This series is published in collaboration with the CORD Partnership.

Barra Ó Dúill

The second “Data as a Driver: Informing Criminal Justice Policy and Practice with Evidence” event took place on 7 March 2025, bringing together policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to improve mutual understanding of the criminal justice data landscape and foster meaningful collaboration.

Hosted by the Department of Justice (now the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration) on behalf of the Criminal Justice Sectoral Strategy Data Group, this event built on a previous gathering in 2023. Feedback from that earlier event indicated a strong desire to better understand what data exists within the justice system, how it can be accessed and used, and how academic research could be more effectively embedded in policymaking. In response, the 2025 event was structured around three themes: data structures and access, data in action, and research in action. These sessions offered foundational overviews and concrete examples of how data are being used across the sector.

Building the foundations: data structures and access

The day opened with presentations from key justice agencies, including the Department, Courts Service, An Garda Síochána, and Probation Service. These sessions mapped the current data landscape, clarifying what datasets are collected, where they are held, and how they can be accessed.

A development highlighted was the Criminal Justice Data Catalogue, developed under the Criminal Justice Sectoral Strategy 2022-2024. This catalogue offers a central overview of datasets held across the sector, detailing what datasets are collected, on which systems they reside, and the conditions under which they can be accessed. It has the potential to reduce fragmentation and improve visibility for both researchers and policymakers.

Equally noteworthy is the Courts Service Open Data Portal, launched as part of the Courts Service’s Data Strategy. This transforms static reports into structured, machine-readable formats through a public-facing portal. By publishing high-level aggregate data, starting with annual report figures and expanding into new areas, the Courts Service sets a benchmark for transparency and public accountability. The initiative improves access, supports better analysis, and enables more informed policy discussions.

While these developments mark a welcome shift towards a more open and connected data infrastructure, speakers also pointed to the need for continued progress, particularly in aligning definitions, improving interoperability, and ensuring access arrangements are practical and robust for researchers.

Data in action: from information to insight

The second session focused on how data are already being used to inform justice practice across agencies. Examples included Forensic Science Ireland’s work on presumptive drug testing and diversion strategies, the Legal Aid Board’s data-informed outreach to improve access to family law services, and the Irish Prison Service’s use of operational dashboards to support psychological services.

These case studies showed how administrative data, when structured and purposefully applied, can lead to tangible improvements in processes and outcomes. Data supported better resource allocation, more responsive service delivery, and a clearer understanding of user needs. Importantly, the examples demonstrated how data quality improves when it is actively used and interrogated.

Research in action: bridging knowledge and practice

The final session showcased academic research that used different types of data, illustrating the potential value of collaboration between government and higher education institutions. Dr Ian Marder (Maynooth University) presented work on restorative justice, Chris Greene (Trinity College Dublin) examined the role of AI in legal decision-making, and John Reddy (University of Limerick) shared findings from the REPPP study of Youth Diversion Projects using administrative data. Collectively, they highlighted the contribution of academic research not just in producing independent analysis, but in helping the system to ask better questions, test assumptions, and take a longer-term view on impact and outcomes.

Opportunities and challenges ahead

The Data as a Driver event demonstrated the appetite and capacity for embedding data more deeply into criminal justice policy and practice. But doing so meaningfully will require sustained attention to several key areas.

Transparency emerged as a recurring theme, not just as an abstract principle but as a practical tool for improving public policy. The development of the Data Catalogue and the Courts Service Open Data Portal are important examples of this. They enable researchers and policymakers to identify what information exists and to assess its relevance and potential value.

Transparency-focused initiatives like these contribute in several ways. They build trust by showing what data are held and how they are used. They improve quality through greater scrutiny and standardisation. And they reduce transaction costs by making it easier to locate and access relevant datasets without relying on informal channels or lengthy requests. The next challenge will be to maintain this momentum, keeping datasets up to date, ensuring visibility, and using them to inform strategic decision making.

The event also highlighted the importance of bringing together diverse perspectives when shaping justice policy. Academics bring independent, rigorous analysis and methodological innovation. Practitioners bring grounded insight into how systems work in practice and where challenges emerge. Service users and civil society bring lived experience and help keep policy grounded in daily reality. And policymakers contribute a system-wide perspective, balancing evidence with political judgement, resource constraints, and institutional complexity.

There is growing momentum for this kind of collaborative approach. Structures like the Criminal Justice Sectoral Strategy Data Group, engagement with the Central Statistics Office, and initiatives like the CORD (Criminal Justice Open Research Dialogue) Partnership are helping to build the infrastructure for shared learning and co-produced insight. But the case studies also showed how fragile these arrangements can be if not supported by sustained, resourced mechanisms.

Finally, there is the question of institutional cultures. Data-informed policymaking is not just about infrastructure. It is about how organisations think and operate. That means supporting staff at all levels to understand and interrogate the data they work with. It means being open to changing course when new evidence emerges. And it requires valuing learning as a core feature of public service, not simply focusing on compliance or delivering outputs.

Looking ahead

Events like this one help build momentum. They create space for reflection, shared learning, and dialogue across institutional boundaries. Tools like the data catalogue and open access portals are critical. But even more important are the relationships between people: researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. It is these relationships that will shape the direction of change and determine how far we can go.

Dr Ian Marder

Having attended the first Data-as-a-Driver event in September 2023 and the recent follow-up event Barra describes, it has been interesting to see the justice sector’s thinking around data progress. Several justice sector organisations have established, or increased the resources and capacity of, internal analytics units. The commitment from some, including the Courts and Probation Services, to make unpublished datasets open sets a useful precedent that should give other bodies the courage to follow suit. Overall, there seems to be an increasing recognition of the need for data and research to inform policy and practice.

This is good news because of the significant untapped potential for criminal justice policy and practice to draw on evidence from research and data analysis. Firstly, there are decades of research providing insights into how to prevent and respond to crime and organise criminal justice in ways that are humane and likely to meet people’s needs. This body of knowledge can be explored to support policy and practice in domains including policing, crime prevention, decarceration, desistance, and the expansion of victims’ services. For example, research from Ireland and other countries could inform legislative changes that increase the use of community sanctions in place of prison sentences.

Secondly, justice agencies can build infrastructure and train practitioners to collect and use administrative data and other datasets. This can help organisations to monitor and improve their practices, identify gaps in service provision, and attend to ongoing and future challenges. For example, the Probation Service and Irish Prison Service require accurate, comprehensive datasets on the healthcare needs of their respective populations to inform the allocation of limited healthcare resources and determine which health services to expand or establish. Academic researchers from different institutions and disciplines could support this by coming together to help design and refine data collection infrastructure.

Thirdly, criminal justice agencies could partner with academics and other external researchers to conduct evaluations and action research which explores the effectiveness of policies and practices, or supports the rollout of new approaches. This provides valuable empirical insights regarding what should be changed or (de-)implemented. For example, the Garda Divisional Protective Service Units’ cultures, processes, practices and effectiveness have not been independently evaluated, while action research could support the rollout of youth justice workers’ new court accompaniment role for child defendants.

In practice, we remain at the early stages of a process by which research evidence is integrated into policy cycles. Therefore, it is crucial to explore the research evidence on academic-policy engagement and other countries’ experiences to inform our work here. At another recent event, UCD hosted Prof. Kathryn Oliver to speak about different approaches to knowledge exchange, and the value of Areas of Research Interest – sets of published research questions, topics and issues articulating what an organisation wishes to know to improve policies and services – in coordinating activity at the intersection of policy and research.

Kathryn argued for a move from relational to systematic approaches: from an ability to integrate evidence into policy if the right people know each other, to building an infrastructure within the government which enables this systematically. While it is important to collaborate and form relationships between academic researchers and policymakers, Kathryn argued, embedding evidence into policy cycles requires dedicated staffing and resources for strong scientific units in government departments and agencies, and to facilitate academic-policymaker engagement. Strategic, visible leadership is required to support this process, as are systems and resources which enable and reward research impact activities in higher education.

To support this work in criminal justice in Ireland, Barra and I are involved in the CORD Partnership. CORD, a research-policy-practice partnership aiming to embed a culture of interdisciplinary open research, brings together these groups to identify shared priorities and goals. Since the publication of our Agenda for 2025-26 in January, a subcommittee of our Implementation Group has worked on the development of Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) in Irish criminal justice. Chaired by Dr Kevin Wozniak, the committee is exploring how ARIs work elsewhere, different ways of consulting internally on ARIs, and the potential for academics to help criminal and community justice organisations in Ireland develop and answer ARIs.

The ultimate goal is a policy cycle throughout which independent scientific advice is sought systematically, supported by systems which examine research evidence at the agenda-setting stage. If research evidence is not considered until the direction of travel is determined, it may be too late to create an evidence-based approach to criminal justice policy and practice. Academics working on crime and criminal justice can draw on the collaborative ethos in our sector in Ireland to coordinate our own efforts to this end.

• Previous articles from this series can be found here.