The witch-hunt narrative - Ross E. Cheit

Cheit believes the witch-hunt narrative has harmed society, arguing that it has encouraged a dismissive and skeptical attitude toward children's reports of sexual abuse. Yet some of the cases he cites as proof of this dismissiveness ended in convictions that were upheld on appeal. Several times, Cheit returns to the cover-up of Pennsylvania State University football coach Jerry Sandusky's molestation of children as emblematic of our culture's failure to take child abuse seriously enough. But the Penn State fiasco had nothing to do with mistrusting children's claims and everything to do with bureaucratic incompetence and willful blindness to the misdeeds of a high-status local hero.

It is ironic, or perhaps symbolic, that this book has arrived in the midst of a new wave of sex-crime hysteria. Just recently, in the impassioned debate over the sexual molestation charges against Woody Allen, such feminists as Jessica Valenti and Roxanne Gay revived the call to "believe the survivor." The same mind-set also appears in the current campus climate of pressure to accept virtually all allegations of sexual assault regardless of evidence. Despite Cheit's attempted debunking, the lesson of the witch-hunts still stands: Emotion-driven, faith-based crusades against repellent crimes are a grave danger to justice.

source: Book review 'The Return of Moral Panic - A scholar tries-and fails-to rehabilitate the sex-abuse hysteria of the '80s.' by Cathy Young; reason.com/archives/2014/10/25/the-return-of-moral-panic; About the book 'The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology and the Sexual Abuse of Children' by Ross E. Cheit; Reason.com; 25 October 2014