Ascribed Agency, Denied Influence

Abstract Following McMellon and Tisdall’s (2020) literature review on children’s participation rights, as embodied in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12, this narrative review considers how access to these rights is affected by children’s involvement in the criminal justice system. Based on 30 papers relating to youth participation in youth justice, it is argued that adult-driven narratives of criminalised children as “risky”, “self-interested” or “vulnerable” variously undermine their right to be heard, while children’s narratives about themselves are often neglected. This suggests that the “perennial” implementation solutions identified by McMellon and Tisdall belie more fundamental questions about the very idea of childhood – as exemplified by children in conflict with the law – which warrant their own analysis.