Paul M Renfro, Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State

As the concept of mass incarceration has matured into a broad reference for the consequences of neoliberal punitiveness that overtook the US in the 1980s, the details of its origins and growth are important to know. During a time when ‘defunding the police’ is taken seriously, it is important to remember how the police got funded in the first place. Paul M. Renfro’s book Stranger Danger analyzes one branch in the roots of mass incarceration by focusing on the cultural, political, and legal ramifications of high profile ‘missing and exploited children’ cases from the 1980s. These cases spawned a moral panic that Renfro calls ‘the child safety regime’ (p. 9) that had a significant impact on criminal justice policy from the early 1980’s through the 2000’s. The first part of Stranger Danger revisits a handful of high-profile cases from the 1980’s, such as those of Adam Walsh and Etan Patz, two six-year-old boys who disappeared from public places (a department store in Florida and a street in New York City) and were later found dead, victims of homicide. Adam Walsh’s story was soon eclipsed by his father John’s notoriety as host of the TV show America’s Most Wanted, although John Walsh’s celebrity is not Renfro’s primary focus. Rather, Stranger Danger investigates the racialized and heteronormative concept of ‘endangered childhood,’ which overtly refers to the physical safety of kids but also implies a moral threat to white, heterosexual children. This moral dimension comes into focus through Renfro’s analysis of the cultural impact of widely distributed photographs of Etan Patz and others (some of which are included in the book). The gist is that these images of missing and ostensibly photogenic white boys resonated with people in the cultural center of the US: white, heterosexual, family-types with middle-class aspirations. Etan Patz’s father, Stanley, summed up this idea in a revealing quote unearthed by Renfro: