This work investigates the mechanisms behind moral panics in contemporary Great Britain and how these phenomena shape public policy and social perception. Philip Jenkins, a scholar of criminology and history, utilizes a comparative framework to analyze how specific social anxieties are constructed, amplified by media, and eventually codified into law. The text argues that these panics often serve as proxies for deeper societal tensions regarding class, morality, and national identity.

Experts in sociology and criminology frequently cite this text as a foundational analysis of British social policy and the construction of deviance. Readers often note the academic density of the prose, which provides a rigorous examination of the intersection between political power and public anxiety.