Youth Crime: Separating Fact from Fiction and Moral Panic, Slides of Sociology of Crime and Punishment

Download Youth Crime: Separating Fact from Fiction and Moral Panic and more Slides Sociology of Crime and Punishment in PDF only on Docsity! Youth “Crime Waves” and Moral Panic docsity.com Is There a Youth “Crime Wave”? • Perceptions of a youth “crime wave” are based on evidence but also on biased perceptions. docsity.com 16-year-olds commit the greatest number of burglaries, proportionally, than do any other age group. • BUT, regardless of the age-crime curve for burglary, property offenses committed by youths have decreased even more, and more quickly, than have violent offense rates. docsity.com You hear about youth crime all the time! • BUT media reports are faulty measures of crime rates and crime trends. Media reports of youth crime waves reflect a current “moral panic,” an exaggerated public perception of a social problem, surrounding youth crime. • Youth are, per Bernard Schissel, the contemporary “folk devil,” the scapegoat on whom all blame for society’s “ills” can be placed, even where those “ills” are rhetorical inventions of media and politicians. docsity.com Moral Panics • Stanley Cohen’s definition: – Occur in times of change/“crisis” – Follow from highly publicized, though sometimes scant evidence (or rumour) – Reflect an exaggeration of threat (often spread by media) – Often target youth – Entail disproportionate responses that victimize the innocent – Serve social functions of “boundary maintenance” docsity.com