Interpreting complex needs in youth justice: Epistemic injustice and conceptual reform

Youth justice systems in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand increasingly recognise complex needs shaped by disability, communication difficulty, trauma, poverty, cultural dislocation and colonial marginalisation. Yet, decision-making relies on operational concepts such as compliance, engagement, remorse, insight, risk and rehabilitation. Drawing on epistemic injustice, this article argues that communication-heavy processes may misread complex needs as disengagement, non-compliance, poor insight or heightened risk. It proposes conceptual reform as a practical framework for auditing, disaggregating, recalibrating, operationalising and testing high-stakes concepts. This approach seeks to improve interpretive fairness while preserving accountability, procedural fairness, victim recognition, rehabilitation, public safety and meaningful participation.