If the sexual offender is seen as sick, then one attempts to cure rather than punish him; if the typical shoplifter is seen as the ‘harmless little old woman’ or the ‘kleptomaniac’, then this group will be less subject to formal legal sanctions. … An integral part of the conceptual machinery then, is the body of justifications and rationalizations for acting in a particular way towards the deviant.

Cohen, Stanley, Folk devils and moral panic…, loc. 339