The Centrality of ‘Guilt’ in Youth Justice: Conceptualising Child ‘Guilt’ for Child First Justice

Children are extremely vulnerable yet often treated as adults, measured by adult-centric conceptualisations of ‘guilt’ and expected to decide on their own culpability for law infringement. In addition, system agents incentivise children to admit guilt by offering contingent support or implying further consequences for refusal, resulting in a youth justice system that exacerbates this by requiring admissions of guilt throughout the process. We explore difficulties of applying adult-centric understandings of ‘guilt’ to children through our typology of guilt, which examines responses children might give to questions of guilt and asks whether applying adult-centric notions of guilt erodes ‘Child First’ youth justice.