Recently, UNICEF released two reports which analysed the situation of children in conflict with the law. One of the reports looks into the record-keeping and undeveloped administrative data systems in many countries about children in conflict with the law. The second report looks into the responses of governments to UNICEF’s call for the release of detained children who were at a higher risk of contracting the virus, during the pandemic. Here is a review. Children in conflict with the law are those aged below 18 years who have been accused of or recognized as having committed a criminal offence. These children are often held in police custody, prisons, or even detention centres which is a violation of international treaties, norms, and standards. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which defines the rights of the child is the first international agreement dealing with comprehensive protection of children’s rights. It asserts that children may be detained or imprisoned only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate length of time. The Convention also holds that children have the right to be treated such that their sense of dignity and worth is not affected. The treatment should be aimed at rehabilitating the children and reintegrating them into society. This is because more often than not, children who break the law do so as a result of restricted opportunities available for their development. Furthermore, those children who get into conflict with the law are often the victims of poor parenting, abuse and neglect, and social and economic difficulties, as per a UNICEF document. UNICEF released two reports analysing the situation of children in detention Recently, on the opening day of the World Congress on Justice with Children, UNICEF released two reports which analysed the situation of such children. One is the report titled ‘Estimating the number of children deprived of their liberty in the administration of justice’, which is the first such analysis since 2007 that looks into the record-keeping and undeveloped administrative data systems in many countries. The second report, Detention of children in the time of COVID-19 , looks into the responses of governments to UNICEF’s call for the release of detained children who were at a higher risk of contracting the virus, during the pandemic. Accurate data on the number, characteristics, and well-being of children in detention is largely unavailable According to the ‘Estimating the number of children deprived of liberty in the administration of justice’ report, accurate statistics on the number, characteristics, and well-being of children in detention is unknown due to incomplete record-keeping and undeveloped administrative data systems in many countries. Problems such as inconsistencies in data collection methods and in the data’s accuracy, completeness and coverage across countries further make the quality of available data poor. Proper administrative records of the data on children under police detention, pre-trial detention, and custodial detention will be useful for research, monitoring and evaluation of programs and interventions which can help in improving the services for such children. To come up with the estimates for this study, data on the absolute number of children under age 18 detained in pre-trial, pre-sentencing or post-sentencing in any type of facility, including police custody, on a particular date, as reflected in national administrative data systems were compiled from January 2017 to October 2021 through web research and country-level solicitation. 38 countries did not have official figures or restricted external access to the figures A total of 202 countries that covered 100% of the population were considered to get the information on data availability. Of these, 38 countries, 16 of which were in East Asia and the Pacific, either did not have official figures or restricted external access to the figures. For the remaining 164 countries, figures were available. Only the data for 159 countries, covering 87% of the global population of children aged 0 to 17, met the criteria for inclusion in the database. However, there was significant variation in the kind of data available. For instance, only 71 countries had sex-disaggregated figures and only one-half of them had data as recent as 2019 and 2020. Further, the age range covered by each country is also different. Of the 156 countries, 76 countries did not have a lower bound for the age of children whereas the remaining 83 countries specified an age range. 14-17 years was the most common age range which was used in 22 countries.