Constructing Crime and Criminality

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the media's role in social construction of a criminal stereotype/category, in the example of Tamil gang activity in central Toronto. This paper reports that notions of criminality and psychological upset, on account of the war in Sri Lanka, and alleged connection to the Tamil Tiger movement in Sri Lanka have created a new variety of the glamorous terrorist who lurks among us.

From the Paper:

"Schissel and Brooks explain the public and social construction of crime and criminality. (2004) When examining assertions of criminality in Toronto's Sri Lankan Tamil community one is reminded of Michael Parenti's study, Inventing Reality, with regard to images of Tamil youth criminality that have been encouraged by the central Canadian print media. (1993) The Greater Toronto Area's very large Sri Lankan Tamil community began to take form in the early 1980s. Nevertheless, one finds that ignorance and media representations of the violent, gang-involved Tamil have created a situation in which other Canadians know practically nothing else about the community."

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