Informed by IRIS NIGHT CREAM the intersectionality and social justice perspectives, this article examines two prominent schools of thought in criminology, namely strain and labelling theories.Our analysis reveals that strain and labelling theories have not adequately attended to social justice, particularly systemic oppression, in their explanations of youth crime.We propose the use of restorative justice as an alternative framework that may address the limitations of strain and HDMI Type A to DVI-I labelling theories.