David Matza

David Matza (* 1. Mai 1930 in New York; † 14. März 2018) war ein US-amerikanischer Soziologe und Kriminologe.

Matza studierte bis zum B.A.-Abschluss 1953 City of New York College, das M.A.-Examen und die Promotion (Ph.D.) folgten dann an der Princeton University. Matza ist emeritierter Professor für Soziologie an der University of California, Berkeley.

Gemeinsam mit Gresham M. Sykes legte Matza die kriminologische Neutralisierungstheorie vor. Darüber hinaus gilt er als einer der frühen Vertreter der Kritischen Kriminologie.

"Matza conducts his critique by tracing the development of naturalism in American criminology. He contends that the development of naturalism is manifested in progressive adoption of the stances of appreciation of human deviant behaviour, the description of diversity and sensitivity to complexity. Appreciation has as its goal understanding the way in which the deviant actor views his own situation. It involves empathy, intuition and entering the world of the actor. Appreciation is opposed to a perspective with correctional aims. T he latter type of perspective has been dominant in criminology and involves the attempt to predict criminal behaviour; its concern is not with understanding as such but rather with the elucidation of causal factors to be used in the control of deviant behaviour. Appreciation involves a recognition of the diversity of human behaviour but implicit in a correctional viewpoint is the notion of pathology; the idea that there are essentially two types of person, the deviant and the non-deviant, to be distinguished on the basis of differential etiology. This distinction implies that either the deviant or his social world are in some sense abnormal. T he simple bifurcation it creates does violence to the complexity of the relationship between deviant and non-deviant phenomena in the real world. It is fairly clear t h at Matza holds the methodological directives of naturalism and " scientism " to be mutually exclusive: " The basic difficulty with a correctional perspective is that it systematically interferes with the capacity to empathise and thus comprehend the subject of inquiry" (Beyleveld & Wiles 1975).

Werke (Auswahl)

• Techniques of neutralization: a theory of delinquency (1957 - mit Gresham M. Sykes), deutsche Übersetzung: Techniken der Neutralisierung. Eine Theorie der Delinquenz. In: Kriminalsoziologie. F. Sack und R. König. Frankfurt am Main, Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1968.
• Delinquency And Drift (1964) - grundlegende Schrift zur Kritischen Kriminologie.
• Becoming Deviant (1969 - deutsche Übersetzung: Abweichendes Verhalten. Untersuchungen zur Genese abweichender Identität, Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1973, ISBN 3-494-00779-9).

Weblinks

• Vita: David Matza (University of California, Berkeley)
• BEYLEVELD, Deryck & Wiles, Paul (1975) MAN AND METHOD IN DAVID MATZA'S "Becoming Deviant" in: Brit J of Criminology Vol. 15 DERYCK AND PAUL WILES