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How can violence be both a public anathema and a private common place? In order to explore this question, data from the North London Domestic Violence Survey are revisited and the reasons why men justify violence against women investigated. This is related to Sykes and Matza's dual notions of the techniques of neutralization and subterranean values indicating the potential of this work in understanding domestic violence. Further, this paper confronts recent arguments that estimates relating to the extent and distribution of domestic violence are either too unreliable due to problems of response and differences in defining 'violence' or that those figures produced by feminist research arise from a massaging of the data and, as such, exaggerate the risk.Keywords Domestic violence Á Techniques of neutralization Á Subterranean values Á Violence statistics My aim in this paper is twofold: theoretical and methodological. I wish to examine the reasons why men justify violence against women and to relate this to Sykes and Matza's (1957) dual notion of techniques of neutralization and subterranean values. Of interest here is the paradox of how violence can both be a public anathema and a private commonplace. Further, methodologically, I wish to examine recent assertions that estimates relating to the extent and distribution of domestic violence (or indeed violence in general) are, on the one hand, too unreliable because of technical reasons of response or normative problems of definition to present figures of any reliability whatsoever (Young 2004) or, that the figures produced by feminist research represent a gross exaggeration of risk (Fitzpatrick 2001). These areas will be investigated by revisiting data from the North London Domestic Violence Survey (NLDVS) (Mooney 2000) with a focus, theoretically, on the reasons given by men for violence in response to the presentation of a series

This article examines a phenomenon of our times: the decline in crime and the rise in concern with anti-social behaviour. We will examine both the evidence for and the causes of this shift, focusing on England and Wales and the USA.

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