The Self as a Moral Person

In this chapter we will examine the strategies used by the offenders, as moral individuals, when accounting for their criminal behaviour. Specifically, when they scrutinised events in hindsight, did they claim virtuousness in accounting for their behaviour, giving reasons which suggested they committed their crimes (from their perspective) for ‘acceptable’ reasons? While there was a wide variety of accounts, many relied on distancing techniques, explaining the offending as normal, consistent, ‘everyday’ behaviour, or as ‘one-off’, out-of-character actions.