It is unlikely that anyone would disagree with Frank Furedi's assertion that it is ‘certain that numerous young people have suffered from the pain and humiliation inflicted on them in the past by Savile and other sexual predators’ (p. vii). That sentence, however, is followed by ‘But …’. And, in daring to add that ‘but’, Furedi sets out to trouble any possibility of a progressive, reassuring or redemptive reading of the public response to the Savile scandal. For Furedi, the scandal provides an opportunity to ‘gain insights into the way that a community understands itself’ (p. vi). And he doesn't much like what he finds. Many will find his conclusions problematic, simplistic and even manipulative, sometimes arguably with good cause. But critical scholarship of a contrarian bent often has that effect, and in a circular fashion such responses can often reflect precisely the discourses critiqued in the first place. For anyone who followed the Savile story, and the ensuing and ongoing investigations, and who has asked the question ‘What is really going on here?’ this short, theoretically rich, but accessible, book provides a stimulating and provocative read.

One of the strengths of the book is its breadth. There are lots of details about Savile, his career, the revelations and the subsequent investigations, but it is the bigger picture that concerns Furedi. In other words, in exploring Savile's extraordinary transformation from ‘a celebrity saint’ to ‘the personification of evil’, it is not Savile or his actions that are the main focus but the actors and discourses around him. Furedi isn't interested in understanding Savile so much as understanding the conditions of possibility and power dynamics that enabled the scandal, and identifying the wider implications. His commitment to this sociological/cultural studies approach is at its best when he pays close attention to language. ‘Scandal’, ‘moral panic’, ‘moral crusade’, ‘abuse’, ‘victim’ – these words and concepts, used often quite crudely in academia as much as elsewhere, are unpacked and distinguished and in doing so their shifting meanings and their productive possibilities are revealed. But this nuance sometimes jars with Furedi's own dominant narrative of the Savile scandal representing a ‘top-down’ phenomenon, motivated and fuelled by cultural and political elites. For ‘the cultural elite’, which he continually returns to, always appears as an unproblematised monolithic entity.

A key question throughout is ‘Why now?’ It is an important question, for as he reminds us it was not only people in the entertainment industry who knew about Savile's actions. Looking back at a video of Top of the Pops from 1976 Furedi observes:

Challenging the simple ‘cover-up’ account enables more searching questions to be asked about shifting responses to sexual activity. Furedi debunks one popular explanation: that Savile's actions were not only made possible but were caused by 1960s permissiveness. Significantly, in refuting this claim his targets are not simply traditional conservatives but also progressives who see the past as an era in which the sexual exploitation of children and women went uncommented on or was perceived as an irritant, as opposed to ‘abuse’ or a crime.

A key theme for Furedi is how the past is read or understood to make sense of the present. He is critical of this practice, in relation to both collective and individual narratives, and argues boldly that ‘the project of excavating the past is motivated by an instinct to evade the present, and to seek validation from history for modern dilemmas’ (p. 33). Many would agree with him about the psycho-social complexity and political uses of memory. As the feminist Carol Smart observes, ‘even individual memory is social’ and can ‘change to suit an audience or to fit a newly crafted identity’ (Reference Smart2007, p. 41). But when Furedi states: ‘History as a therapy distracts people from living in the present’ (p. 35), he not only overstates the case but is unreflective about the extent to which his own vision of the past informs his prescriptions and readings of the present. This is perhaps clearest in his analysis of childhood.

Shifting understandings of childhood are identified as a key factor in the story, and one of the answers to the ‘Why now?’ question. Furedi skilfully sketches how childhood has become associated with – indeed defined by – risk, legitimising ever-increasing surveillance and policing. Many commentators have made similar observations, and while he refers to some, the absence of any mention of the pioneers of the new sociology of childhood is surprising. But to a certain extent it can be explained by his assessment of the consequences of the shifting uses of childhood.

Patricia Holland has argued that:

The distinction between real children and childhood is critical here, as it is in Furedi's analysis. But whereas Holland emphasises the impact on the status of children, for Furedi it is the status of adults that is at stake. There are two competing visions here: Holland complicates the category of childhood per se while Furedi, on the other hand, is concerned simply with contemporary understandings of childhood. In particular, he argues that the new prevailing culture of risk and mistrust surrounding children damages and prevents intergenerational relationships and adult responsibility, and that child safety is threatened as a result:

In making a case for parental authority over children, Furedi moves from critique towards a normative claim about child welfare. This is an important shift, as it highlights why he thinks current initiatives cause actual harm. But he also exposes himself to an accusation of nostalgia. He notes that there is a paradox between obsessive attitudes of risk associated with contemporary Western childhood and the fact that in so many respects children in the West have a ‘safer and healthier life than ever before’ (p. 42). There is much to agree with here, but what he fails to engage with is the possibility that one of the reasons conditions have (or might have) improved is hard-fought campaigns by feminist and children's rights activists and, indeed, by state intervention. There may be, as he argues, a ‘crisis in causality’ (p. 78), but paradoxically, his own arguments are not immune from reading a scandal to produce a particular political narrative.

In the final three chapters, Furedi tackles issues that directly and indirectly relate to law in general and criminal justice in particular. From tracing the representation of the victim as ‘someone who has suffered from crime’ to the presentation of victimisation as something that is ‘traumatizing and identity-conferring’, he argues that in the most recent stage victimisation ‘is increasingly presented as the quotidian experience for most people’ (p. 59). In making clear why this matters, he identifies, as others have – especially amongst childhood scholars (see, for example, Archard, Reference Archard and King1999) – how the expansive versatility of concepts of ‘abuse’ and ‘victimhood’ run the risk of emptying the categories of any practical and clear moral significance. More controversially, however, he relates the shift in victimhood and the rise of a therapeutic culture to claims that emphasise the importance of always believing allegations of abuse. Such claims have been made most recently in the context of the high-profile allegations of abuse and rape against Woody Allen and William Roache, respectively. Identifying such claims as part of a ‘moral crusade’ that is ‘hostile to anyone who dares question its claims’ (p. 62) explains, for Furedi, why expressions of uncertainty – neither believing nor not believing the claims – are deemed problematic. He notes: ‘Historically, moral crusades have tended to regard scepticism as the worst form of heresy’:

Up to a point his critique here is valuable. He makes a strong and timely case in support of the rights of defendants – regardless of the crime. Many would agree with this, including feminists and others well aware of the long history of deep-seated disbelief that has confronted those who have dared to speak out about violent and sexual crimes within the family, and indeed the extent to which those with little or no social capital, such as children in care, are still routinely not listened to. Moreover, his critique of ‘victimisation’ shares much in common with the concerns of commentators, from a variety of disciplines and standpoints, about how the desire for law to offer ‘emotional closure’ on past harms results in increasingly invasive forms of criminalisation (and incarceration), and, once again, particularly of those already marginalised and excluded.

But, arguably, he takes the point too far by failing adequately to acknowledge the crucial distinction between always taking allegations of abuse seriously and always believing the allegations. Moreover, this is compounded by his unsubstantiated claim that:

A claim such as this requires rigorous evidence; otherwise it runs the risk of simply mirroring the allegations that argue the opposite.

The final chapter brings together a key theme running throughout: that the Savile scandal only makes sense if placed alongside disparate others such as MPs' expenses and ‘phone hacking’ and a more general mistrust of parents and teachers, where the common thread is the breakdown, indeed a crisis, in authority. In this context he notes: ‘One of the most unremarked yet remarkable developments in British public life has been the phenomenal growth of the inquiry as a key institution of governance’ (p. 89). Statistics back up this claim, but what is particularly interesting is his perception that judges – who are called on to lead the inquiries – ‘play the role of a neutral and disinterested honest broker because politicians, policy-makers and representatives of different interest groups cannot be trusted to do the right thing’ (p. 90). How widely shared this perception of the judiciary is, and how it might change with senior judges in some ways adopting a higher public profile, are important questions.

Furedi is right in taking the Savile story seriously. Whether or not one agrees with all, or any, of his conclusions, it is without any doubt not simply a book that needed to be written but one that helpfully contextualises, historicises and makes links between concerns, campaigns and controversies that are not going to disappear. A provocative and albeit at times polemical read, it deserves to be read and debated by policy-makers and journalists as well as academics and students at all levels.