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Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State
Beginning with Etan Patz's disappearance in Manhattan in 1979, a spate of high-profile cases of missing and murdered children stoked anxieties about the threats of child kidnapping and exploitation. Publicized through an emerging twenty-four-hour news cycle, these cases supplied evidence of what some commentators dubbed "a national epidemic" of child abductions committed by "strangers."
In this book, Paul M. Renfro narrates how the bereaved parents of missing and slain children turned their grief into a mass movement and, alongside journalists and policymakers from both major political parties, propelled a moral panic. Leveraging larger cultural fears concerning familial and national decline, these child safety crusaders warned Americans of a supposedly widespread and worsening child kidnapping threat, erroneously claiming that as many as fifty thousand American children fell victim to stranger abductions annually. The actual figure was (and remains) between one hundred and three hundred, and kidnappings perpetrated by family members and acquaintances occur far more frequently. Yet such exaggerated statistics-and the emotionally resonant images and narratives deployed
behind them-led to the creation of new legal and cultural instruments designed to keep children safe and to punish the "strangers" who ostensibly wished them harm. Ranging from extensive child fingerprinting drives to the milk carton campaign, from the AMBER Alerts that periodically rattle Americans' smart phones to the nation's sprawling system of sex offender registration, these instruments have widened the reach of the carceral state and intensified surveillance practices focused on children.
Stranger Danger reveals the transformative power of this moral panic on American politics and culture, showing how ideas and images of endangered childhood helped build a more punitive American state.
In this book, Paul M. Renfro narrates how the bereaved parents of missing and slain children turned their grief into a mass movement and, alongside journalists and policymakers from both major political parties, propelled a moral panic. Leveraging larger cultural fears concerning familial and national decline, these child safety crusaders warned Americans of a supposedly widespread and worsening child kidnapping threat, erroneously claiming that as many as fifty thousand American children fell victim to stranger abductions annually. The actual figure was (and remains) between one hundred and three hundred, and kidnappings perpetrated by family members and acquaintances occur far more frequently. Yet such exaggerated statistics-and the emotionally resonant images and narratives deployed
behind them-led to the creation of new legal and cultural instruments designed to keep children safe and to punish the "strangers" who ostensibly wished them harm. Ranging from extensive child fingerprinting drives to the milk carton campaign, from the AMBER Alerts that periodically rattle Americans' smart phones to the nation's sprawling system of sex offender registration, these instruments have widened the reach of the carceral state and intensified surveillance practices focused on children.
Stranger Danger reveals the transformative power of this moral panic on American politics and culture, showing how ideas and images of endangered childhood helped build a more punitive American state.
296 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 10, 2023
3.5 stars—
Stranger Danger offers a great opportunity for people who are interested in crime history to not only see how the language we are familiar with came about, but also how it was **deeply** shaped by the cultural context around it.
But, as a historian who does a lot with race and sexuality, I wish Renfro would have maintained these threads beyond Part 1. While the opening argument that young white male children served as ideal victims for Reagan- era conservatism to latch on to in order to fight feminism/ racial equality/ queer liberation/ and other leftist ideologies was strong, we lost it in Part 2. As incarceration and surveillance rose to the forefront of his argument, we needed to see him address the counter argument more to both acknowledge it’s perceived merits and to strengthen his points about its faults. Including more on race, sexuality, and gender in the world of incarceration policy would have bolstered his criticism of child safety policy. Tell me about Black offenders being punished differently than white offenders, or how race impacted perceived victimhood! Tell me more about homophobia in the 1990s in both culture and policy! Tell me why “missing white woman syndrome” developed post- 9/11! Renfro is an excellent writer, and I wish I could have seen his ideas about these topics because he knocked his analysis of them out of the park in Part 1. I would still definitely recommend this book!
Stranger Danger offers a great opportunity for people who are interested in crime history to not only see how the language we are familiar with came about, but also how it was **deeply** shaped by the cultural context around it.
But, as a historian who does a lot with race and sexuality, I wish Renfro would have maintained these threads beyond Part 1. While the opening argument that young white male children served as ideal victims for Reagan- era conservatism to latch on to in order to fight feminism/ racial equality/ queer liberation/ and other leftist ideologies was strong, we lost it in Part 2. As incarceration and surveillance rose to the forefront of his argument, we needed to see him address the counter argument more to both acknowledge it’s perceived merits and to strengthen his points about its faults. Including more on race, sexuality, and gender in the world of incarceration policy would have bolstered his criticism of child safety policy. Tell me about Black offenders being punished differently than white offenders, or how race impacted perceived victimhood! Tell me more about homophobia in the 1990s in both culture and policy! Tell me why “missing white woman syndrome” developed post- 9/11! Renfro is an excellent writer, and I wish I could have seen his ideas about these topics because he knocked his analysis of them out of the park in Part 1. I would still definitely recommend this book!
May 29, 2020
A fascinating deep study of the "missing children" era of the 70s and 80s. Provides a new and important perspective on the media coverage and resulting activism of the most high profile cases, and their lasting societal effects still felt today.
February 9, 2021
If you’re into this niche topic, then you would find this book interesting. Little too wordy for me though.
February 14, 2021
An underrated story of the last 40 years is Americans becoming incredibly fearful of the outside world. It’s caused us to be suspicious, paranoid and alienated from one another. I think this goes a long way toward explaining why our politics have lurched rightward so dramatically in the last few decades. In that context, I think this is an important book.
To be sure, it covers only a narrow slice of this broader phenomenon. But the moral panic around child-abduction-by-stranger is a paradigmatic example of this dynamic and this book does a great job explaining how stranger danger became national obsession. The author grounds the rise of this moral panic in the social and material context of the time, compellingly connecting it to fears of moral decay and decadence. Renfro convincingly argues that the stranger danger panic that started in the 80s was not connected with any genuine crisis of stranger abductions, which have always been vanishingly rare and did not become significantly more common during this period. Instead, he sees it as a reaction to the liberatory movements of the 60s and 70s. Renfro also notes how this panic was stoked by elites looking to reimpose “traditional” conceptions of gender relations and the family. He also discusses how this phenomenon is connected to things like the modern carceral state.
Overall, I think this a pretty good treatment of an important topic. If your interested in this topic, I’d recommend reading this along with Fortress America by Elain Tyler May, which is a more general treatment of rising fearfulness (though it does touch some on the topic of the stranger danger panic). Finally, if you’re interested in learning more, the author was on the Dig with Daniel Denvir which you can listen to here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... . It’s no substitute for reading the book, but will give you a sense of Renfro’s arguments and approach to this topic. He also touches some things not in the book so it’s worth listening too even if you’ve read the book (assuming you found it interesting, of course!).
To be sure, it covers only a narrow slice of this broader phenomenon. But the moral panic around child-abduction-by-stranger is a paradigmatic example of this dynamic and this book does a great job explaining how stranger danger became national obsession. The author grounds the rise of this moral panic in the social and material context of the time, compellingly connecting it to fears of moral decay and decadence. Renfro convincingly argues that the stranger danger panic that started in the 80s was not connected with any genuine crisis of stranger abductions, which have always been vanishingly rare and did not become significantly more common during this period. Instead, he sees it as a reaction to the liberatory movements of the 60s and 70s. Renfro also notes how this panic was stoked by elites looking to reimpose “traditional” conceptions of gender relations and the family. He also discusses how this phenomenon is connected to things like the modern carceral state.
Overall, I think this a pretty good treatment of an important topic. If your interested in this topic, I’d recommend reading this along with Fortress America by Elain Tyler May, which is a more general treatment of rising fearfulness (though it does touch some on the topic of the stranger danger panic). Finally, if you’re interested in learning more, the author was on the Dig with Daniel Denvir which you can listen to here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... . It’s no substitute for reading the book, but will give you a sense of Renfro’s arguments and approach to this topic. He also touches some things not in the book so it’s worth listening too even if you’ve read the book (assuming you found it interesting, of course!).
January 1, 2026
I had such mixed thoughts and feelings about this.
It felt like the author was trying too hard to be morally relative about child abduction and pedophilia which I was having none of (obviously). However, I have a lot more time and respect for the argument that much focus and attention is put on more rare stranger danger as opposed to child abuse happening at home, and he did make that point somewhat well, though not as clearly as he might have.
And I think this book was more academic when I wanted like narrative nonfiction/investigative journalism. And because it was academic it was also quite repetitive.
My more detailed thoughts and feelings about the book are probably too complicated and personal for this review. But if we know each other and you’re curious about the book/topic I’m very open to discussing more.
It felt like the author was trying too hard to be morally relative about child abduction and pedophilia which I was having none of (obviously). However, I have a lot more time and respect for the argument that much focus and attention is put on more rare stranger danger as opposed to child abuse happening at home, and he did make that point somewhat well, though not as clearly as he might have.
And I think this book was more academic when I wanted like narrative nonfiction/investigative journalism. And because it was academic it was also quite repetitive.
My more detailed thoughts and feelings about the book are probably too complicated and personal for this review. But if we know each other and you’re curious about the book/topic I’m very open to discussing more.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews