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Brott och bruk av kulturella koder

Abstract

The treatment of immigrants, crime and violence in the massmedia seems generally to exclude many significant aspects of the crime-related social context, most palpably concerning the conditions under which immigrant youth spend their adolescence. The reality and causal relations which are made manifest in the media concerning crime and youngsters with immigrant backgrounds are based upon presuppositions and simplified assumptions about cultural conflict and an inherited cultural baggage, inevitably leading to culture clash and ciolent and criminal behaviour. The present study argues that the context for violent acts and criminality are socio-culturally determined and thereby must be analyzed in a complex manner in relation to concrete, extant conditions.