Panics

A moral panic is an episode or period of community fear or hysteria generated by a perceived social crisis or emergency. The term moral panic was coined by sociologist Jock Young in the early 1970s and popularized by sociologist Stanley Cohen in a 1973 book, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods

Reports often indicate fears that violence in society is on the rise, especially on high school and college campuses throughout the United States. While there might be some validity in these concerns, they are often the result of what sociologists, psychologists, and criminologists term a moral panic. A moral panic can be defined as the