Panic (Bloodlands collection)

by Harold Schechter

Sociologists refer to these periodic alarms as “moral panics” and describe them as a form of mass hysteria, typically ignited by a handful of shockingly similar crimes that happen in rapid succession. Sensationalistic reporting in the news media—coupled with the doomsday pronouncements of moral crusaders—persuades the public that these incidents represent a new and terrifying threat to the social order. A distinguishing feature of moral panics is that the fear they provoke is far out of proportion to any actual threat. The school shootings that followed on the heels of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre were undeniably horrific. Contrary to the claims of assorted Chicken Littles, however, they were not symptomatic of “an epidemic of seemingly depraved adolescent murderers” (in the words of one tabloid pundit). In fact, as statistical data showed, “violence-related deaths at the nation’s schools dropped to a record low” during the period in question.[3] Empirical evidence, however, has little effect on irrational belief. A few terrible crimes are all it takes to set a moral panic in motion.

Casting about for the causes of the sex crime wave, self-appointed guardians of public morality came up with the usual suspects. There was the pervasive loss of religious belief among the young, who, according to a poll of fifteen hundred college students, felt that both the sixth and ninth commandments—“Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife”—were “no longer adaptable to modern life.” There was the devastating effect of Prohibition repeal, which had led to “a steadily mounting increase in offenses . . . for which liquor is either directly responsible or an indirect factor,” including sex crimes. And, of course, there was that predictable scapegoat, the popular media: smutty motion pictures, obscene newsstand magazines, and indecent Broadway plays like Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, about a pair of female schoolteachers accused of lesbianism—a particularly “degrading kind of unnatural sin,” as described by the Reverend James M. Gillis, editor of The Catholic World, in a speech on the shocking rise of sex crimes.[67] Burlesque shows, which flourished during the Great Depression as a cheap form of entertainment for working-class men, became a particularly juicy target for moral reformers. Previously decried as tawdry hangouts for “dissolute men,” they were now condemned as active breeding grounds for homicidal degenerates. Declaring war against his city’s burlesque houses, William J. Quinn, San Francisco’s chief of police, decla...