Moral Panics and Unsettled Times: Reconstructing a Century of Child Abuse Scares

• In Event: Crime, Law and Deviance Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 8: Stigma and Moral Panics

Abstract

Moral panics have long been thought to emerge during unsettled times, yet the nature of this connection has not been systematically examined. In this paper, I introduce a methodological framework for reconstructing qualitative histories of moral panics and formally testing their relationship with societal changes. I apply this approach to the case study of child sex abuse (CSA) panics in the United States. Using annual news coverage data from 1900–2024, I construct a proxy measure of CSA panic activity and estimate an error correction model to assess its relationship with four specific areas of societal change identified in the literature: ethnic composition, age structure, gender relations, and economic conditions. The results indicate that CSA panic coverage is positively associated with women’s employment rates and immigration-related demographic shifts. These relationships unfold gradually over time rather than instantaneously or following a discrete, identifiable delay. Although causal claims are beyond the scope of this analysis, the findings are consistent with arguments linking moral panics to perceived threats to dominant groups’ status and boundaries. Methodologically, the study demonstrates how historical news data can be leveraged to examine moral panic dynamics and the social contexts that give rise to them.

Author

• Nick Dickens, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities