Horsley, Mark2018-02-272018-02-272017-08-13Horsley, M. (2017). Forget ‘Moral Panics’. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology, 9(2), 84-98.2166-8094http://hdl.handle.net/10034/620884This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a published work that appeared in final form in Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology. To access the final edited and published work see http://jtpcrim.org/.In the spirit of Jean Baudrillard’s Forget Foucault this article offers a step-by-step critique of the ‘moral panic’ concept. It begins with a short review of Cohen’s original thesis and its gradual evolution before addressing its remarkable popularity and its ascent to the stature of a domain assumption. The rest of the article uses and extends the existing critique of moral panic theory before arriving at the conclusion that, rather than undergo another period of adaptation, the entire conceptual repertoire of ‘moral panics’ should be ditched to make way for much-needed innovation.enhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Moral panicObjectless AnxietyHarmRealismSocial ConstructionismArticleJournal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology