The Centre for Justice Innovation is looking to recruit a capable and experienced research officer to help us build the evidence base for justice reform in the United Kingdom. We are a charity which seeks to build a justice system which every citizen believes is fair and effective. We champion innovative approaches and evidence-led policy reform in the UK’s justice systems.

What will I be doing?

You will join our growing research team in working to understand and support the work of innovative projects in the family justice and criminal justice systems. You will design and deliver quantitative and qualitative research, creating insights by working with service users and professionals at the front line of the system and analysing imperfect real-world data sets. You will also work with our practice development and policy teams to translate your research findings into meaningful change.

On the family justice side, you will explore approaches like such as Family Drug and Alcohol Courts: problem-solving courts which aim to improve outcomes for children involved in care proceedings. They offer a new way of supporting parents to overcome issues like substance misuse, mental health and domestic abuse that have put their children at risk of serious harm.

You will also contribute to research around criminal justice innovations such as youth diversion: a new approach which seeks to prevent young people from getting caught up in the criminal justice system by providing meaningful alternatives to formal sanctions.

The role will involve:

• Generating insights by coordinating and holding conversations with justice system practitioners and service users;
• Identifying sources of statistical data, submitting data requests, and collating and analysing data;
• Writing reports, briefings and other outputs;
• Presenting research findings to practitioners, policy makers and other relevant stakeholders;
• Supporting innovative projects to develop and implement data collection systems and to monitor their activities and impact;
• Reviewing and summarising research literature.