Neutralisation theory suggests that wrongdoers will rationalise their wrongdoing in such a way that allows them to maintain their views of themselves as moral law-abiding people. Though regularly applied since it first emerged as an aspect of differential association theory, it has rarely been extended beyond its original conceptualisation. Moreover, scholars rarely consider the subjective belief systems of criminals or their own accounts of their wrongdoing, when applying this theory. This is particularly true of white-collar criminals where there is a dearth of scholarship analysing how they respond to their own criminality. This article addresses these criticisms by analysing how self-deception may operate as a technique of neutralisation for white-collar criminals, anchoring and applying this extension in a specific case study on white-collar crime, from the subjective perspective of the criminal. It analyses the case of Kareem Serageldin, often considered the only banker jailed in the US for having some role in causing the financial crisis. The Serageldin case is used as a lens to extend and apply neutralisation theory in the field of white-collar crime, exploring how Serageldin distorted the facts of his wrongdoing, deceiving both himself and the court, to minimise his responsibility for his crime.

中和理论认为，不法行为者会合理化自己的不法行为，以使其能够维持自己对遵守道德法律的人的看法。尽管自从它作为微分关联理论的一个方面首次出现以来就经常使用，但是很少扩展到其最初的概念化之外。而且，在运用这一理论时，学者很少考虑犯罪分子的主观信念体系或他们自己对不法行为的描述。对于白领罪犯来说尤其如此，因为缺乏学者来分析他们如何应对自己的犯罪行为。本文通过分析自欺欺人如何作为白领犯罪分子的中和技术来应对这些批评，从罪犯的主观角度出发，将该扩展锚定并应用到有关白领犯罪的特定案例研究中。它分析了Kareem Serageldin的案例，该人通常被认为是美国唯一因在造成金融危机中扮演某些角色而被判入狱的银行家。Serageldin案被用作在白领犯罪领域扩展和应用中和理论的镜头，探索Serageldin如何歪曲他的不法行为的事实，欺骗他本人和法院，以最小化他对罪行的责任。