MORAL PANIC AND GANGS

Moral panic and gangs



Moral Panic and Gangs

Introduction

Moral panic is widely used term to refer to the media presentation of something to which the general public usually react to in panicky manner. It is the tendency o moral panic to exaggerate real statistics, thereby creating a monster - also known as to sociologists as folk-devil. In other words, moral panic is the state of public concern over certain phenomena that are induced by media. The issue is given more space in comparison with other, more serious problems. Concerns and worries are therefore much higher than what should correspond to a real danger, which means that the common reaction is disproportionate to the actual severity of an event, condition or phenomenon. The paper aims discussing the relationship of gangs and youth crime with the phenomenon of moral panic in the society, while exploring the history of gangs, and how these gangs impact the society at large (Hier, 2011, Pp 45-65).

Discussion

Cohen defines moral panic in the early 60s when he introduced term to the general public as “moral panic is the kind of attitude or society's response to certain social groups or sub-cultures, which are based on ideas and beliefs that these groups are very dangerous to society.” (Bonn, 2010, Pp 78 -96).

One feature of moral panic is that it lies on the boundary of four areas: deviance, social problems, collective behaviour and social movements. Deviance explains the moral of the moral panic: behaviour deemed immoral likely to create more public fear and concern than the traditional or conventional behaviour. Social problem explains public part of the moral panics: if a large part of the public is aware of the condition and it is affected, regardless of the objective situation, it must be regarded as a social problem - and panic certainly represents a form of increased awareness and interest. Collective behaviour corresponds to volatility of moral panics: the fact that, like fashions, a moral panic suddenly and usually unexpectedly and just as quickly disappears in fashion and disappears - or loses its quality in the process of becoming institutionalized. Social movements explain questions of organization and mobilization of the segments population and changing the focus of particular social conditions state. Moral panic in this sense is characterized by five key elements (criteria): interest, hostility, consensus, disproportion and instability. It must also be increased levels of hostility against an individual or group that caused this behaviour. Such individuals or groups members are designated as enemy company, their behaviour is considered to be harmful, threatening social values and interests.

Consequently, it is necessary not only to identify the status or event as threatening but it must be clearly identified individuals or groups that are incurred for threat accountable.

Inadequacy is moral panic expressed in the spread of numbers and data, which are usually exaggerated. The disproportionate criteria describes five basic indicators: (1) exaggerated figures (within the scope of the problem, these figures are strongly exaggeration), (2) manufactured data (threat, which the ...