Abstract
This paper uses the sociological concept of 'moral panic' to argue that the contents of 90 news items about fatal assaults in Queensland during the period, 23 September 2006 and 28 February 2009, indicated the presence of moral panic. A summary of the moral panic concept is provided and then used to analyse the news items and illustrate that this moral panic reflected the classic elements of the concept. The paper concludes with a discussion of the Queensland government's response, and argues that the moral panic concept remains a useful tool to evaluate the proportionality of responses to social phenomena.
Highlights
This paper argues that the contents of 90 news items about fatal assaults[1] in Queensland during the period, 23 September 2006 and 28 February 2009, indicated the presence of moral panic
This moral panic has not left behind a legacy of the abolition of the accident excuse or the introduction of a new offence into the Criminal Code, which, if the Queensland Law Reform Commission (QLRC)’s comments about the accident excuse are any measure, is holding up well after 110 years of operation, albeit with some amendment. It has resulted in the ‘One Punch Can Kill’ campaign and the Matthew Stanley Foundation (MSF) as crime prevention strategies, arguably beneficial to Queensland’s youth because, while the analysis has shown that concern about fatal assaults was disproportionate to rates of offending, Queensland Police Service (QPS) statistics continually show that males aged 15 to 19 are most likely to be victims and perpetrators of assault.[137]
This paper used Cohen’s sociological concept of ‘moral panic’ to analyse 90 news items about fatal assaults in Queensland from Queensland news sources during the period 23 September 2006 and 28 February 2009, and conclude that their contents indicated the existence of moral panic
Summary
This paper argues that the contents of 90 news items about fatal assaults[1] in Queensland during the period, 23 September 2006 and 28 February 2009, indicated the presence of moral panic. This paper will reveal that because the Queensland Law Reform Commission (QLRC) properly carried out its function in vetting proposed reforms to Queensland’s Criminal Code, this moral panic did not lead to a change in the law. 37 Anxiety that Queensland’s criminal justice system favoured perpetrators, rather than victims of crime, struck at the heart of widely held beliefs that the purpose of the criminal justice system, was to punish offenders, and as Garland argued, ‘that a cherished [part] of life is in jeopardy is central to Cohen’s account of moral panics, their nature and their genesis.’[38] Concern about the use of the accident and provocation excuses, clearly demonstrates the importance of the moral dimension of ‘moral’ panic, and the threat must be regarded as ‘a threat to the social order itself’, not merely a trivial concern. 37 Anxiety that Queensland’s criminal justice system favoured perpetrators, rather than victims of crime, struck at the heart of widely held beliefs that the purpose of the criminal justice system, was to punish offenders, and as Garland argued, ‘that a cherished [part] of life is in jeopardy is central to Cohen’s account of moral panics, their nature and their genesis.’[38]
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