Devilry, Deviance, and Public Sphere: The Social Discovery of Moral Panic in Eighteenth Century London

295 Pages·2022·5.402 MB·English

by  Christopher Hamerton

Devilry, Deviance,
and Public Sphere
The Social Discovery of Moral Panic
in Eighteenth Century London
Christopher Hamerton
Devilry, Deviance, and Public Sphere
“Christopher Hamerton has made an important contribution to our under-
standing of both moral panic theory, and the historiography of crime and
deviance. He has placed a spotlight on a theoretical tool that has become
blunted by imprecise and lazy use, and is often wielded by practitioners who
are unacquainted with the complexity of both actual social deviance and social
theory. By showing the reader how the moral crises of earlier centuries can
impact on our understanding of contemporary society Hamerton has revi-
talised the complex concept of moral panic. Stan Cohen would have been
impressed.”
—Professor Dick Hobbs, University of Essex, UK
“This is a rare book, one which combines the skilful evaluation of complex
theory and rigorous historical research in a sophisticated but accessible form.
The highly detailed and insightful case studies take you right into the heart
of eighteenth-century London, with the moral panics of the past resonating
with those of the present. A stimulating, thought-provoking, and highly
recommended read.”
—Professor Julia Davidson, OBE, University of East London, UK
“A very timely and much needed contribution, shedding fresh light on Stanley
Cohen’s ‘moral panic’ theory. Christopher Hamerton’s outstanding exami-
nation of the historical roots of the concept allows it to be applied to
contemporary contexts to better understand social and historical phenomena.
This book should be widely read across the social sciences and humanities. It
will be on my students’ reading lists, and should be marked for inclusion on
many others.”
—Dr. Mark Ramsden, University of Cambridge, UK
“Devilry, Deviance and Public Sphere provides an authoritative evaluation of
the likely historical source of the widely used concept of moral panic first
made famous by Stan Cohen over fifty years ago. Indeed, I am sure Stan
would be delighted to see such a scholarly treatment of his theory. Within
this meticulously researched book, Georgian London jumps from the pages as
a city of chatter, chaos, and horror - the perfect place for folk devils to emerge
and exist. Hamerton has provided an exemplary interdisciplinary guide for
both criminologists and historians. This book should be essential reading for
anyone interested in augmenting their knowledge of both social theory and
social history.”
—Dr. Anne Brunton, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Christopher Hamerton
Devilry, Deviance,
and Public Sphere
The Social Discovery of Moral Panic
in Eighteenth Century London
Christopher Hamerton
Economic, Social and Political Sciences
University of Southampton
Southampton, UK
ISBN 978-3-031-14882-8 ISBN 978-3-031-14883-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14883-5
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer
software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in
this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher
nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material
contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains
neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover credit: Lebrecht Music & Arts/Alamy Stock Photo
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland
AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Foreword
Stanley Cohen’s youth culture-based study of moral panic (1973) was
the core text associated with the National Deviancy Conference. Formed
in 1968, the NDC emerged as a loose knit confederacy of, ‘Anarchists,
CND, Young Communists and International Socialists’ (Cohen, 1974:
27), a ‘dynamic hotchpotch of interactionists, anarchists, phenomenol-
ogists, and Marxists’ (Sumner, 1994: 262), where deviancy was viewed
as part of the struggle waged by the lower orders against the forces of
repression.
Based upon his Ph.D. thesis that was supervised by Terry Morris at the
LSE, Cohen embraced the underdog studies of the second wave of the
Chicago School and utilised ethnography, documentary analysis, inter-
views, and questionnaires (1973; 205–210) to analyse the overwhelming
societal reaction to bank holiday battles between Mods and Rockers at
British seaside towns in the 1960s. Cohen worked as a volunteer on
a project designed to provide shelter for youths attending the holiday
festivities and used this as a base for interviews and observations. He also
conducted observational work at two sites over a two-year period and
rather coyly refers to, ‘…one Bank Holiday…(when) the method came
v
vi Foreword
closer to what sociologists un-humorously refer to as “participant obser-
vation” in that I wore what could roughly be called Mod clothes and
enjoyed the days with various groups on the beaches and the nights in
the clubs’ (1973: 210). The resultant study brought to public attention
the concept of moral panic, which in Cohen’s study is represented by
the perceived threat to societal values of, ‘A condition, episode, person
or group of persons…’ (1973: 9). The mass media are the principal
agents of the dramatisation of mundane youth deviancy, amplifying and
simplifying the threat, and creating the need for social control. A sense of
social anxiety is created, which in turn enables the emergence of moral
entrepreneurs who respond to the threat often via the creation of new
state powers, before heightened visibility effectively reduces the threat
and the panic subsides.
Cohen’s distinctly Durkheimian take on the functionality of deviance,
his utility of symbolic interactionism within an acknowledgement of the
structural arrangements of class society, and his sensitive rendition of
subcultural meaning remains, despite the subsequent oversimplification
of moral panic, one of the most influential studies of the era.
Stuart Hall and his colleagues at Birmingham University used the
concept to great effect in their study of policing (Hall et al., 1978),
specifically the manufacture of the ‘mugging’ crisis within the context
of racism and the complex connections between the State, the law, and
social order. The authors explain how ‘mugging’ was a concept created by
the media and crime control agencies in order to legitimise the coercive
State.
The term was subsequently developed by Erich Goode and Nachman
Ben-Yehuda (1994), identifying concern with a phenomenon, leading
to increased hostility towards deviants. This produces a consensus
galvanised by moral entrepreneurs that relies upon sustaining dispropor-
tionality of the threat compared to the actual harm generated by the
deviant group. The authors stressed that moral panics are also highly
volatile and quickly fade when the media in particular take their feet off
of the pedal.
Whilst many studies across the social sciences have utilised the
concept, Hall, Goode and Ben-Yehuda, and in particular Cohen are,
in the opinion of this writer, the most influential, and consequently,
Foreword vii
moral panic is intrinsically linked to a period when critical analysis and
radical politics were briefly normalised across the social sciences within
the context of a newly expanded university sector.
However, half a century on from the publication of Stan Cohen’s
seminal study, Moral Panic is one of the most ill-used over-simplified
cliches of social science. Originally formulated in the 1970s as part of
the assault upon positivism, by the start of the twenty-first century, it
had emerged from the sociology of deviance to become a lazy atheo-
retical shorthand for both liberal arrogance and reactionary disregard.
Politicians, journalists, and cops now regularly utilise the term as a way of
downplaying or dismissing inconvenient societal maladies, whilst many
academics channel a grossly simplified version of the concept into an
industrialised version of sociology and criminology teaching that makes
Tom Sharpe’s novels read like Socrates. A term with its theoretical foun-
dations in symbolic interactionism, moral panic is more often used,
inappropriately, to describe overreaction linked to moral indignation.
Indeed, the late Stan Cohen often used to joke that if he had a penny
for every time the concept of moral panic had been misused, he would
have long previously been able to take early retirement. Indeed, whilst
moral panics continue to be generated, the damage inflicted by falsely
applying the concept to genuinely harmful activity should not be under-
estimated (Salter, 2012), which makes it all the more vital to understand
the concept and in particular its fine-grained origins.
It is to this end that we must thank Christopher Hamerton for
reaching back far beyond Stan at the seaside to eighteenth-century
London. Hamerton explains in this ground breaking and highly read-
able study how the nascent media of the age initiated moral panics. Great
care is given to the technology of the era and the means by which infor-
mation was relayed, an issue no less relevant to the age of pamphlets
than it was to the unwieldy outside broadcasts of the Brighton beach
or to the ubiquity of internet access. Along the way, we encounter case
studies concerning youth violence, substance abuse, and predatory sex
offending, which provide a direct lineage for our current day folk devil.
Controlling the narrative was as important three hundred years ago as
it is in the public relations infected twenty-first century, and Hamerton
viii Foreword
does a fine job in unpacking eighteenth-century London and its incum-
bent folk devils as he does in contextualising the concept and therefore
allowing us to properly frame contemporary control narratives.
Christopher Hamerton has made an important contribution to our
understanding of both moral panic theory and the historiography of
crime and deviance. He has placed a spotlight on a theoretical tool that
has become blunted by imprecise and lazy use, and is often wielded by
practitioners who are unacquainted with the complexity of both actual
social deviance and social theory. By showing the reader how the moral
crises of earlier centuries can impact on our understanding of contempo-
rary society, Christopher Hamerton has revitalised the complex concept
of moral panic. Stan Cohen would have been impressed.
September 2022 Dick Hobbs
University of Essex
Colchester, UK
References
Cohen, S. (1973). Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Paladin.
Cohen, S. (1974). ‘Criminology and the Sociology of Deviance in Britain’, in
Rock, P., and McIntosh, M. (Eds.), Deviance and Social Control (pp. 1–40).
Tavistock.
Goode, E., & Ben-Yehuda, N. (1994). Moral Panics: Social Construction of
Deviance. Wiley-Blackwell.
Hall, S et al. (1978). Policing the Crisis. Macmillan.
Salter, M. (2012). Organised Sexual Abuse. Routledge.
Sumner, C. (1994). The Sociology of Deviance: An Obituary. Open University
Press.
Acknowledgements
A formative part of my academic career was spent in central London,
with an office looking down from high onto Regent Street, the constant
buzz of noise and commotion unavoidable even with the old steel
windows tightly closed and industrial secondary glazing slid across. I
look back on this time with great fondness, but also wonder at how
I survived both the commute to the office and the inescapable din once
I’d arrived. London itself is above all else a survivor and consequently
something of a knowing ancient brute of a city—a place that gets under
your skin if you let it. You can feel the passage of time felt under every
step, ghosts lurking around every turn, something under the floor. The
advice that I always gave to visitors who would ask me about where they
might find ‘the real London’ was to always to ‘look up.’ Up beyond the
often modernised façade at street level to the upper parts of buildings
that had escaped faddish commercial remodelling, this advice still stands,
a pervasive history above and below you. Thus, the historical focus on
London for this book is through long personal association, and I hope
that I have captured some of its distinct character.
ix