Moral Panic or a Modern Day Witch Hunt

The following article was published in the Nachlaot Community user group way back in January. 



To: nachlaotcommunity@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 02:43
Subject: [nachlaotcommunity] On Child Abuse and Moral Panic in the Nachlaot Community




I think most people in any society will agree that it is important to protect children from sexual and physical abuse. However, because the topic is regarded as taboo, many societies in the past did not take adequate measures to deal with the problem. Many experts have begun to address the issue of how best to prevent abuse, and how to best treat children to help them recover when instances of abuse have occurred.
However, I believe there is another important aspect to the issue which has not yet been addressed. Namely, when sexual and physical abuse of children occurs, it is very easy for the societal members to enter into a state of "Moral Panic" (as described below in a brief excerpt from Wikipedia):
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972) and credited as creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests." Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are known by researchers as "moral entrepreneurs," while people who supposedly threaten the social order have been described as "folk devils."
Moral panics are in essence controversies that involve arguments and social tension and in which disagreement is difficult because the matter at its center is taboo. The media have long operated as agents of moral indignation, even when they are not self-consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety or panic. (end of quote from Wikipedia)
In my opinion, the major problem in the Nachlaot community today is not the child abuse which occurred. It is the moral panic which has developed as a result of the child abuse. I believe there may have been an initial small number of adults who carried out acts of abuse against children. Afterwards, when the children undergoing therapeutic treatment did not seem to recover quickly from the acts of abuse, the community started to panic and believe that there was a huge ring of tens of pedophiles continually harming hundreds of children. The belief in the existence of a huge pedophile ring was a symptom of the moral panic, and not a sign that the pedophile ring actually existed in reality. This panic has caused more damage to the children than the initial abuse, because it places the children in a continual state of anxiety and fear. Also, many of the parents entered into a state of anxiety and fear as well, decreasing their capability to provide positive, nurturing love ! to their children. They, too, may need to have some kind of therapeutic intervention in order to help them cope with the situation. Finally, many innocent people are being suspected and accused of being perpetrators of child abuse. This is itself also an injustice, but the parents of children who have been abused don't even realize that they themselves are doing anything wrong when they accuse innocent people of perpetrating abuse. In short, the situation of all parties involved is very difficult, to say the least.
In addition, it seems the media always assumes that everyone accused of being a child abuser is guilty, and most of the public assume that as well. The media publishes many stories fanning the flames of fear. Rumors and gossip also fan the flames of fear. I personally think that this is not helpful for resolving the overall situation. Someone needs to explain the significance of moral panic, and why we need to approach the whole problem in a more rational manner that repairs lives rather than destroying them.
Another delicate subject which I think needs to be addressed is that children who have been victims of child sexual and physical abuse can sometimes perpetuate a situation of moral panic either by 1) fabricating additional stories about new incidents of abuse that are similar in some way to the abuse they experienced previously, and/or 2) carrying out acts of abuse on other children within their peer group or even within their own family unit. I don't know whether this might be occurring in the Nachlaot community or not, but to my knowledge no one is addressing this possibility. It is understandable that children who have been traumatized might react in these ways, and that possibility needs to be considered and dealt with in a calm, compassionate, and rational manner.



http://nachlaotchildabuse.blogspot.com/2012/06/after-months-of-posting-articles-on.html