A provincial task force on youth justice includes two formerly incarcerated youth who describe how policies look different from inside detention than from legislative offices. Their testimony shifts the conversation. A consultation process invites youth input through surveys that adults design, analyze, and selectively incorporate, leaving participants wondering if anyone listened. A youth advisory board helps redesign a diversion program, creating intake processes that feel less intimidating and programming that addresses what youth actually struggle with rather than what adults assume they need. Another jurisdiction excludes youth entirely from reform discussions, arguing that policy requires expertise and perspective that adolescents cannot provide. Whether youth should help shape justice systems that process them represents a question about power, expertise, and whose knowledge counts when designing responses to youth behavior.
The Case for Centering Youth Expertise
Advocates argue that youth with justice system experience possess knowledge that researchers, policymakers, and practitioners lack. They know which programs feel punitive versus supportive, where gaps in services exist, how policies play out in practice versus on paper, and what actually helps versus what looks good in reports. Adults design systems based on theories about youth behavior, while youth themselves understand their lived reality. Meaningful youth involvement means not just consultation but actual decision-making power: seats on policy committees, youth-led program design, hiring input for staff who will work with youth, and budget allocation authority. From this view, excluding those most affected from decisions about their own treatment is not just bad policy but fundamentally unjust. Youth bring creativity, current knowledge of peer culture and pressures, and immediate feedback on what works. Moreover, participating in reform itself can be rehabilitative, transforming youth from passive recipients of services to active agents shaping systems. Tokenism where youth attend meetings but have no real power should be rejected in favor of genuine power sharing.
The Case for Adult Responsibility and Expertise
Others worry that involving youth in policy decisions places inappropriate burden on young people and ignores legitimate differences in development, perspective, and expertise. Youth invited to advise on justice reform are often those most articulate and least representative of the broader population affected. They may advocate for their specific circumstances without broader policy knowledge. Adolescents by definition lack the long-term perspective to assess outcomes years later. Adults bear responsibility for creating safe communities and effective systems, which sometimes requires making decisions youth disagree with. From this perspective, listening to youth perspectives is valuable, but actual policy authority should remain with adults who can weigh youth input against other factors: public safety, victim needs, resource constraints, research evidence, and long-term consequences. Moreover, expecting youth to solve problems that adult systems created risks exploiting their experiences for reform optics while not actually transferring meaningful power or resources. Youth should be allowed to be youth, not conscripted into fixing institutions that failed them.
The Selection and Representation Problem
Which youth participate in reform processes shapes what reforms emerge. Youth selected by adults to serve on advisory bodies are often those who have succeeded in the system, who communicate in ways adults find comfortable, or who have overcome circumstances in inspiring narratives. Those still struggling, those who are angry rather than articulate, those who dropped out or were expelled from programs, are rarely at decision-making tables. Similarly, youth who commit serious offenses that generated victims and community fear are less likely to be invited to shape policy than youth with sympathetic stories. Whether any subset of justice-involved youth can represent the diverse population affected, or whether the selection process itself determines outcomes, raises questions about whose youth voice actually gets heard.
The Question
If youth experience justice systems firsthand in ways adults designing those systems never do, should they have decision-making power over policies that affect them, or does their developmental stage make that inappropriate? Can adults genuinely share power with youth, or does every consultation process ultimately filter youth input through adult priorities and perspectives? And when youth selected to participate in reform are not representative of the broader population of justice-involved youth, whose voices and interests are actually being centered?