Policy Brief: Closing the Child Justice Data Gap

People-centred justice cannot be achieved while children remain virtually invisible in the evidence base. Current justice data collection efforts frequently overlook children's independent perspectives, relying on adult-centric designs and proxy measurements that often fail to capture children’s justice needs and the everyday problems they face.

Co-authored by HiiL and the Institute for Inspiring Children’s Futures at the University of Strathclyde, this policy brief aims to operationalise the call for child-centred data collection, laid out in the Justice for Children Policy Brief: Evidence and Data, published by the Global Working Group on Justice for Children in 2024. It equips policymakers, researchers, and justice leaders with actionable, child-centred methodologies to safely and rigorously collect data, ensuring children are active participants in the realisation of people-centred justice.