Folk Devils Research Articles

Foreign, criminal: a doubly damned modern British folk-devil

An association of strangers with danger and criminality is one of the most enduring social myths. However, in the UK, it was only after a media outcry 10 years ago over the release of foreign nationals from British prisons, that the ‘Foreign Criminal’ exploded into political and popular consciousness. Despite the small numbers of people involved, the location of this folk devil at the intersection of legal and moral assessments of ‘wickedness’ and alterity imbues it with considerable potency and has ensured that its reverberations are still felt strongly a decade later. Drawing on qualitative research with immigration detainees, deportees and irregular migrants, the article considers some of the many faces of the Foreign Criminal and illuminates their racialised, classed and gendered natures. It argues that a twin set of developments – coalescing around Operation Nexus and curtailed Article 8 right protections – work together to taint a growing number of non-citizens with criminality, whilst simultaneously undermining their claim to belong. Case studies are presented to demonstrate the fault lines of this malleable and expanding category, and to argue that the Foreign Criminal is paradigmatic of both social disorder and national boundaries, and is fundamentally shifting the lines of citizenship and belonging.

‘Reconciled gradually to the system of indoor relief’: the poor law in wales during the ‘crusade against out-relief’, c. 1870 – c. 1890

Evidence is growing that Wales was a distinctive ‘welfare region’ under the New Poor Law. Higher rates of out-relief, tense relations with London and a deep dislike of the workhouse system marked the Principality out as different. This article considers Welsh distinctiveness in the context of the ‘crusade against out-relief’. Launched in the early 1870s, the crusade saw out-relief numbers tumble nationally. Little is known about the crusade in Wales but it is often assumed that it was a non-event. It is argued here that this is entirely incorrect. Official statistics reveal that tens of thousands of outdoor paupers in Wales had their relief stopped. Crusaders were successful partly due to the misleading way the Poor Law inspectorate used official figures to portray Wales as a district on the brink of crisis. The turning of outdoor paupers into ‘folk devils’ by sections of the Welsh press was also pivotal. Welsh distinctiveness was not eradicated during the crusade, but it was eroded.

From empowering the shameful to shaming the empowered: Shifting depictions of the poor in ‘reality TV’

Poor-blaming and poor-shaming have become intrinsic parts of the neoliberal order. For neoliberal discourse to enter and to dominate wider public ‘common sense’, vehicles of ‘populist language’ are required and the mass media has taken a central place in propagandising neoliberalism through their narration of poverty. This article focuses on so-called ‘reality TV’ and its neoliberal framing of the poor, particularly since 2007 and specifically in its generation of support for, and acquiescence in, ‘austerity’. We argue that what these programmes provide is a representation of poverty which is politically expedient but socially divisive. As criminologists, we suggest that this representation symbolises the intensification of what Cohen (2002: xxi) noted as the prominence of ‘“welfare cheats”, “social security frauds” and “dole scroungers” as fairly traditional folk devils. Further, we argue that an intensification in the denigration of the poor and the marginal in these programmes can be traced across three phases, from 2009 onwards, defined by their key features. Whilst not neatly discrete, these phases mirror the neoliberal political shift from welfare to punishment. They manufacture ‘epidemic problems’ that are seen to require urgent remediation. Yet the status and nature of these problems are defined through deception and the forms of intervention required are determined through individualised and moralised neoliberal prescription.

Shane Warne versus hoon cyclists: affect and celebrity in a new media event

In January 2012 a moral panic about ‘hoon cyclists’ erupted after sports celebrity Shane Warne had an altercation with a cyclist on St Kilda Road, Melbourne. Warne took to Twitter and posted an account of the event. The altercation served to focus tensions around the positioning of the cyclist in Australian automobility. The concept of ‘acute event’ is combined with a longer history of other kinds of media event, such as ‘moral panics’, to better understand events that are discursively mediated. The role of Warne in the resulting ‘cyclist hoon’ moral panic acute event is an example of the organisational role of ‘celebrity’ in participatory media. Warne’s account of cycling affectively resonates with the other car drivers as the privileged subjects of Australian automobility. This affective resonance organised the discursive field of the moral panic acute event. In this case, the techniques of social media celebrity (to produce an authentic ‘ordinariness’) also produce an affective resonance of Warne’s experience of cyclists as a driver. The folk devil figure of the ‘hoon cyclist’ challenges the hegemonic norms of car-based automobility.

Publication of children’s images, privacy and Article 8: judgment in the matter of An Application by JR38 for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland) [2015] UKSC 42

Not available

A Clockwork Orange: The Art of Moral Panic?

Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange and Kubrick’s adaptation have garnered a reputation for extreme violence, appearing regularly on lists of ‘banned’ works and being implicated in ‘copycat crimes’. This paper traces the development of this reputation. Both film and book were very warmly received on first appearance, the first public ‘outrage’ being manufactured by British tabloids two years after the film’s release. The paper goes on to use the theory of the ‘folk devil’ to reassess the text itself and ends by investigating how the moral panic had a positive effect by stopping the torture of prisoners in California.

The Production of Squatters as Folk Devils: Analysis of a Moral Panic that Facilitated the Criminalization of Squatting in the Netherlands

ABSTRACTThis article assesses recent improvements to Cohen’s original formulation of the concept of moral panic. A case study is made of a moral panic generated in the Dutch media regarding three accusations made by the police concerning booby traps and weapons caches in the squats of Amsterdam. These claims, while shown to be fantastical in nature, gave credence to a ideological discursive formation that portrayed the squatters’ movement as increasingly violent. Squatters were subsequently manufactured as folk devils requiring control via juridical repression, a process that resulted in the criminalization of squatting in 2010.

Missing the moral: Excited delirium as a negative case study of a moral panic

This article examines Excited Delirium, a controversial medical explanation offered as an explanation for a variety of in-custody deaths. It appears to fit all essential criteria to incite a moral panic, featuring a powerful moral entrepreneur playing off of well-established fears of drugs use and psychosis, with a classic folk devil in the form of young men of color. Yet Excited Delirium has failed to provoke a widespread response, raising the question of how a phenomenon that meets all the classic criteria can fail to incite a moral panic. I argue this stems from the entrepreneurs involved failing to present themselves as sufficiently moral, their campaign to medicalize the phenomenon meeting an unreceptive medical field, and their broad conception of Excited Delirium too easily facilitating strong counter-narratives. This study uses Excited Delirium as a negative case to demonstrate several important factors to consider in the development of moral panics.

Moral panics by design: The case of terrorism

This article assesses the relationship between terrorism and moral panics to expand understandings of the latter’s eruption and orchestration. Answering calls for deeper considerations of folk devils’ agentic properties, it interrogates how terrorist methods – the deployment of shocking and exceptional violence to incite fear and stimulate political change – challenge extant understandings of the moral panic framework. Specifically, it argues, in the case of terrorism, that the exaggerated threats and disproportionate responses that define moral panics are not driven solely by moral entrepreneurs or social control agents, but are informed by the strategic practices and rationalities of folk devils themselves. Through its approach, this research enhances social-scientific treatments of terrorism, broadens the scope of moral panic analysis, and extends understandings of how fear and anxiety are manipulated for political purposes.

Moral Panic, Moral Breach: Bernhard Goetz, George Zimmerman, and Racialized News Reporting in Contested Cases of Self-Defense

This article examines local news coverage of two landmark self-defense shooting cases—the 1984 Bernhard Goetz case and the 2012 George Zimmerman case—to interrogate the racialized construction of crime and, specifically, extend moral panic theory to the contemporary context of racial colorblindness. Analyzing 542 local news stories, I find the Goetz case was framed as a moral panic, while Zimmerman coverage exhibited a moral breach. The Zimmercan case: (1) is characterized by competing, rather than complementary, narratives; (2) reframes “folk devils” as victims and disrupts clear-cut allocations of blame; (3) emphasizes harm to communities rather than harm to social order ; and (4) elicits calls for dialogue and acknowledgement rather than collective punishment and shaming. Unpacking what the different styles of narrative mean for racialized constructions of victims and criminals and the social construction of harm, threat, and social action, I argue that, despite the greater attention to race found in Zimmerman coverage, moral breaches tend to compartmentalize social problems and thus narrow their impact.

De Marokkanenpaniek: de sociale constructie van ‘Marokkanen’ als folk devils

textabstractSince the nineties, the ‘Moroccan community’ experiences a negative group-image based on a small group of male youths who ‘stand out’ in social problems such as nuisance, crime and Islamic radicalisation. This negative group image is largely constructed through negative societal reactions in the media on incidents in which Moroccan Dutch youngsters play a prominent role. This article examines such negative societal reactions in the media on three recent incidents: the 2007 Slotervaart riots, the 2008 Gouda ‘bus incident’ and the 2010 Culemborg riots. It concludes that the societal reactions to these incidents in the media, are exaggerated, symbolise ‘the Moroccans’ as folk devils and construct them as moral and cultural Others. Finally, it concludes that these negative societal reactions to ‘Moroccans’ in Dutch media can be seen as a disproportional and misplaced, but natural reaction of a dominant cultural majority to a threat to their cultural and moral hegemony, by ‘the Moroccans’ as a social deviant minority.

The War on P (Pure, Methamphetamine) in New Zealand, a Moral-Panic?

This article illuminates how the transfiguration from the sociological concept of moral-panic to moral-regulation replicates wider socioeconomic conditions. The author urges that the Alcohol and Other Drug (named so in order that alcohol can also be categorised as a drug) clinicians reflect on the structural and reproductive impact of their work. The sociological concept, “moral-panic” has socio-clinical efficacy in the (AOD) treatment field. It has much affinity as history in the field is littered with the phenomenon. The author, a long time Alcohol and Drug clinician, now lecturer in the AOD field, considers the phenomenon in New Zealand around the use what is known locally as P (pure) or methamphetamine. Various texts on a War on P campaign were analysed. It was found that, through various literary devices familiar themes emerged, evoking local folk devils and heroes. This analysis was carried out against a backdrop of creeping neo-liberalism, a new right-wing government committed to market liberalisation, and thereby the increased availability of a more dangerous yet licit drug, known as ethyl alcohol (Saunders, 1989). However, the concept of moral-panic can be deployed as a means to critically analyse the impact of various licit and illicit drugs under the theme of proportionality. Moreover, a sociological understanding of the prevention paradox can create a pathway to understand the role of moral-regulation and its ramifications as outlined by a governmental analysis. An appreciation of Moral-panic theory and Moral-regulation is crucial in the AoD field, as alternatives to dominant medical and psychological individualising discourses, in order to empower clinician and client alike and to politicise a discipline that traditionally eschews politicisation. The author argues that reflecting on the trajectory from moral-panic to moral-regulation creates insights into the dismantling western social state. From an ethical standpoint, it is important that clinicians become aware of the politically reproductive nature of their profession and how they are required to codify themselves and clients into ideological positions.

Legal Control on Social Control of Sex Offenders in the Community: A European Comparative and Human Rights Perspective

textabstractThis paper provides first of all the introduction to this special issue on ‘Legal constraints on the indeterminate control of “dangerous” sex offenders in the community: A European comparative and human rights perspective’. The issue is the outcome of a study that aims at finding the way legal con- trol can not only be an instrument but also be a controller of social control. It is explained what social control is and how the concept of moral panic plays a part in the fact that sex offenders seem to be the folk devils of our time and subsequently pre-eminently the target group of social control at its strongest. Further elaboration of the methodology reveals why focussing on post-sentence (indeterminate) supervision is relevant, as there are hardly any legal constraints in place in comparison with measures of preventive detention. Therefore, a comparative approach within Europe is taken on the basis of country reports from England and Wales, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain. In the second part of the paper, the comparative analysis is presented. Similar shifts in attitudes towards sex offenders have led to legislation concerning frameworks of supervision in all countries but in different ways. Legal constraints on these frameworks are searched for in legal (sentencing) theory, the principles of proportionality and least intrusive means, and human rights, mainly as provided in the European Convention on Human Rights to which all the studied countries are subject. Finally, it is discussed what legal constraints on the control of sex offenders in the community are (to be) in place in European jurisdictions, based on the analysis of commonalities and differences found in the comparison.

Linking Moralisation and Class Identity: The Role of Ressentiment and Respectability in the Social Reaction to ‘Chavs’

This paper aims to link two fields of research which have come to form separate lines of inquiry: the sociology of moralisation and studies on class identity. Expanding on recent papers by Young (2009 , 2011 ) and others, the paper argues that the concepts of ressentiment and respectability can be used to connect moralisation processes and the formation of class identities. This is explored through a case study of the social reaction in Britain to white working-class youths labelled ‘chavs’. It is demonstrated that chavs are constructed through moralising discourses and practices, which have some elements of a moral panic. Moreover, moralisation is performative in constructing class identities: chavs have been cast as a ‘non-respectable’ white working-class ‘folk devil’ against whom ‘respectable’ middle-class and working-class people distinguish and identify themselves as morally righteous. Moralising social reactions are here to an important extent triggered by feelings of ressentiment. This is a dialectical process where respectability and ressentiment are tied, not only to the social control of certain non-respectable working-class others, but also to the moral self-governance of the moralisers.

‘Menacing Youth’ and ‘Broken Families’: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Reporting of the 2011 English Riots in theDaily ExpressUsing Moral Panic Theory

This paper utilises moral panic theory and critical discourse analysis to examine the coverage of the 2011 English riots in the British newspaper, the Daily Express. Findings show that the Daily Express drew on two previous moral panics concerning youngsters and family life to diagnose the riots as a consequence of youth criminality and poor parenting. The newspaper identified young people as folk devils of the unrest by adopting discourses which vilified them, their behaviour and choice of clothing. Furthermore, the Daily Express exaggerated the severity of the disorder by describing it as war and mass murder to reinforce to its readers the supposed threat posed by young people to social relations. Additionally, the newspaper supported politicians who denied structural determinants as causes of the unrest and, instead, blamed micro issues including a decline in ‘traditional’ family life and morals and discipline among youngsters. While some suggest that folk devils are now defended by experts, the Daily Express gave column inches to expert commentators who also pinpointed young people and poor parenting as causes of the disorder. This paper proposes that future research on media coverage of social problems might, in addition to exploring whether the reporting of an issue identifies new anxieties and concerns, examine the extent to which media institutions draw on and modify discourses concerning previous and familiar social anxieties in order to interpret and frame a social problem.

Youth street gangs: a critical appraisal

Gangs have been heavily pathologized in the last several decades. In comparison to the pioneering Chicago School's work on gangs in the 1920s we have moved away from a humanistic appraisal of and sensitivity toward the phenomenon and have allowed the gang to become a highly plastic folk devil outside of history. This pathologization of the gang has particularly negative consequences for democracy in an age of punishment, cruelty and coercive social control. This is the central thesis of David Brotherton’s new and highly contentious book on street gangs. Drawing on a wealth of highly acclaimed original research, Brotherton explores the socially layered practices of street gangs, including community movements, cultural projects and sites of social resistance. The book also critically reviews gang theory and the geographical trajectories of streets gangs from New York and Puerto Rico to Europe, the Caribbean and South America, as well as state-sponsored reactions and the enabling role of orthodox criminology. In opposition to the dominant gang discourses, Brotherton proposes the development of a critical studies approach to gangs and concludes by making a plea for researchers to engage the gang reflexively, paying attention to the contradictory agency of the gang and what gang members actually tell us. The book is essential reading for academics and students involved in the study of juvenile delinquency, youth studies, deviance, gang studies and cultural criminology.

George Morgan and Scott Poynting (eds) Global Islamophobia: Muslims and Moral Panic in the West. London: Ashgate.

Previous to 2001, Islam was a mere flicker on the radar of popular xenophobic paranoia. A decade and a half and the world’s first global moral panic later, this situation has changed entirely, apparently by design. As the editors of Global Islamophobia point out, the Terror Scare has elevated Muslims to ‘transnational folk devil,’ foisting the logic of ‘if you think for yourselves the terrorists win’ on the public realm in the name of defending democratic values. The paradoxical character of the generally destructive effects of this Terror Scare on democratic culture remains hard to miss, not least given the rhetoric about western values that tends to accompany much of the debate.Download the PDF file from this page to read Ben Debney's complete review of George Mirgan and Scott Poynting's edited book.

New “Folk Devils,” Denials and Climate Change: Applying the Work of Stanley Cohen to Green Criminology and Environmental Harm

This article pays homage to Stan Cohen by applying his work to green criminology. It draws on Cohen’s notions of “denial,” “folk devils” and “moral panic” to analyze and assess “climate change contrarianism”—organized efforts to diminish scientific consensus on the existence and extent of climate change and its potential impact on human and nonhuman life. We begin by arguing that “climate change contrarians” have painted climate change as a moral issue and have attempted to transform climate scientists into “folk devils.” We then contemplate the meaning and significance of media representations of climate change and the way in which such depictions have contributed to the lack of consequential state and international measures, treaties or protocols on climate change.

Welfare Queens, Thrifty Housewives, and Do-It-All Mums

In this paper, we consider how the cultural politics of austerity within Britain plays out on the celebrity maternal body. We locate austerity as a discursive and disciplinary field and contribute to emerging feminist scholarship exploring how broader political and socio-economic shifts interact with cultural constructions of femininity and motherhood. To analyse the symbolic function of mediated celebrity maternity within austerity, the paper draws on a textual analysis of three celebrity mothers: Kate Middleton, Kim Kardashian, and Beyoncé. This analysis was undertaken as part of a larger qualitative study into celebrity culture and young people's classed and gendered aspirations. We show how these celebrity mothers represent the folk devils and fantasy figures of the maternal under austerity—the thrifty, happy housewife, the benefits mum, and the do-it-all working mum—and attempt to unpick what cultural work they do in the context of austerity within Britain. Through the lens of celebrity motherhood, we offer a feminist critique of austerity as a programme that both consolidates unequal class relations and makes punishing demands on women in general, and mothers in particular.

Child Grooming and Sexual Exploitation: Are South Asian Men the UK Media’s New Folk Devils?

In May 2012, nine men from the Rochdale area of Manchester were found guilty of sexually exploiting a number of underage girls. Media reporting on the trial focused on the fact that eight of the men were of Pakistani descent, while all the girls were white. Framing similar cases in Preston, Rotherham, Derby, Shropshire, Oxford, Telford and Middlesbrough as ethnically motivated, the media incited moral panic over South Asian grooming gangs preying on white girls. While these cases shed light on the broader problem of sexual exploitation in Britain, they also reveal continuing misconceptions that stereotype South Asian men as ‘natural’ perpetrators of these crimes due to culturally-specific notions of hegemonic masculinity. Examining newspaper coverage from 2012 to 2013, this article discusses the discourse of the British media’s portrayal of South Asian men as perpetrators of sexual violence against white victims, inadvertently construing ‘South Asian men’ as ‘folk devils’.