Rethinking youth voice and institutional power: Reflections from inside a service learning partnership in a California juvenile hall

• Analyzes what young people youth learn through community-service learning
• Analyzes the competing ideas about youth that shape juvenile justice practices
• Explores how institutional power and ideology influence youth voice
• Presents a model of social justice community service learning
• Explores a model for doing participatory action research in coercive institutions

This article shares the dilemmas that emerge from a community service project that engages students in a systematic critique of the juvenile justice system from the inside. It explores how competing images of youth (as dangerous thugs, vulnerable children and kids who have made bad choices) coexist uneasily within the juvenile justice system and significantly shape and constrain this community service learning project. They influence how volunteers understand their experiences and relationships with students inside, and they shape how young people in the system speak about their own lives, the inequalities they see around them, and the juvenile justice system itself. By exploring these dynamics this article aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of youth voice.