Indicators of Safety and Justice

With support from the UK Department for International Development, the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management convened a meeting at Harvard in March 2008 on “the design and use of indicators of justice and safety in developing countries.” 

Attended by international organizations, multilateral institutions, national aid agencies, private donors, academic researchers, and government officials, the workshop examined old problems as well as new strategies in the growing world of indicators.  The meeting facilitated several breakthroughs in the global conversation about how to measure progress in justice and safety, and produced a shared understanding of how governments might collaborate with civil society organizations in the construction of new indicators – ones that suit developing countries, advance local aspirations for justice, and capitalize on a multiplicity of methods for measuring the value of justice systems.

The Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management plans to support this ambition by working with a group of national governments over the next three years to build additional capacity within these governments and their civil society partners to design and implement indicators along these lines. 

To learn about the demand for a new generation of work on indicators and the contours of the conversation at the meeting in March, read the report on the results of the workshop.  To find out more about the Justice Systems Workshop, which will support these collaborations, contact Senior Research Fellow Todd Foglesong (todd_foglesong@harvard.edu).

Papers from the March 13-15, 2008 Workshop on "Indicators of Safety and Justice: Their Design, Implementation and Use in Developing Countries" held at the Harvard Kennedy School:

• Workshop Summary
• Innocent Chukwuma, Designing Indicators of Safety and Justice: Lessons from the CLEEN Foundation’s National Crime Victims Surveys in Nigeria
• Professor Oluyemi Osinbajo, Justice Indicators for State and National Use: The Lagos State Experience

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