Too many moral panics not enough folk devils. Was Stan Cohen wrong about his own work?

This was posted on the Works for Freedom website in May 2013 which is sadly no more. I’ve just updated the links etc.

This is a short blog post, not a doctoral thesis.  I cannot come close to doing justice to the extensive primary and secondary literature on moral panics.  So apologies if I missed the very article or paragraph that says exactly what I say here.  But no apologies for running the argument as I feel it is under represented.  That argument is that the term ‘moral panic’ is overused.  That may be contested by few.  More contentious is my argument that even the late Stan Cohen misused it.

Rather than engage textually with many examples I offer, unusually for me, a bone-headed, positivistic, empirical account which updates my ‘Criminologists Say ….’.  A search of Lexis Library of UK newspapers shows 107 mentions of moral panics for the year 2012 (choosing the last twelve months throws up Stan’s obituaries) but only 22 of folk devils.  This is even replicated in the book with 83 mentions of moral panics against 44 of folk devils.  So to some theory.

Angela McRobbie and Sarah L. Thornton (1995: 559) argue that:

'folk devils' are less marginalized than they once were; they not only find themselves vociferously and articulately supported in the same mass media that castigates them, but their interests are also defended by their own niche and micro-media. 

And even more importantly for my argument:

this approach challenged moral guardians by suggesting that their overreaction was counterproductive. The media coverage of deviance acted as a kind of handbook of possibilities to be picked over by new recruits (McRobbie and Thornton 1995: 561).

I initially read the first edition of Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The creation of the Mods and Rockers (the link here is to the third which can be recommended for Stan’s own thoughts on the development of the term).  My reading was after the first ‘moment’ of mod: indeed after I gave up riding a stripped down Lambretta TV175.  I also sported, at that time, what purported to be a Korean War surplus parka and a ‘suedehead’ haircut.  I further mangled sub-cultures by wearing the same gear on the Matchless 250 (a motorbike, the staple of ‘Rocker’ style) I rode after the scooter packed up.  So I was old enough to remember the events described by Stan as described by the media.  And I had personal access to the ‘handbook’ to which McRobbie and Thornton refer.

I may have come too late to mod but claim to have become sociologically aware early  (through my reading of the alternative press, mostly Oz, see this post) that as a young person who dressed in certain ways I was in danger of being stereotyped (see also this on beards and tattoos).

My argument is that the first part of the couplet ‘Folk Devil/Moral Panic’ has been paid insufficient attention.  In particular, their articulation in the subtitle ‘the creation of the Mods and Rockers’ (emphasis added).  I know from the standpoint of a young person at the time that Mods and Rockers and other youth tribes in many respects created themselves but in an asymmetric relation to the media and authority.  They may have come up from the streets but they entered most young people’s consciousness through their parent’s condemnatory media.  Their parent’s Durkheimian moral boundaries may have been reinforced but their’s were expanded.

With his emphasis on deviancy amplification I believe that Cohen is arguing that the moral panic is counterproductive because it creates folk devils who attract adherents.  So joining a youth tribe, taking ecstasy or legal highs might meet such a definition of a moral panic featuring a handsome devil but becoming a sex offender does not.  So it is disappointing to find Stan discussing the Cleveland sex abuse scandal thus, ‘the resulting moral panic became a pitched battle of claims and counter claims’ and goes on to talk of ‘satanic abuse’ cases as ‘more fictitious and one of the purest cases of moral panic’ (2002: xvii).

For me those events were media frenzies involving moral entrepreneurs and media in an amplification spiral that did not generate deviance but more victims.  The paedophile is not a ‘folk devil’ but a bogeyman or ‘boo’ figure.  Being so reviled attracts no adherents.  In the case of media drugs frenzies the ‘boo’ figure is the ‘evil dealer’ but the ‘folk devil’ is more often the booze, the weed, the Es or the legal highs rather than the wasted junkie (though fashion is sometimes accused of pushing this line).

So I believe that to follow Stan requires a parsimonious definition of a ‘moral panic’ and that one handy rule might be that if the media use the term it isn’t one.

Jimmy Savile: 'Stranger danger'/'celebrity' danger and a ‘delayed moral panic’

This was posted on the Works for Freedom website in October 2012 which is sadly no more. I’ve just updated the links etc.

What more can be said about the case of Jimmy Savile or that which will not be overtaken by events in this ever-expanding case and cause for concern?  As a lecturer in crime and media I often set my students a theoretical essay in which I ask them if concerns about paedophilia amount to a ‘moral panic’.  I expect them to set out the classic morphology of a ‘moral panic’ derived from Stan Cohen’s work and assess whether frequent media frenzies amount to ‘moral panics’.  The best also consider the many theoretical and popular linguistic additions to the concept (even the press use the phrase) and whether those are helpful.  The very best might remember me pointing them in the direction of the work of feminists, for instance Jenny Kitzinger.

She was writing, in the late ‘90s, about the media’s ‘discovery’ of paedophilia in the mid ‘80s by press and current affairs programmes and also in serials and soaps.  She argues against reducing, or dismissing (see this from Spiked for instance now), this all as a media frenzy and sees it as other than or more than a ‘moral panic’.  I’m with her on much of this and want hark back to her, and other’s (see Cowburn and Dominelli for instance), idea of ‘stranger danger’ and the media’s part in its construction.  But first some history/context.

Music Journalist Charles Shaar Murray recalls how he was a contributor/editor of the School Kid’s Oz.  I wasn't but I wish now I was.  I was 17 when the editors put out a call for 15-18 years olds to edit/write Oz 28, publication of which lead to the conviction of the adult editors for obscenity.  As a regular reader it crossed my mind to volunteer.

As a student at the school which Mick Jagger had left only 5 years before London and the ‘swinging sixties’ seemed very near yet out of reach.  The zeitgeist that reached me through the underground press (and the condemnation of the traditional media) strongly suggested that liberation meant liberation for women, black people, gays and formerly condemned minorities.  Oh, and it was going to bring about the revolution too (my dumb hippy shame)!  So I was aware of the existence of PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange) which was not necessarily embraced in the counter-culture but not condemned as it would be today.  At the time PIE rode alongside the growing gay liberation movement and other radical movements, so perhaps some feared to condemn them and PIE did have a real point (if hardly neutral) in campaigning about the age of consent which was then 21 for male homosex.

As my imagined sex life had begun before secondary school I too thought the age of consent should be dropped; but it was the fact that Dartford Grammar was single sex that most hampered my desires.  So leaving aside the atmosphere of Radio 1 that some have mentioned as context for Savile’s offences I do recall a wider ‘loosening’.  That atmosphere is now roundly condemned here (comment 12).  It seems clear now, but might have been guessed at from emerging feminist thinking, that the main beneficiaries would be older men and not me.

Like many crimes that attract media interest Savile’s case is used not only to talk about the crimes (with old media often shying away from the details yet new media already attracting jokes in bad taste) but also wider concerns and activities (eg BBC bashing).  But are these concerns a delayed or retrospective ‘moral panic’?

In these matters I look not only for the moralising and panic which we have in excess but also the demonised ‘other’ and here instead of the generalised bogey man of the ‘paedophile’ we have the figure of Jimmy Savile.  But also I look for the amplification, the media condemnation which worsens the situation.  The Daily Sketch taunts of ‘retarded vain young hot-blooded paycocks’ that drives the purchase of scooters, motor-bikes, italian suits and leather jackets and ensures the return match.  So not a moral panic for me.  Only a bold punk band seeking instant demonisation/fame might now call themselves The Jimmy Savile’s.  I see no-one signing up to that monstered regiment of paedophiles.

And back to Kitzinger, how do we now see the issue of stranger danger?  Will any amplification occur in respect of an expansion of our appreciation real and ongoing dangers to children.  Where do celebrities sit in the family/stranger continuum?  I know many I’d be happy to keep out of my living room.  Luckily, unlike Mary Whitehouse my TV comes with a channel changer. 

Sadly for the moment the focus will be on the past and the other hoopla.  Sadly too in the future ‘solutions’ will be found which promise much but merely add repression and bureaucracy without any added safety.  Savile may have persuaded himself these young women and girls were ‘groupies’  but the real groupies were those who fawned over his celebrity status and the cachet he could bring them or their organisations.

And, to return to my hippy roots, we need to be less respectful and encourage children to speak out.  As a boy climbing trees on Clapham Common in the late 50s I disrespectfully told any older man who approached to ‘fuck off’.

Criminology: Now and then

Your ordinary burglar and forger must pale his ineffectual fires before the brilliant scoundrelism of the man who accepts the fortune of his friend in trust and either spends it in such a way that he is fairly safe in the Bankruptcy Court, or absconds with what is left of it to sunnier climes.

The lengthy quote above appears in an article on the front page of the Pall Mall Gazette on 8 May 1900 which is headlined, simply, ‘Criminology’. It contains many observations of a criminological nature without specifically mentioning any criminologist. We should not be surprised by this (Groombridge, 2007) but it is heartening to note the presumption that readers will know the term. The politics of the paper varied over time - and at this time passed the prime of its radical investigations under W.T Stead - but its compassion and, even, admiration for the ordinary criminal is interesting in th elight of much modern media treatment of crime and criminals.

The opening sentence clearly sees criminology - it is not mentioned specifically again the body of the text - in positivistic but patronisingly compassionate light.

The criminal is an interesting creature considered in the scientific perspective and when in custody. Sometimes he is not all unpleasant; circumstances and a weak will being unable to balance each other, he has fallen into the mire, and lies there with an expression of futile innocence almost ludicrous.

The mention of ‘will’ draws on classicist notions but much of the explanation is a combination of biological, psychological and sociological positivism combined with a desire to be relevant to criminal justice. I intensify this as ‘neo-classical’ in the traction of Tarde. I see this puts me in dispute with the author of the wikipedia page on Neo-classical school (criminology) which aligns it with right realism and name checks social control, drift and rational choice.

Some snippets must suffice:

Crafty criminals […] are few and far between 

the criminal has a brain of inferior quality

the bloodthirsty kind […] general die mad if they be not hanged
the ordinary criminal who suffers imprisonment for petty larceny is quite uninteresting.

In the unlikely event our larcenist becomes expert the Gazette then admits he has: 

many notable characteristics […] persistence of purpose […] may yet sometimes be regarded as evidence of uncommon strength of mind.

It rather relativistically and callously suggests that the burglar:

breaks into the house and carries off the spoons and the tea basket of some respectable mediocrity, who is generally insured against loss of the kind.

They mention the work of Sir Edward Troup at the Home Office to suggest there have been reductions in crime but greater activities by criminals and police.  Two matters are highlighted 1) crimes in seaports by seamen and those who ‘prey on them’ (‘moral scum of the earth’) and 2) the new offences created by the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885. Interestingly Troup is said to have had severe doubts about the value of police statistics (Sir Leon Radzinowicz).

The CLAA 1885 will be known to some for its section 11 further criminalising sex between men. We are celebrating its repeal 50 years ago in England and Wales. Most of it was about ‘rescuing’ women - fears of white slavery and dangers to heiresses - but did raise the age of consent to 16 from 12 in 1861 and 13 in 1875. The work of the journalist Stead in the Pall Mall Gazette (The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon) on this might be contrasted with MP/editor Labouchere who introduced the section which caught Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing. Stead received a 3 month sentence for his unethical methods, that is purchasing a girl. It is not clear if Labouchere intended his clause to succeed (see his entry in Who's who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II).

But all of this is throat-clearing on the way to its fulminations against bent solicitors and the inadequacies of the Law Society (and need for greater regulation) which take up the second half. After listing various scandals they turn to victimology, or victim-blaming; opining:

clients ought to take the most elementary precautions against being swindled

if such ordinary precautions were taken, half of the scandals, which are, indeed, much to numerous to be creditable to a great profession, would not happen.

I don’t know what caused these thoughts on criminology, penology and victimology so must turn to historians. Any thoughts? What was going on then?