Mark Yin, a PhD student at the Institute of Criminology, conducted research that found adolescents in conflict with the law had very little say in the decisions affecting them. These findings put Australia’s justice system at odds with practice in other youth services, as well as Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Yin became aware of this issue as an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne. During that time, he was also working in the youth sector and noticed a lack of participation for young people involved in the justice system. He joined the Institute’s PhD programme to investigate youth justice.
His PhD research consisted of two parts. First was a literature review that included a meta-analysis of over 30 previous studies on youth participation within youth justice. This was followed by interviews with defence lawyers and young people aged 16 to 25, who had been in the youth justice system between the ages of 11 and 17.
“My work looks at the way [adolescents] access their voice during legal proceedings, and the extent to which they can, because a lot of the time they don't have that much access to their voice,” Yin explains. “So, it's also about their relationship with their lawyers and other professionals in the system, who help them give input into the court process.”
Risks and vulnerability
Yin found that the justice system’s reluctance to engage with young offenders was largely due to two seemingly contradictory viewpoints. The first is that young people with criminal convictions are ‘risky’. This view argues that they act purely on their own self-interest and are a risk to the wider community.
By contrast, there is also a prevailing view that young people are uniquely vulnerable. While this approach is theoretically more sympathetic, in practice it often leads to viewing them as too vulnerable to be involved in serious decisions. It has also had detrimental effects on whole groups of people. Yin points to the forced removal of Aboriginal Australian children throughout the 20th century, out of the belief they needed saving.
Yin argues that both views lead to the same result: adolescents being viewed as offenders rather than individuals and afforded very little say in the decision-making. Previous studies and Yin’s own research both found many were frustrated by this issue. He stresses how important it is for adolescents to contribute to issues affecting them. As well as granting them equal rights, it can make them feel respected. In the long-term, this could help them reconnect with wider society.
Supporting youth justice
Recently, the state of Victoria has made several policy changes for the treatment of youth offenders. Most notably, Victoria increased a number of sentence lengths to align with those for adults. Yin believes this is the wrong approach.
“Young people aren't making bad decisions because they’re bad people who need to be stopped,” he explains. “Young people experience their worlds completely differently to adults, and there's so much more that adults could do to recognise and learn from that.”
Yin hopes that his research can challenge the adult-centric narratives made around young offenders. This includes the narratives of them as uniquely risky or vulnerable, which undermine the positive contribution they could be making. Instead, he hopes that the justice system can involve them in the decision-making process and make space to engage with how they experience the world differently to adults. He also emphasises that different individuals have their own needs, and that recognising this will be crucial for encouraging rehabilitation. And more research on this subject is needed outside of Europe and the USA, particularly among societies with different concepts of ‘childhood’.
Overall, he believes in the need for criminal justice everywhere to be more understanding of adolescents and their needs.
“I oscillate between feeling quite optimistic about how my research can contribute to policy and being quite pessimistic at other times,” he admits. “I think research, especially within criminology, isn't always the thing that breaks through. The extent to which policymakers take that up is their choice. But I would like my research to contribute to this change.”
Read the research paper: Yin, Mark. 'Ascribed Agency, Denied Influence: How Adult Narratives Shape and Constrain the Right of Children in the Justice System to be Heard'. The International Journal of Children's Rights, (2024).