Moral Panics over Contemporary Children and Youth

Moral Panics over Contemporary Children and Youth (ed. Charles Krinsky) is a 2016 multidisciplinary collection that examines how modern societies construct children and youth as both vulnerable victims and dangerous threats. Through case studies spanning Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, and France, contributors analyze how exaggerated public fears—fueled by media, politics, and expert discourse—shape punitive policies, distort social understanding of young people, and reinforce broader anxieties about culture, sexuality, education, race, and urban life. The volume situates youth-related moral panics within classic theories (Cohen, Goode & Ben-Yehuda) while extending them to new technological, sexual, and geopolitical contexts.

Chapter summaries

Part I — Defining Youth and Youth Culture

• Introduction to Part I — Charles Krinsky

Krinsky outlines how moral panics shape both adult perceptions of youth culture and young people's own identities, emphasizing their dual position as "at risk" and "a risk."

• Chapter 1 — Bernard Schissel, Justice Undone: Public Panic and the Condemnation of Children and Youth

Schissel shows how Canadian public fear exaggerates youth crime and drives punitive policy, disproportionately harming marginalized and Indigenous youth.

• Chapter 2 — Robert Payne, Virtual Panic: Children Online and the Transmission of Harm

Payne examines legislative and cultural overreactions to children's online sexual expression, arguing that panic obscures real digital practices and impedes effective protections.

• Chapter 3 — John Springhall, “The Monsters Next Door”: Moral Panics over the Causes of High School Multiple Shootings (Notably Columbine)

Springhall demonstrates how adults blamed youth subcultures for school shootings while ignoring structural issues such as gun accessibility and school-system failures.

Part II — Sex Panics

• Introduction to Part II — Charles Krinsky

Krinsky situates sexual panics involving youth within wider cultural struggles over morality and symbolic threats.

• Chapter 4 — Vincent Doyle, How to Make “Kiddie-Porn” in Canada: Law Enforcement, the Media, and Moral Panic in the Age of AIDS

Doyle shows how a Canadian investigation into a “kiddie-porn ring” escalated into a national panic shaped by anxieties about AIDS, homosexuality, and youth corruption.

• Chapter 5 — Pamela D. Schultz, Naming, Blaming, and Framing: Moral Panic over Child Molesters and Its Implications for Public Policy

Schultz analyzes how the figure of the “child molester” is rhetorically constructed, leading to disproportionate and ineffective sex-offender policies.

• Chapter 6 — Charles Krinsky, The Moral Panic That Never Was: News Media, Law Enforcement, and the Michael Jackson Trial

Krinsky argues that the Michael Jackson trial did not produce a classical moral panic due to fragmented public opinion and competing media narratives.

Part III — Schools and Schooling

• Introduction to Part III — Charles Krinsky

Krinsky links school-centered moral panics to anxieties about discipline, knowledge, and institutional authority.

• Chapter 7 — Mary de Young, Speak of the Devil

De Young revisits the daycare ritual-abuse panic, showing how fantastical allegations harmed both children and adults within educational and childcare contexts.

• Chapter 8 — Toby Miller, Panic between the Lips: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Ritalin

Miller critiques the medicalization of child behavior and the cultural panic surrounding ADHD, highlighting political and pharmaceutical influences.

• Chapter 9 — Sheldon Ungar, “Don’t Know Much about History”: A Critical Examination of Moral Panics over Student Ignorance

Ungar investigates recurring claims of historical illiteracy among students, arguing these alarms reflect cultural anxieties rather than actual educational decline.

Part IV — Urban Youth

• Introduction to Part IV — Charles Krinsky

This section frames urban-youth moral panics as intersections of race, class, policing, and spatial politics.

• Chapter 10 — Tony Roshan Samara, Marginalized Youth and Urban Revitalization: A Moral Panic over Street Children in Cape Town

Samara shows how street children were depicted as obstacles to urban redevelopment, legitimizing punitive policing and reinforcing racialized spatial control.

• Chapter 11 — Elizabeth Brown, Race, Space and Crime: The City, Moral Panics, and “Risky” Youth

Brown analyzes the construction of urban minority youth as inherently dangerous and links these narratives to spatial segregation and intensified surveillance.

• Chapter 12 — Susan J. Terrio, New Savages in the City: Moral Panics, Delinquent Hoodlums, and the French Juvenile Court

Terrio examines how French juvenile courts frame immigrant and marginalized youth as “new savages,” using panic-driven narratives to justify punitive and exclusionary state practices.

See also

• Adverse effects of hysteria
• Moral panic
• Erotic Innocence

External links

• Moral Panics over Contemporary Children and Youth (ed. Charles Krinsky, 2016) -- annas-archive.org