ABSTRACT
In the late 1970s, I enrolled in a first-year sociology class at a small liberal arts college located in the midwestern USA, named Benedictine College. It was there that I was initially introduced to the work of Stan Cohen. Specifically, it was the concept of moral panic along with folk devils that leapt to the forefront of my understanding of societal overreaction to putative social problems. Since then I have remained regularly guided by Cohen’s writings. Indeed, virtually everywhere I turn in my studies of crime, deviance, and human rights, I find articles and books by Cohen, offering tremendous insight into the subject at hand whether it be youth crime, mistreatment of migrants and asylum seekers, or the use of torture as state policy. In this essay, I set out to acknowledge Cohen’s wide range of sociological contributions and explain how my research has benefited from them. By doing so, I hope to give credit where credit is due, since Cohen’s work is perhaps the single most important influence on my sociological thinking. As demonstrated throughout this essay, almost all of the major research projects that I have developed dating back to the 1980s can be characterized as Cohenesque. Permit me to proceed by first unpacking a collection of studies beginning with those focused on overreaction, most notably manifesting in moral panic. Then I shall travel in the opposite conceptual direction to elaborate on Cohen’s exploration of denial, a form of underreaction that turns a blind eye to human rights abuses perpetuated by the state.
