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@article{190005,
        author = {Ms Ammu Unnikrishnan},
        title = {Juvenile Criminality and Social Labeling: Prototypes in Sibi Malayil’s Mudra and Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay!},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {8},
        pages = {632-635},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=190005},
        abstract = {Juvenile delinquency has long troubled researchers in various fields through repeated research, because it highlights not just individual wrongdoing by youth but also society’s failure to provide them with meaningful alternatives. Indian cinema frequently explores this problem by portraying young characters caught between desperate personal circumstances and indifferent social institutions. This paper analyses how juvenile criminality is portrayed in Sibi Malayil’s Mudra (1989) and Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay! (1988) through the lens of Howard Becker’s labelling theory. Both films demonstrate that vulnerable youth can become “prototypes” of crime, as their identities are shaped by institutional labels, social stigma, and neglect. Mudra focuses on the struggles within a juvenile home in Kerala, exposing the conflict between sincere efforts to rehabilitate the inmates and institutional forces that inadvertently reinforce criminal behaviour. In contrast, Salaam Bombay! depicts the harsh lives of street children in Bombay and illustrates how labels like “criminal,” “thief,” or “prostitute’s child” can trap these children in cycles of deviance. By comparing these two films, the study highlights how labelling practices transform marginalised children into symbolic figures of criminality. Ultimately, it advocates for a juvenile justice approach centred on rehabilitation rather than punishment.},
        keywords = {Juvenile Criminality; Labelling Theory; Indian Cinema; Prototypes; Deviance; Juvenile Justice},
        month = {December},
        }