Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance

by Erich Goode, Nachman Ben-Yehuda

Moral Panics is sure to become a classic in the literature of deviance and criminology. It reviews in a critical and informative manner the core concepts of the discipline taking an international focus. It

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, Social Science

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in the nineties about moral panics in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A panic around something is whipped up in the press and winds up being a pretext for more law enforcement or an expansion of the national security state. The FBI was created by exposes on prostitution, gambling, and drugs to give us that new national law enforcement agency which then ballooned during prohibition and the fears of Communism and the bomb gave us the CIA, NSA, and a host of national security structures. I read this in the 1990s and then 9/11 happened and we got Homeland Security, more spying on Americans a police force that became Trump's personal secret police to round up immigrants and refugees ICE. Now with the Capital Attacks now we got another fear-driven panic and Dems are making noise for new legislation and new agencies. This time it will supposedly go after the far right. Well, I hope Dems realize that cops are mostly right-wing, and trust me any new agencies will spend most of their resources going after the left. It always does. The left threatens elites and big money in a way the right never does (except collaterally with its greed, incompetence, violent overkill of its targets, and kooky cultishness but it doesn't usually challenge entrenched power.) I am calling it now. Yoda was right that fear leads to the dark side.

[Jacqueline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as useful as I had hoped - probably better for social scientist than those of us in the humanities. The theoretical groundings were interesting/helpful in the introduction but other than that it wasn't quite what I was personally needing at this time.

[YM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Used it as an introductory piece for this essay on how moral panics tear through community. Breaks down and establishes criterias to explain what stirs moral panics to the point of constructing us vs them relationships in society.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Useful. I suspect it reveals the vacuity of the central concept.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. Very useful breakdown of key concepts supported by relevant evidence and meaningful examples, really great accompaniment to Stan Cohen's Folk Devils and Moral Panics and innovative in its development of weaker areas in the aforementioned. Required reading for anyone looking to better understand the processes associated with moral panics and the background to the development of academic research into the topic.

[Cliodhna Ni Ghadhra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful.