Crime Myths As A Crime Myth

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“Crime myths are powerful constructions of reality because they speak to our personal values and beliefs and are steeped in rich symbolism, which reinforces those values and belief.” (Kappeler & Potter, 2004) Crime myths are created when a series of fictional events that are later altered so that they become social and political problems. The media plays a major role in the creation of crime myths they broadcast images and videos to go along with the crime myths, they also use social context that play on humans thought on the community seeing it as unsafe. Myths also contain some measure of economic conditions that then cause reactions by politicians to create new laws to prevent these myths from becoming major problems in the criminal justice system. (K&P, 2004) In order for a statement to be characterized as a crime myth, if the crimes instill fear and threaten the vast majority of society. (K&P,2004) Crime myths are made up of components that targets and identify of a distinct deviant population, they involve innocent and helpless victims, the emergence of brave and virtuous hearos ,comes as a threat to peoples established norms, values, or traditional lifestyles. …show more content…

Two of the boys Chris and Darrian receive a criminal record early on in their childhood because they were caught stealing from the store; later on one of the two boys Darrian joins a well- known gang leading to a life of crime. The other Chris ends up getting shot and has to spend the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair. Ricky becomes a teen parent which wasn’t uncommon at this time but he also earns a scholarship to play football; Tre has a job with the hopes of saving up enough money to attend

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