.
• Commensurability: Whether punishments are seen as proportionate.
• Comparison: Whether legal responses to juvenile crime are perceived as fair compared to adult crime.

Drift emphasizes that delinquency is not a static identity but a process shaped by agency, moral reasoning, and social context. Rather than being purely socialized into deviance, young people negotiate their choices in relation to conventional values.

Implications for Criminal Policy

Matza’s theory challenges deterministic models of juvenile delinquency that treat young offenders as „lost causes.“ By recognizing their moral ambivalence and continued attachment to mainstream values, it supports a rehabilitative approach that emphasizes fairness, proportionality, and opportunities for reintegration over purely punitive responses. Policies informed by drift theory aim to strengthen social bonds and moral engagement, acknowledging that deviance is often situational and reversible rather than fixed.

Critical Appraisal & Relevance

Matza’s theory of drift was a significant innovation in criminology, offering an important corrective to deterministic models that depicted young offenders as permanently socialized into deviant values. Instead, he highlighted the moral ambivalence of juvenile delinquents, showing that they often remain attached to mainstream norms even while offending. This recognition supports rehabilitative approaches that reinforce social bonds and moral engagement, rather than purely punitive responses.

Drift theory also challenges assumptions that delinquency is the inevitable result of subcultural immersion or blocked opportunities. Matza argued that youth offending is situational, contingent, and often temporary, with individuals “drifting” in and out of deviance in response to social contexts and perceived injustices. This emphasis on choice and moral conflict offered a more nuanced understanding of juvenile crime, foregrounding the importance of fairness, proportionality, and opportunities for reintegration in criminal justice policy.

Importantly, Matza’s concept of drift also laid conceptual groundwork for later life-course theories of crime, notably Sampson and Laub’s Age-Graded Theory. While Matza described delinquency as an episodic oscillation between conformity and deviance shaped by moral ambivalence and situational opportunities, Sampson and Laub formalized this insight by identifying “zig-zag” criminal careers marked by turning points like marriage or employment. Their work demonstrates how social bonds can weaken or strengthen over time, reinforcing the idea that deviance is not fixed but responsive to changes in life circumstances.
Matza’s work thus remains an essential reference point for criminologists seeking to understand the complexities of juvenile offending and the interplay between individual agency and social structure.

Literature

Primary Literature

• Matza, David (1964): Delinquency and Drift. New York: Wiley.

Secondary Literature

• Blomberg, Thomas G.; Cullen, Frank; Carlson, Christoffer; Lero Jonson, Cheryl (2017). Delinquency and Drift Revisited: The Criminology of David Matza and Beyond. New York: Routledge.

Further Information

Video: Delinquency and Drift Explained