Identifying Moral Panic

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Organization of the Book

Chapter 1: What Is Moral Panic?
Chapter 2: Social Deviance and Social Problems
Chapter 3: Media
Chapter 4: Welfare and Poverty
Chapter 5: Youth and Childhood
Chapter 6: Immigration
Chapter 7: Sex and Sexuality
Chapter 8: Mental Illness
Chapter 9: Illicit Drugs

References
Index
About the Author

Michael Eversman, PhD, MSW, is an associate professor in the Department of Social Work at Rutgers University–Newark. His research interests include substance abuse, illicit drug policies, and alternatives to the War on Drugs as well as all things social work education. Eversman has more than 10 years of experience as a licensed clinical social worker providing substance abuse and mental health services to various client populations. As an undergraduate social work educator, Eversman teaches courses on social welfare policy and social work metho

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Considering the nature of current political debates, it is particularly important that issues related to claims making and moral panic be familiar to social workers and related professionals. Learning to understand social (in)justice and stereotyping is a crucial element of social work education, and this book provides a view of stereotyping that students don’t often receive in their education.

Gerald V. O’Brien, PhD
Professor, Social Work Department
Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

To hear an interview with the book’s author, Michael H. Eversman, listen to the NASW Social Work Talks podcast or watch the interview below!

The study of social welfare policy is most engaging when we ap­proach it as more than “rules and regulations” and, instead, ask what policies tell us about society: its values and symbols, its preju­dices, fears, and contradictions, who has power and who is deviant, who gets helped, and who gets controlled. The framework of moral panic helps us understand all of these by informing a critical analy­sis of macro-level dynamics that shows us the power of policy mak­ing in defining truth and reinforcing inequalities rooted in “otherism” (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 2011; Young, 2009). These inequalities reflect the outcomes of social policy choices that social work has long acted to counter, and as we will see, a moral panic approach to social welfare policy aligns closely with the values and ideals of professional social work (Barker, 2003; Eversman & Bird, 2016; Gil, 2013; Herrick, 2008; Meyer, 2008; Ore, 2009).

Social justice is a core social work value and a hallmark of our professional uniqueness that calls attention to the many complications of capitalism and the structural biases entangled within our social institutions. Although the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers does not explicitly address moral panic, one of its ethical principles directs us to “challenge social injustice . . . particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people,” and an ethical standard calls on us to pay attention to “the broader society” and to “facilitate informed participation by the public in shaping social policies and institutions” (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 2021, Ethical Principles, para. 3). Like pro­fessional social work, moral panic not only is highly interdisciplinary with origins in sociology and criminology, but also draws from history,social psychology, media studies, and critical race and gender stud­ies. Similarly, moral panic draws attention to the contextual causes of social problems beyond mere moralistic explanations and recognizes how processes of stereotyping and stigmatization impact opportuni­ties, advantages, and different “starting points” in life (Rawls, 1971).

Embedded within moral panic, cultural pluralism* helps us under­stand the dynamics of social conflict amid our diverse population and assortment of values, viewpoints, ideologies, and ways of life (Young, 2009). Since the early 20th century, the United States has experienced enormous demographic shifts, and in the 21st century, we will con­tinue to grow increasingly pluralistic. For example, over the next few decades, it is projected that those who identify as “biracial” will become the fastest growing racial group; the foreign-born population will con­tinue rising; and by 2045, non-Hispanic White people will no longer compose the “majority” population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). These factors, along with growing religious disaffiliation, will accelerate the decline of White Christian America (R. P. Jones, 2016). Such changes carry significant symbolic meaning as existential crises around the dominance and legitimacy of social values, and our increasing inability to agree on social problems and policy solutions will render us vulner­able to moral panic (Morone, 2003; K. Thompson, 1998).

Just as the cycles and repetition of history are instructive, episodes of moral panic are routine, and as we come to understand them, we should consider when—not if—they will occur (Eversman & Bird, 2016). Furthermore, moral panics are predictable, and S. Cohen (2002) identified several “usual suspect” “folk devils” whose identities and activities are highly prone to moral panic: youth; drug users; sexual “deviants”; welfare “cheats”; single mothers; immigrants; and, here, we include persons with mental illness. Yet, pointing this out is not to suggest these populations—or any “folk deviled” groups—are passive or unable to resist efforts to negatively label them (deYoung, 2013). Furthermore, access to various media platforms allows social workers and others to push back against stereotypes and harmful narratives. Understanding moral panic is helpful in this regard and reminds us that too often there are “different rules for different people.”

As we’ll see throughout the book, the policies legislated during moral panic periods are reactionary and tend to be excessively puni­tive, tend to fail to address the social problem, and tend to leave a legacy of expanded social controls that exacerbate injustice (S. Cohen, 1972; Garland, 2008; Rubin, 2006). The fear and prejudice activated by moral panic undermines critically informed decision making and increases the likelihood of acting merely for the sake of “doing some­thing,” and worse. Effective social work requires critical thinking to inform the decision-making skills needed in situations that are often rife with uncertainty and risk (K. Brown & Rutter, 2008), and our professional education standards dictate that we embrace “principles of logic, scientific inquiry . . . and . . . apply critical thinking” (Council on Social Work Education, 2015, p. 8). Yet, critical thinking requires more than cognitive processing, and the abilities to recognize implicit assumptions, values, and meaning within political discourse and sym­bols as well as to scrutinize various claims of fact against a standard of validity are also part of the process (K. Brown & Rutter, 2008).

*Often a legacy of war, colonization, and/or immigration, cultural pluralism refers to the mixed blessing of the “melting pot”—layers of diversity (i.e., racial, ethnic, or religious) within modern industrialized democratic societies that become a basis of social conflict (see Bellamy, 1999).