Moral Panic, Fear of Crime, and School Shootings: Does Location Matter?

Abstract

The concept of moral panic has been used to describe how society reacts to different threats, either real or perceived. Although most studies in this area rely on qualitative, historical data, recent efforts have employed quantitative applications of an attributional model to understand attitudes consistent with different characteristics of moral panic. The present study utilizes this model along with survey data from college students across the five U.S. regions to examine how perceptions of school shootings as a moral panic vary by location. The findings reveal significant differences by location, with students in the Southwest and West less likely than other regions to express hostile attitudes about the shootings or believe they are happening at disproportional rates. Southwestern students also were most likely to express concern related to defense (gun rights), whereas individuals in the Northeast were least likely to. Broader considerations for these and other findings also are discussed.

Dual Panic Theory: New Insight into Moral Panics

“…Goode and Ben-Yehuda's (1994) criteria for moral panics have historically been measured qualitatively. However, recently, researchers have endeavored to measure these phenomena quantitatively -often finding support for Goode and Ben-Yehuda's (1994) five attributes (see, for example, Berryessa, 2022;Elsass et al, 2021;Klein & Mckissick, 2019;Schildkraut et al, 2015). There are some notable variations in the quantitative results.…”

“…There are some notable variations in the quantitative results. For example, when running factor analyses on the five attributes of moral panics as they relate to school shootings, Schildkraut et al (2015) and Elsass et al (2021) found that the concern variable could be split into two variables -concern as it relates to defense against school shootings (e.g., "I believe professors should be able to carry a firearm on campus if they have a concealed handgun license") and concern as it relates to the prevention of school shootings (e.g., "I believe that people should have to pass a criminal background check to purchase a firearm from a private dealer or a gun show"). However, in studying moral panics as they related to sex offenders, Klein and Mckissick (2019) and Berryessa (2022) did not find this division of the concern variable between defense and prevention.…”

“…This could be due to what Downs (1972) refers to as the "issue-attention cycle" or the Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society -Volume 24, Issue 3 fading public and media interest in the topic. However, Elsass et al (2021), Mckissick (2019), andBerryessa (2022) all found volatility to be an empirically valid measure of moral panics. In fact, in relation to sex offenders, Klein and Mckissick (2019) found volatility to be the strongest variable in their model of moral panics as it relates to sex offenders.…”

“…Without this knowledge, it is difficult to accurately claim a response as proportionate or disproportionate, according to critics. However, in empirical assessments on moral panic attributes, disproportionality is a significant factor (see, Berryessa, 2022;Elsass et al, 2021;Klein & Mckissick, 2019;Schildkraut et al, 2015).…”

“…Therefore, before we completely toss the concept of moral panics, we should endeavor to push the theoretical evolution of moral panics to match that of societies. This has been done successfully in specific fields, like drugs (e.g., Armstrong, 2007;Webb & Griffin, 2020), sex offenders (e.g., Berryessa, 2021;Klein & Cooper, 2019;Klein & Mckissick 2019), and school shootings (Burns & Crawford, 1999;Elsass et al, 2021;Schildkraut et al, 2015). So, we aim to help spur on some of this theoretical refinement with our own humble expansion, that of "Dual Panics."…”