Stanley Cohen (sociologist)

Stanley Cohen FBA (23 February 1942 – 7 January 2013) was Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics.

Life

Cohen was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1942. He grew up in South Africa and was an undergraduate at the University of Witwatersrand, studying Sociology and Social Work. He came to London in 1963, where he worked as a social worker, before completing his Ph.D at LSE. From 1967, he lectured at the University of Durham and in 1972 became Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. In 1980, he moved with his family to Israel, where he was Director of the Institute of Criminology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also worked with human rights organisations dealing with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He returned to England in 1996 and was appointed Martin White Professor of Sociology at LSE. In 1998 Cohen was elected a fellow of the British Academy, and received honorary doctorates from University of Essex in 2003 and Middlesex University in 2008. In 2009 he was the first recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award from the British Society of Criminology. He died on 7 January 2013 after suffering from Parkinson's disease, since being diagnosed with the degenerative condition in 1996.

Work

A leading writer on Criminology and Sociology, Cohen is credited with coining the term moral panic in his 1972 study (Folk Devils and Moral Panics) of the popular UK media and social reaction to the Mods and Rockers phenomenon of the 1960s. This book is widely regarded by British criminologists as the most influential work in the field in the last forty years. The work applied the concepts of labelling, societal reaction and the Deviancy Amplification Spiral and helped in widening the scope of Criminology to include the sociology of crime and Social Control. Cohen suggests the media overreact to an aspect of behaviour which may be seen as a challenge to existing social norms. However, the media response and representation of that behaviour actually helps to define it, communicate it and portrays it as a model for outsiders to observe and adopt. So the moral panic by society represented in the media arguably fuels further socially unacceptable behaviour.

Publications & Articles

1970s

• Cohen, S. (ed) (1971) Images of Deviance Harmondsworth: Penguine attempts: the theory and practice of resistance in everyday life ISBN 978-0-415-06500-9
• Cohen, S. (1979) "The punitive city: notes on the dispersal of social control", Contemporary Crises, 3(4): 341-363

1980s

• Cohen, S. (1980) "Footprints in the Sand: A Further Report on criminology and the sociology of deviance in Britain" In: Fitzgerald, M., McLennan, G. & Pawson, J. (eds) Crime and Society: Readings in History and Theory, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul pg.240
• Cohen, S. (1982) "Western Crime Control Models in the Third World," in S. Spitzer and R. Simon (eds.), Research in Law, Deviance and Social Control Vol. 4.
• Cohen, S. & Scull, A. (eds.) (1983) Social Control and the State: Historical and Comparative Essays Oxford: Martin Robertson
• Cohen, S. (1985) Visions of Social Control: Crime, Punishment and Classification, Polity Press
• Cohen, S. (1988) Against Criminology, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books
• Cohen, S. (1988) "Taking Decentralization Seriously: Values, Visions and Policies," in J. Lowman et al. (eds.), Transcarceration: Essays on the Sociology of Social Control, Aldershot: Gower.
• Cohen, S. (1988) "Taking Decentralization Seriously: Values, Visions and Policies," in J. Lowman et al. (eds.), Transcarceration: Essays on the Sociology of Social Control, Aldershot: Gower.

1990s

• Cohen, S. (1990) "Intellectual Scepticism and Political Commitment: The Case of Radical Criminology," Institute of Criminology, University of Amsterdam.
• Cohen, S. (1991) "Talking about torture in Israel", Tikkun, 6(6): 23-30, 89-90
• Cohen, S. (1993) "Human rights and crimes of the state: the culture of denial", Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 26(2): 97-115

2000s

• Cohen, S. (2001) States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering, Polity Press ISBN 978-0-7456-2392-4
• Cohen, S. & Seu, B. (2002) "Knowing Enough Not to Feel Too Much," in P. Petro (ed.) Truth Claims: Representations and Human Rights, Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

See also

Downes, D. et al. (eds.) (2007) Crime, Social Control and Human Rights: From Moral Panics to States of Denial, Essays in Honour of Stanley Cohen, Cullompton, Devon: Willan Publishing.

External links

• Page at London School of Economics site
• Stan Cohen: Folk Devils and Moral Panics
• Stan Cohen: States of Denial: knowing about atrocities and suffering
• Stan Cohen at "Pioneers of Qualitative Research" from the Economic and Social Data Service