The concepts of the ‘predatory paedophile’ and ‘stranger-danger’ have been potent constructions, although the extent to which they are mediaconstructed ‘moral panics’ (Kitzinger 1999a, 1999b) or ‘barometers of the state of the nation’ has been hotly debated (Soothill and Soothill 1993, p.19; Wilczynski and Sinclair 1999, p.276). Kitzinger, for example, identifies the roots of the ‘moral panic’ in the mid-1980s’ creation of the BBC’s ‘Childwatch’ and the inception of ‘Childline’. Certainly, the sex offender has been portrayed as particularly demonic with non-familial paedophiles constructed as ‘Others’ to be ‘put under surveillance, punished, contained and constrained’ (Young 1996, p. 9). Sanders and Lyon have described this as ‘repetitive retribution’ (1995) with a significant impact upon penal policy decisions (Muncie 1999).