Media Deformation of Young Gang Members

Abstract

This article explores how the image of the Pandilla 18 and Mara Salvatrucha 13 has been constructed by means of the cinema and the media. It is addressed how the media image eliminates the youth and transforms them into one-dimensional criminals, produces moral panic and sustains the government decisions tending to criminalize them, restricting the rest of society from recognizing them as vulnerable and breached subjects. In this way, society accepts criminal law legislation of the enemy, which not only detracts from the exercise of political and fundamental rights of young gang members but also from all citizens.