“Treat me With Dignity and I'll Treat You Even Better”: Social Justice and Psychosocial Factors in Young People Involved in the Armed Conflict in Colombia

Poly-victimization, armed conflict, and structural inequality shape the conditions in which adolescents come to understand justice, rights, and institutional protection. This qualitative case study explored how youths enrolled in the Juvenile Criminal Responsibility System in Chocó, Colombia, understand justice, rights, and experiences of injustice across their life course. Semi-structured interviews were conducted. Reflexive thematic analysis generated one superordinate theme, Justice as an Individual and Unfulfilled Experience , and three interrelated subthemes: Justice in the First Person , where justice was understood mainly through individual behavior, rule compliance, and punishment, Justice That Does Not Exist , reflecting perceptions of institutional ineffectiveness, and Rights Are Written , where rights were recognized as formal legal principles but rarely experienced as guaranteed in everyday life. Limited social justice literacy reflects trajectories marked by punishment and unmet protection needs. Juvenile justice programs should move beyond individualized correction by creating rights-based, restorative, and trauma-informed spaces that connect accountability with dignity.