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The ‘Dirty War Index’ and the Real World of Armed Conflict.

Amelia Hoover, Romesh Silva, Tamy Guberek, and Daniel Guzmán. “The ‘Dirty War Index’ and the Real World of Armed Conflict.” May 23, 2009. © 2009 HRDAG. Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


Welcome!

As of today, the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) is an independent* non-profit! It's been a long time coming, and we're delighted to have gotten to this point. HRDAG is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that applies rigorous science to the analysis of human rights violations around the world; for more information, see our About Us page. Benetech has spun out the scientific and statistical part of the Human Rights Program to HRDAG. The spinout includes (as staff) me -- Patrick Ball -- and Dr Megan Price, as well as our many part-time scientific and field consultants (a list is here). The software and technology component of our work -- ...

Welcoming Our New Admistrative Coordinator

After a long search, we're pleased to welcome Suzanne Nathans as our new administrative "hub" at HRDAG. It was no easy feat to find someone whose skills and experience promise to be such a good fit with our team. Suzanne comes to HRDAG with  a great deal of experience in nonprofit administration, success stories in operations, communications, and organization, and warmth and compassion. (more…)

Celebrating our First Anniversary and Welcoming Our Newest Board Member

One year ago, HRDAG cast out on its own as an independent nonprofit—and this first year has been busy, productive, and exciting. We’re indebted to our Advisory Board for their valuable contributions and to our funders for their generosity and participation in our mission. Highlights of the past year include contributing testimony to three court cases, publishing two reports on conflict-casualties in Syria, presenting over a dozen talks (many of which are available on our talks page), traveling to over half a dozen countries to testify, collaborate with partners, and participate in conferences/workshops, hiring a new technical lead, and bringing in ...

Syrian civil war death toll exceeds 190,000, U.N. reports

Ayan Sheikh of PBS News Hour reports on the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Right’s release of HRDAG’s third report on reported killings in the Syrian conflict.
From the article:
The latest death toll figure covers the period from March 2011 to April of this year, came from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group and is the third study of its kind on Syria. The analysis group identified 191,269 deaths. Data was collected from five different sources to exclude inaccuracies and repetitions.


One Better

The University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts profiled Patrick Ball in its fall 2016 issue of the alumni magazine. Here’s an excerpt:

Ball believes doing this laborious, difficult work makes the world a more just place because it leads to accountability.

“My part is a specific, narrow piece, which just happens to fit with the skills I have,” he says. “I don’t think that what we do is in any way the best or most important part of human rights activism. Sometimes, we are just a footnote—but we are a really good footnote.”


HRDAG at FAT* 2020: Pre-Trial Risk Assessment Tools

How do police officer booking decisions affect pre-trial risk assessment tools relied upon by judges?

New Estimate Of Killings By Police Is Way Higher — And Still Too Low

Carl Bialik of 538 Politics interviews HRDAG executive director Patrick Ball in an article about the recently released Bureau of Justice Statistics report about the number of annual police killings, both reported and unreported. As Bialik writes, this is a math puzzle with real consequences.


New UN report counts 191,369 Syrian-war deaths — but the truth is probably much, much worse

Amanda Taub of Vox has interviewed HRDAG executive director about the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Right’s release of HRDAG’s third report on reported killings in the Syrian conflict.
From the article:
Patrick Ball, Executive Director of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group and one of the report’s authors, explained to me that this new report is not a statistical estimate of the number of people killed in the conflict so far. Rather, it’s an actual list of specific victims who have been identified by name, date, and location of death. (The report only tracked violent killings, not “excess mortality” deaths from from disease or hunger that the conflict is causing indirectly.)


New report published on 500 Tamils missing while in Army custody

The International Truth and Justice Project and HRDAG have published a report on 500 Tamils who disappeared while in Army custody in Sri Lanka in 2009.

The report is titled “How many people disappeared on 17-19 May 2009 in Sri Lanka?” and Patrick Ball, director of research at HRDAG, is the lead author.


Measuring the Mortality Consequences of Armed Conflict in Amritsar, India: A New Approach to the Indirect Sampling of Conflict-Related Mortality

Romesh Silva and Jeff Klingner. “Measuring the Mortality Consequences of Armed Conflict in Amritsar, India: A New Approach to the Indirect Sampling of Conflict-Related Mortality.” Poster presented at the Population Association of America 2011 Annual Meeting. © 2011 Benetech. Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


Police Accountability in Chicago: from Data Dump to Usable Data

HRDAG is helping the Invisible Institute turn their windfall of raw data about police misconduct into data that can be analyzed.

Estimating the Number of SARS-CoV-2 Infections and the Impact of Mitigation Policies

This Harvard Data Science Review article uses the least unreliable source of pandemic data: reported deaths.

Welcoming Our New Foundation Relations and Strategy Lead

On March 16, Kristen Yawitz joined the HRDAG team in the role of Foundation Relations and Strategy Lead.

Videos

Here is a collection of videos that profile projects or features us at speaking engagements. Please get in touch with us if you have any HRDAG video or photography.

10MM Images from Guatemala’s National Police Go Online: Disappearances, STD Experiments, More


14 Questions about Counting Casualties in Syria

In early 2012, HRDAG was commissioned by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to do an enumeration project, essentially a count of all of the reported casualties in the Syrian conflict. HRDAG has published two analyses so far, the first in January 2013, and the second in June 2013. In this post, HRDAG scientists Anita Gohdes, Megan Price, and Patrick Ball answer questions about that project. So, how many people have been killed in the Syrian conflict? This is a complicated question. As of our last report, in June 2013, we know that there have been at least 93,000 reported, identifiable conflict-related casualties. The ...

Predictive policing violates more than it protects

William Isaac and Kristian Lum. Predictive policing violates more than it protects. USA Today. December 2, 2016. © USA Today.

William Isaac and Kristian Lum. Predictive policing violates more than it protects. USA Today. December 2, 2016. © USA Today.


Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

As an organization that uses science to advocate for human rights, the goals and issues represented by Ada Lovelace Day are very near and dear to our hearts.  Additionally, we are lucky to work with and be advised by some pretty kick-ass ladies in STEM (see our People page to learn more about these amazing women (and men)). I brainstormed a list of women I could write about, as Finding Ada suggests we celebrate today by blogging about a STEM heroine.  I considered Anita Borg (she has her own institute!), who advocated tirelessly for women in computer science.  I thought about Sally Wyatt, keynote speaker and organizer of the fascinating workshop...

Syria: No word on four abducted activists

Razan Zatouneh is an esteemed colleague of ours, and we are one of 57 organizations demanding immediate release for her and the three other human rights defenders still missing. A year on, no information on Douma Four The prominent Syrian human rights defenders Razan Zaitouneh, Samira Khalil, Wa’el Hamada and Nazem Hamadi – the Douma Four—remain missing a year after their abduction, 57 organizations said today. The four were abducted in Duma, a city near Damascus under the control of armed opposition groups. They should be released immediately, the groups said. On 9 December 2013, at about 10:40 pm, a group of armed men stormed into the ...

Our work has been used by truth commissions, international criminal tribunals, and non-governmental human rights organizations. We have worked with partners on projects on five continents.

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