Why Satanic Panic never really ended

The earliest of the wave of satanic ritual abuse cases began in Kern County, California, in 1980. In Bakersfield, social workers who had read Michelle Remembers learned of a clandestine local occult sex ring from two children who'd been coerced into fabricating the claims by a relative. Between 1984 and 1986, the investigation into these labyrinthine claims would send at least 26 people to jail in interrelated convictions, despite a complete lack of corroborative physical evidence for any of the claims. Nearly all of those convictions have since been overturned, including that of one man who served 20 years of a 40-year sentence, and those of two parents who were sentenced to 240 years in prison after their own sons were coached to accuse them of abuse. [...]

In 1984, Cuban immigrant Frank Fuster was accused, along with his undocumented wife, of molesting eight children, despite coercive interview sessions and a lack of physical evidence. Fuster was sentenced to six consecutive life terms, or a minimum of 165 years in prison. As of 2021, he has been imprisoned for over 35 years and will not be eligible for parole until 2134. He reportedly has no legal representation. As appalling as Fuster's sentence is, he's not alone. North Carolina inmate Patrick Figured is, at age 72, still serving time for a 1992 conviction due to coerced allegations of ritualistic abuse. And Joseph Allen, age 63, has been serving time in Ohio since 1994 for a highly bizarre case in which he was convicted of ritualistic child abuse along with another woman, even though the two had never even met. She was later exonerated. The list goes on and on. One Florida school principal spent 21 years in prison after being convicted of false SRA claims; he was released at the age of 80 and ordered to move to another country. In El Paso, two preschool owners each spent 21 years in prison. [...]

Writing in Satan's Silence in 2001, journalist Debbie Nathan noted that the ultimate irony of Satanic Panic is that its purported victims, the children, were silenced during the laborious investigations around the hysteria of the '80s and '90s - but not by the defendants who stood accused. Instead, they were silenced by "well-meaning" prosecutors, therapists, and interviewers who refused to listen to their initial assertions and drilled them for juicier answers until they changed their statements. When medical evidence was produced, according to Nathan, it tended to be in the dubious form of "technologically updated versions of the medieval preoccupation with scrutinizing female genitalia for signs of sin and witchcraft, and of nineteenth-century forensic medical campaigns to detect promiscuity and homosexuality by examining the shapes of lips and penises." Through it all, the media fueled a public wave of fear that spurred entire groups of rational, thinking adults to collectively buy in: parents and prosecutors, therapists and investigators, jurors and judges, reporters and readers. The narrative swept everything along in its path - including victims of all ages. In other words: Today, it's a media-fueled scare over the latest demonic influence, be it crazed clowns, nefarious politicians, or an entertainer peddling "Satan shoes." But as Satanic Panic shows us, that's not the real fear. The real fear is that, tomorrow, someone could decide the demonic influence is you.

source: Article 'Why Satanic Panic never really ended' by Aja Romano; www.vox.com/culture/22358153/satanic-panic-ritual-abuse-history-conspiracy-theories-explained; Vox; 31 May 2021