Methodology, governance and provenance
How the public record earns trust
JusticeHub brings a national registry, sourced evidence and community-published editions into one connected record. They are not the same kind of authority. This page shows what each layer means, who can change it and how a public claim can be traced.
Four layers, one public system
Know which record you are reading
The existing national data is the foundation. Community publishing adds an explicit authority layer without replacing the registry, source record or private workspace.
National registry baseline
Curated registry and JR site identity
Public by design
The map and directory begin with a curated national record of places, lead organisations, locations and source links. It is useful public context, not proof that a community has reviewed or approved every field.
Source-bearing public evidence
Site metrics, evaluations and funding context
Status shown per record
Figures retain their evidence class and source-review state. A missing source, year or as-reported quotation stays blank or pending. It is never silently completed, and it cannot count as a source-validated outcome headline.
Private community workspace
Local outcomes, drafts, links and review decisions
Private by default
Communities define change in their own words and connect observations, reports and governed stories. Saving or validating work does not publish it. Drafts remain behind membership and row-level access controls.
Community-published edition
Immutable owner-authorised snapshot
Explicitly published
Only an active edition published by a community owner with verified site-specific authority enters the community-published profile. Withdrawal closes the public edition while retaining its decision and audit history.
Three independent trust signals
Different questions, never one score
The national validated-outcome headline requires the outcome class and source validation. Community sign-off is shown as a separate authority signal. It is never substituted, inferred or used to certify a source.
Evidence class
What kind of figure is this?
Every figure is labelled as an outcome, activity, projection, context baseline, related-program figure or unclassified. This prevents unlike claims from being compared as though they mean the same thing.
Source validation
Does the citation support it?
A reviewer confirms that the cited source states the figure as shown, without a transcription error or lost context. This is the source gate for the national validated-outcome headline. It validates the quotation, not the quality of the underlying study.
Community sign-off
Does the community stand behind it here?
An authorised community owner chooses to sign the figure off for this record. That authority cannot be inferred from a public source or a lead-organisation relationship, and it never replaces source validation.
Community publication
Stewardship is not publication authority
A lead organisation is important public context, but that relationship alone cannot approve or publish for a community. Approval, publication and withdrawal require a current site-specific authority that has been verified and explicitly enabled.
| Role | Can do | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Public contributor | Suggest a source, correction or local context through the governed intake. | Cannot create consent, approve a record or publish community content. |
| Community steward or editor | Prepare private drafts, connect evidence and support review. | Cannot publish or withdraw an edition without owner authority. |
| Community owner | Approve, publish and withdraw when a verified, publication-enabled authority matches this site and its lead organisation. | Cannot use organisational membership alone as proof of community authority. |
| Platform administrator | Support the workflow, maintain the platform and review source fidelity. | Cannot impersonate community approval, publication or withdrawal. |
From private work to a public edition
Step 1
Private draft
Local wording, context, evidence links, audience and purpose are prepared without public exposure.
Step 2
Source and context review
The source is checked separately from the community interpretation and decision.
Step 3
Community decision
A verified site-specific owner decides what the community stands behind and for which public purpose.
Step 4
Immutable edition
The approved state is captured as a versioned publication. Later work creates another edition rather than rewriting history.
Step 5
Live withdrawal
An owner can close the public edition. The audit history remains, while public profile and discovery surfaces are revalidated.
Local language remains primary.
A community may map an outcome to a shared domain, but national aggregation uses that mapping only when the published edition explicitly allows shared learning. The local outcome title and interpretation remain attached to every public result.
Story is not a metric
Community voice adds meaning without becoming extractable evidence
Permission stays live at the source
Empathy Ledger remains authoritative for story identity, content, consent, attribution and cultural instructions. JusticeHub stores the relationship and local relevance, not a second copy of the story or its permission. Public display is checked against the live source, so withdrawn permission removes the story pathway without waiting for a new release.
- Not an outcome count
- A story can explain meaning and contribution, but never enters metric totals or CSV exports.
- Purpose-specific access
- Public, community, funder or research use is not inferred from a person's role or an earlier display.
- No consent shortcut
- A public suggestion can start a private conversation. It cannot create story consent or public permission.
The integrity classes
Six labels that keep a figure honest
Not every number is an outcome. Every figure carries one of six integrity classes so an evaluated result does not read like a projection, context baseline or figure from a related program.
Evaluated outcomes
outcomeAn independently evaluated result of the program itself.
For example: A 31 per cent fall in major offences in Bourke, from the KPMG evaluation of Maranguka.
Activities and outputs
processWhat a program did, counted honestly, but not yet an outcome.
For example: The number of young people who took part in a program, before any change is measured.
Projections
projectionModelled or forecast figures, not measured results.
For example: A projected saving to the justice system if a model were scaled, drawn from an actuarial model.
Context baselines
contextBackground figures that set the scene, not program results.
For example: The rate of Aboriginal over-incarceration in a region, which describes the problem, not the response.
Related programs
borrowedA figure from an adjacent program, not the site itself.
For example: A result from a similar model elsewhere, cited for context, never as this place's own outcome.
Unclassified
unclassifiedThe honest default until a figure has been classified.
For example: A figure newly added from a source, awaiting its integrity label.
How to cite this record
Trace what is known and what is missing
The citation export is generated live from public figure records that have a review verdict or a source-confirmed state. It carries the integrity class, review state, community sign-off state and the source fields currently held for each figure.
Some older or incomplete records do not yet hold an as-reported quotation, year or source link. Those fields remain blank in the export. A blank is a visible evidence gap, not an implied validation. Cite the original source first and JusticeHub as the record through which it was accessed.
Suggested form
[Figure] for [Site], [Year]. [Original source]. Accessed via JusticeHub justice reinvestment impact record, justicehub.com.au, as of [date].
What the citation export contains
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| site | The justice reinvestment place the figure belongs to. |
| state | The jurisdiction, for filtering and attribution. |
| metric | The descriptive label for the figure. |
| value | The recorded figure, kept as text so a qualifier or currency is not lost. |
| year | The reporting year, where the source states one. |
| metric_class | The integrity class, so an outcome is never read as a projection. |
| verify_verdict | The source-review verdict, where a review has run. |
| validated_against_source | True once a reviewer has confirmed the figure against its source. |
| community_signed_off | True once an authorised community owner has chosen to stand behind the figure here. |
| as_reported | The source wording, where it was captured. A blank means it is not recorded. |
| source_url | The public source link, where one is recorded. A blank is not treated as validation. |
| record_as_of | The date the record was read for this export. |
| suggested_citation | A generated reference line for the figure. |