Viewing Thomas L. Olson, "Sex Ring: Revisiting the Jordan, Minnesota Child Abuse Cases of 1983-84" and a review of Richard Beck, "We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980Thomas L. Olson, "Sex Ring: Revisiting the Jordan, Minnesota Child Abuse Cases of 1983-84" and a review of Richard Beck, "We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic in the 1980In 1983-1984 a criminal investigation into a sordid case of child abuse in Jordan, a small town in south central Minnesota, burgeoned from an indictment of one perpetrator to prosecutions of over twenty local residents in what was billed as the "biggest sex ring in state history." The child-victims themselves were the key witnesses for the prosecution. They described acts of cruelty that stunned the public. As the cases unfolded outside and inside a courtroom they attracted the attention of the media that abetted a climate of panic in the community. Although the court cases spectacularly imploded in 1984, their aftershocks reverberate today.
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