Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of Mods and Rockers (1972–2002)

In 1972, Stanley Cohen completed a book that began life as his doctoral thesis: Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of Mods and Rockers. Cohen sought to develop and extend the concept ‘moral panic’, first discussed by Jock Young in his study of drugtakers a couple of years earlier. One of the most recurrent types of moral panic in Britain since the war has been associated with the emergence of various forms of youth culture whose behaviour is deviant or delinquent. The public image of the folk devils was invariably tied up to a number of highly visual scenarios associated with their appearance: youths chasing across the beach, brandishing deckchairs over their heads, running along the pavements, riding on scooters or bikes down the streets, sleeping on the beaches and so on. The twin themes of affluence and youth – the second essentially subordinate to the first – have dominated most analyses of post-war social change in Britain.