{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "contract_id": "beyond-the-curve-national-youth-opportunity-v1",
  "status": "pilot",
  "effective_date": "2026-10-05",
  "purpose": "Define what may be compared across Youth Opportunity jurisdictions and what must remain local, missing, or not comparable.",
  "geographic_unit": {
    "rule": "Use the legal reporting geography represented by the source and label its type on every public view.",
    "allowed_types": ["city", "consolidated city", "county", "independent city and county equivalent", "state"],
    "prohibited_practice": "Do not label a county record as city data or combine local geographies into a national rank without a common unit."
  },
  "age_scope": {
    "preferred": "under 18",
    "accepted": ["under 18", "ages 10–17", "ages 12–17", "ages 12–18", "school enrollment or cohort definition disclosed by source"],
    "rule": "Age scopes remain explicit. Unlike populations are not merged into one rate."
  },
  "denominator": {
    "required_fields": ["universe", "denominator_value_or_source", "geography", "period", "unit"],
    "rule": "Every rate must name the population or institutional universe against which the numerator is interpreted."
  },
  "reporting_period": {
    "required_fields": ["period_label", "start_or_vintage", "end_or_vintage", "cadence"],
    "rule": "Calendar years, school years, graduating classes, fiscal years, survey vintages, and year-to-date records remain separate."
  },
  "source_hierarchy": [
    { "priority": 1, "type": "official_primary_record", "examples": ["statute", "court record", "agency dataset", "audited government report"] },
    { "priority": 2, "type": "established_research", "examples": ["peer-reviewed study", "validated national index", "university research center"] },
    { "priority": 3, "type": "reputable_reporting", "examples": ["source-linked public-interest reporting", "established local newsroom"] },
    { "priority": 4, "type": "community_context", "examples": ["service provider record", "lived-experience testimony", "local advocacy report"] }
  ],
  "missing_data": {
    "public_values": ["not available", "not reported", "not comparable", "under review", "suppressed"],
    "rules": [
      "Missing data never becomes zero.",
      "AI may not estimate a missing public value.",
      "A missing dimension receives no score and does not lower or raise a jurisdiction reading.",
      "Suppressed values remain suppressed in derived public records."
    ]
  },
  "comparability_grades": {
    "A": "Same source family, definition, population, period, unit, and geography treatment across pilot jurisdictions.",
    "B": "Verified official local measure with a clear definition, but not cross-jurisdiction comparable.",
    "C": "Credible contextual evidence with a disclosed limitation or incomplete local coverage.",
    "N/C": "Not comparable; no cross-jurisdiction reading is permitted.",
    "Pending": "Evidence inventory or definition reconciliation is incomplete."
  },
  "public_evidence_labels": {
    "comparable_core": "Comparable",
    "verified_local": "Verified local",
    "contextual": "Contextual",
    "not_comparable": "Not comparable",
    "pending": "Pending",
    "suppressed": "Suppressed"
  },
  "protection_contrast": {
    "required_fields": ["verified_observed_condition", "protection_pressure", "protective_direction", "responsible_systems", "benchmark_status"],
    "rule": "Observed values retain their source universe, period, and uncertainty. Interpretive text must distinguish a condition from an individual child and state when no validated numeric target exists.",
    "prohibited": ["city performance grade", "unverified ideal target", "claim that every young person shares an aggregate condition", "causal claim from descriptive evidence"]
  },
  "jurisdiction_briefs": {
    "required_local_picture_fields": ["pressure_in_view", "counterpoint", "evidence_boundary", "supporting_indicator_ids"],
    "article_relationship_fields": ["slug", "public_url", "geographic_scope", "relationship", "relationship_note", "related_dimensions"],
    "pathway_fields": ["official_provider", "population_or_eligibility", "availability_boundary", "verified_on", "public_url"],
    "activity_fields": ["comparable_baseline", "local_evidence_review", "related_advocate_work"],
    "rules": [
      "A local picture may combine verified observations for interpretation only when every supporting indicator is named.",
      "A linked article must state whether its relationship is local, statewide, or national and must not imply causation from contextual data.",
      "A protective pathway must be an official public starting point and must disclose that listing does not establish capacity, eligibility, enrollment, quality, or outcomes.",
      "An activity date describes evidence or publication work and must not be presented as a trend in community conditions.",
      "No unrelated article may be presented as local accountability reporting to fill an empty state."
    ]
  },
  "comparable_core_indicators": [
    "child_poverty_rate",
    "renter_cost_burden_rate",
    "median_household_income",
    "unemployment_rate"
  ],
  "opportunity_dimensions": [
    "economic_stability",
    "housing_stability",
    "school_connection",
    "safety_and_wellbeing",
    "paid_opportunity",
    "family_and_health_support"
  ],
  "response_dimensions": [
    "diversion_access",
    "detention_reliance",
    "adult_transfer",
    "care_and_education_continuity",
    "family_connection",
    "reentry_continuity",
    "meaningful_review_and_record_relief"
  ],
  "direction_rule": {
    "pilot": "baseline_only",
    "future_requirement": "At least two comparable releases plus an uncertainty-aware change rule; three or more periods preferred before a public direction label.",
    "labels": ["improving", "stable within uncertainty", "worsening", "insufficient series"]
  },
  "scoring_boundary": {
    "current": "No composite score or jurisdiction rank.",
    "future_gate": "Any weighting method requires a published rationale, sensitivity analysis, versioning, and review by youth, community, research, and practice advisers.",
    "prohibited": ["individual youth risk score", "recidivism prediction", "neighborhood punishment score", "AI-generated weighting", "causal claim from descriptive association"]
  },
  "publication_requirements": [
    "Source URL and publisher",
    "Definition and universe",
    "Period and update cadence",
    "Numerator and denominator when applicable",
    "Margin of error for survey estimates",
    "Comparability status and plain-language public label",
    "Known limitations",
    "Responsible authority for any proposed protective move",
    "Explicit geographic and evidence relationship for linked reporting",
    "Eligibility and availability boundary for a protective pathway",
    "Correction route and version history"
  ],
  "expansion_gate": {
    "from_three_to_ten": [
      "All comparable-core records pass automated schema and completeness tests.",
      "Each jurisdiction has an official-source inventory for opportunity and response dimensions.",
      "At least one youth or lived-experience adviser, one researcher, one service practitioner, and one local data expert review the public method.",
      "Material changes from review are recorded in a public validation log.",
      "The refresh workload is sustainable without stale or silently incomparable pages."
    ],
    "from_ten_to_twenty": "Require one full refresh cycle and documented correction history across the first ten jurisdictions."
  }
}