Moral panics, organised crime and garotting

Key Reading

John E Archer, 'Poaching gangs and violence: the urban-rural divide in nineteenth-century Lancashire', British Journal of Criminology, 39 (1999)
Jennifer Davis, 'The London garrotting panic of 1862', in V Gattrell, B Lenman and G Parker, Crime and the Law
David Lemmings and Claire Walker, Moral Panics, the Media and the Law in Early Modern England(esp article by McCreery)
Richard Ward, 'Print culture, moral panic and the administration of the law: the London crime wave of 1744', Crime, History and Society, 16 (2012)
B J Davey, Lawless and Immoral: Policing a County Town
Drew Gray, Londons Shadows: The Dark Side of the Victorian City (esp chapter 7)
Carl Griffin, 'The mystery of the fires: Captain Swing as Incendiarist', Southern History, 32 (2010)
Carl Griffin, 'The violent Captain Swing', Past and Present, 209 (2010)
Eric Hobsbawm, 'The Machine breakers', Past and Present, 1 (1952)
Eric Hobsbawm and George Rude, Captain Swing
David Jones, Crime, Protest, Community and Police
Katrina Navickas, 'Luddism, Incendiarism and the defence of rural "task-scapes" in 1812', Northern History, 48 (2011)
Harvey Osborne and Michael WInstanley, 'Rural and urban poaching in Victorian England', Rural History, 17 (2006)
R A E Wells, 'Sheep-rustling in Yorkshire in the age of the industrial and agricultural revolutions', Northern History, 20 (1984)

What is a 'moral panic'?
Why did 'garrotting' become such as cause for concern in the 1860s?
Compare with earlier moral panics? Are the responses of the authorities comparable?
Is organised crime an urban phenomenon?
When does organised crime (such as arson and machine breaking) become political crime?

H W Holland, 'The science of garrotting and housebreaking', Cornhill Magazine, vii (1863), pp. 79-92.
Garrotting sources on Deviance, Disorder and the Self website (Birkbeck College)