Moral Panic. How much concern in how many individuals constitutes a genuine case of moral panic? Why do some panics occur among certain segments among the public but not others?

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"What we can learn from debates of penal populism is first and formost that attitudes about crime and punishment are not rational, and the causes of crime have to be found, not primarily in its sanctioning system of punishment, but in the macro conditions of society rather than in individual micro considerations."

Societies everywhere have at time been gripped by moral panics and yet, as Cohen (1972) says, they have received insufficient systematic attention. Focusing on moral panics in the guest lecture raises questions in my head. How much concern in how many individuals constitutes a genuine case of moral panic? Why do some panics occur among certain segments among the public but not others?

Moral panics frequently erupt in our modern society, a fact that should cause us to question their sophisticated and tolerant towards nonconformity. It is entirely likely that moral panics serve as a mechanism for simultaneously strengthening and redrawing society's moral boundaries, the line between morality and immorality, just where one leaves the territory of good and enters that of evil. When a society's moral boundaries are sharp, clear, and secure, and the central norms and values are strongly held by nearly