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12 Critical Criminology 1 (2003-2004)

handle is hein.journals/ctlcrm12 and id is 1 raw text is: A Critical Criminology 12: 1-20, 2003. © 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. TRAMPLING HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE WAR ON TERROR: IMPLICATIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF DENIAL MICHAEL WELCH Rutgers University Abstract. Critical criminology has greatly benefited from the concept of moral panic, which is a helpful framework for understanding immigration reform and the treatment of immigrants - especially in relation to concerns about terrorism. In response to the events of September 11, 2001, the United States government swiftly produced legislation intended to protect homeland security, culminating in the USA Patriot Act. While mainstream political leaders supported the new law, many legal experts expressed concerns about its expansive powers as serious dangers to immigrants' rights and civil liberties. Among those concerns are controversial tactics involving ethnic profiling, detentions, and government secrecy. This article examines critically the nature of those forms of human rights violations while elaborating on the contra- dictions in the war on terror. Applying Cohen's sociology of denial - how literal, interpretive, and implicatory denial perpetuate long-term social problems - developments are interpreted conceptually, contributing to a deeper understanding of growing threats to human rights. Critical criminology has benefited from scholarship on moral panic, a concept that allows greater scrutiny into exaggerated and turbulent responses to crime. According to Cohen (1972: 9), moral panic has occurred when: A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interest; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotyp- ical fashion by the mass media and politicians. Cohen (1972) explored the roles of the public, media, and politicians in producing heightened concern over British youths in the 1960s when the Mods and Rockers were depicted as threats to public peace as well as to social order. Together, the media and members of the political establishment publicized putative dangers posed by the Mods and Rockers; in turn, such claims were used to justify enhanced police powers and greater investment in the traditional criminal justice appar- atus. Since the 1960s, a growing number of critical criminologists have turned to the concept moral panic to comprehend pseudo-disasters, including contro- versies over crack cocaine (Chiricos 1996; Reinarman and Levine 1997), crack mothers (Humphries 1999); youth gangs (McCorkle and Miethe 1998; Welch, Price, and Yankey 2001), satanic ritual abuse in day care centers (Best 1990), and flag burning (Welch 2000a; also see Best 1999; Glassner 1999; Welch, Fenwick, and Roberts 1997).

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