Translating Justice Data Without Losing the People It Represents

What does it mean to make justice data visible without losing the people, histories, and realities behind it?

That question sat at the center of my work with Measures for Justice, where I contributed to the communications and visual structure of multiple research publications focused on justice system data. My responsibility was not generating the research itself, but helping shape how complex findings were organized, framed, and shared so they could be understood and used across very different audiences, including policymakers, advocates, journalists, and community leaders.

That responsibility became especially present in Justice in Indian Country, a research project examining how justice systems operate within Native nations and tribal communities. The work exists at the intersection of data, sovereignty, history, and lived experience, which made the way it was communicated as consequential as the findings themselves.

One thing this work clarified for me is how easily systems speak in averages while communities live in specifics.

Justice data is often framed to allow for comparison and scale. But in Indian Country, those averages can obscure realities shaped by tribal sovereignty, jurisdictional complexity, and long-standing relationships with federal and state systems. Communicating this research required care not only in accuracy, but in framing, ensuring the data did not flatten experience or unintentionally reinforce misunderstandings about how justice functions within Native communities.

Sitting with this work made me realize how much responsibility lives in the details of how information is shared. Structure, sequencing, and context all shape whether people can actually make sense of what they’re seeing, or whether the data feels distant and hard to engage. Transparency only works when it brings people closer to understanding, not when it adds another layer of separation.

It’s something I think about often in policy and research work. Clarity isn’t neutral. The way information is framed affects who trusts it, how it’s used, and whether people recognize themselves in it. Especially when research involves communities with their own legal and cultural realities, communication isn’t secondary. It’s part of the responsibility.

You can explore the full visual research and publication here.