HRDAG’s Year in Review: 2023

In 2023, HRDAG continued to learn from our partners about resilience and patience.

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Announcing New HRDAG Advisory Board Member

Elizabeth Eagen of the Citizens and Technology Lab at Cornell University will expand the HRDAG advisory board.

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Tech Note

Using large language models for structured information extraction from the Innocence Project New Orleans' wrongful conviction case files. Exoneration documents, secured during legal proceedings that aim to right the wrongs of justice, are invaluable for understanding wrongful convictions. They cast a spotlight on law enforcement actions, revealing systemic challenges. Yet, finding and leveraging usable information within these collections remains a formidable task for researchers and advocates, due to their volume and unstructured heterogeneity. This post introduces ...

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Human Rights and the Decentralized Web

Our partners were eager to learn and talk about emerging decentralized technology.

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HRDAG and Boston PD SWAT Reports

HRDAG worked with the ACLU of Massachusetts to review Boston PD SWAT reports (these are the reports filled out before and after tactical and warrant service operations) made public under the 17F order, which requires the Mayor of Boston to release information about the Boston Police Department’s inventory of military-grade equipment, such as mine-resistant ambush-protected armored vehicles, designed for use in Iraq. Investigating Boston Police Department SWAT Raids from 2012 to 2020 HRDAG collaborated with Data for Justice Project on a tool tool allowing members of ...

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Remembering Scott Weikart

HRDAG’s core values all have a connection to Scott Weikart, 1951–2023.

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Making Missing Data Visible in Colombia

Valentina Rozo Ángel has worked with HRDAG and the Colombian Truth Commission to acknowledge victims of the 50-year conflict who are not visible or easily counted.

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Can the Armed Conflict Become Part of Colombia’s History?

Paula Amado and María Juliana Durán Fedullo reflect on how the Truth Commission may change Colombia’s history, finally officially acknowledging the 50-year conflict and its casualties, and reckoning with who did what to whom.

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In Colombia: HRDAG and Dejusticia on the Importance of Missing Data

It’s inevitable that databases will have information gaps, and special care must be taken to account for these gaps.

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HRDAG and the Allegheny Family Screening Tool

The Associated Press published an article about an investigation that HRDAG and the ACLU have been working on for more than a year. The article explains how the ACLU became involved in an examination of a tool that relies on artificial intelligence to predict which children could be at risk of harm. The tool is used by the Department of Human Services and the child welfare system in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Both the ACLU and the Department of Justice became concerned that the Family Screening Tool, as it is called, was “forever flagging” parents with disabilit...

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Quantifying Police Misconduct in Louisiana

HRDAG contributes to the project by helping to classify, filter, extract, and standardize the records so that they can be useful in the database.

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HRDAG Welcomes Two New Scholars

Paula Amado has joined as a Research Scholar, and María Juliana Durán Fedullo has joined as a Visiting Scholar.

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HRDAG’s Year in Review: 2022

This past year at HRDAG has been about continuing efforts to uncover the truth.

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Analyzing patterns of violence in Colombia using more than 100 databases

The institution’s objectives were to learn the truth about what happened during the armed conflict.

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Lessons at HRDAG: Holding Public Institutions Accountable

Principled Data Processing is a way to prove to someone, usually yourself, that what you did was right.

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HRDAG Retreat 2022

A week in the California redwoods amongst a hodgepodge of people united by their passion for using quantitative analysis to combat injustice.

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Analizando los patrones de violencia en Colombia con más de 100 bases de datos

El objetivo de esta institución temporal es conocer la verdad de lo ocurrido en el  marco del conflicto armado.

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Scraping for Pattern: Protecting Immigrant Rights in Washington State

With HRDAG's help, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights team has been able to analyze the scraped text and search for key words such as “jail” in order to gain insight into where immigration arrests are being made.

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HRDAG Welcomes New Staff, Interns and Fellow

HRDAG is delighted to announce five additions to our team: one new staff member, three summer interns, and one fellow.

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Police Violence in Puerto Rico: Flooded with Data

Kilómetro Cero is making a comparison of police killings in Puerto Rico and police killings in the non-territorial United States, and HRDAG is helping to organize the data.

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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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