IT was Essex which started the “moral panic”.

Flashback more than 40 years to Clacton and the clashes between the mods (short hair, ties, scooters) and the rockers (long hair, leathers, motorbikes). The police were bemused, residents were horrified and the national press had a field day.

Nothing like this had ever happened before. Hundreds of youths and twentysomethings, some armed with chains and knives, looted shops and battled it out on the resort’s beaches and promenade – and for what? Identity crisis? Primeval urge to fight? Attention seeking?

Whichever, it left the town reeling, angry and afraid. Sociologist Stan Cohen, who had links with Essex University, summed up Clacton’s reaction as “moral panic” – and it stuck.

Today, “moral panic” is a universal term, used when communities feel their values are being undermined by an outside force. But it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Crime pulls people together, even though there may not be a strong connection between individuals,” pointed out Dr Pat Cox, senior lecturer in sociology and criminology at Essex University.

“Some crimes will motivate the public more than others, especially those where the victims are more theoretically innocent – and quite right, too.”

Dr Cox and others in the university’s criminology department have just updated their highly successful book Criminology: A Social Introduction. Its publication coincides with the department celebrating its tenth anniversary.

“Criminology is extremely well-established at Essex,” said Dr Cox.

“Why does it appeal to students? It tackles some of the most pressing issues, decisions and dilemmas facing societies today.”

Crime, apparently, fascinates us.

“The public’s fear of crime is equalled only by their fascination,” she revealed.

“All you have to do is look at the TV schedules from the 1970s onwards and you will see police dramas in the primetime slots.”

Right down to BBC1’s Wallander, where Kenneth Branagh is the latest detective struggling to get to grips with crime and society. Maybe he needs a good criminologist.

“Criminology staff at Essex have frequently worked as consultants on high-profile projects with organisations like the Home office, the Police Foundation, local authorities and public policy organisations,” declared Dr Cox.

“Their work is often highly topical and newsworthy.”

As yet, her department has not crossed into the world of television. But it could happen.

While the story lines in some of the crime dramas are bleak and bloody, they are not fantastical. They are meticulously researched to be both accurate and to meet what the viewers want.

So, who better than a criminologist with training in crime trends, the criminal justice system, global crime, human rights and social psychology?

“What do viewers want? They want crime dramas to put the world to rights. They want to see who is brought to book and they expect the guilty to be punished,” she explained.

“That is why these programmes are so popular.”

So, cathartic. But does this mean we are not getting resolution from crime which really does affect us?

“We all think we know what crime is, and it tends to be what the police target. This, though, is very selective,” she said.

“Just look at Colchester High Street. The police put a lot of resources into containing what are a small group of extremely boisterous, extremely drunk people.

“I don’t want to belittle that, because this type of antisocial behaviour is dreadful for those who witness it, but we must not forget that what is happening on Colchester High Street on certain nights of the week is only part of a much bigger picture of crime in north Essex.”

While, like the police, she is adamant that Essex is one of the UK’s safest counties, that does not mean it is safe from crime.

“There is what is termed white-collar crime – fraud, embezzlement – plus an increase in counterfeit goods coming into the county via Harwich and Felixstowe ports,” she said.

But the most problematic crimes involve child abuse.

“I sit on the Suffolk Family Justice Council,” she said. “Believe me, baby P is only the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of child abuse throughout the world is perpetrated by a parent or a family member, and it happens where it has always happened – at home, the most private and least-policed of all places.”

And when it comes to light, the “moral panic” is palpable.