Protecting child rights and public safety

Project Team: Linda Gröning, Marit Skivenes, Ingun Fornes, Siri Gloppen

Timeframe: 2025 – 2030

The PROTECT project will study how to protect children’s rights while maintaining public safety, particularly in cases involving violent youth crimes.

In the Nordic countries, the growing numbers of youth crimes pose significant challenges for the child protection and criminal justice systems. The PROTECT (“Protecting Child Rights and Public Safety: Premises for the Integration of Child’s Best Interest and Crime Prevention”) project will explore the intersection between these two systems and investigate how best to balance children’s rights with society’s need for protection.

The project aims to identify ways to protect children’s rights while addressing public safety and understand how the child protection and criminal justice systems can collaborate more effectively. It focuses on four Nordic countries—Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden—being the first cross-country study on this topic.

The research project is an inter-faculty collaboration and is situated at the Faculty of Law, with the Centre for Research on Discretion and Paternalism (DIPA) also involved. The project is led by UiB Professors Dr. Linda Grøning (Faculty of Law) and Dr. Marit Skivenes (Department of Government / DIPA). Project members are professors Siri Gloppen (Department of Government / LawTransform) and Ingun Fornes (Faculty of Law).

The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway grant of NOK 12 million.

More information about the project is available at the Faculty of Law and Centre for Research on Discretion and Paternalism websites.