The Human Rights Data Analysis Group is composed of a diverse group of board members, full-time staff, and consultants. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, we work with experts in the fields of computer science, software development, mathematical and applied statistics, and demography.
Advisory Board
As a nonprofit organization, our Advisory Board serves as our governing body. This board helps us to make decisions, keeps us on track with our mission and goals, and oversees the organization in legal and logistical matters.
David Banks, Professor, Statistical Science, Duke University
Kim Keller, Executive Director, The Keller Foundation
Dinah ...
[popup citation="For migrations: Ball, Patrick. (2000). AAAS/ Human Rights Data Analysis Group database of migrations in Albania and Kosovo. For killings: Patrick Ball, Wendy Betts, Fritz Scheuren, Jana Dudukovich, and Jana Asher. (2002). AAAS/ABA-CEELI/Human Rights Data Analysis Group database of killings in Kosovo. For other data: Human Rights Data Analysis Group. (2002). Database of NATO airstrikes, geographic coding, and KLA activity in Kosovo."]
The data on migration from Kosovo are in seven files. All of the files are comma-delimited ASCII. The fields in each file are described below. For more information, see Policy or Panic, section A1, pp. ...
Patrick Ball (2016). The case against a golden key. Foreign Affairs. September 14, 2016. ©2016 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Patrick Ball (2016). The case against a golden key. Foreign Affairs. September 14, 2016. ©2016 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
In 2018, HRDAG collaborated on work in Guatemala, US criminal justice, and more.
In 2019, HRDAG aimed to count those who haven't been counted.
In a CNN interview predicting a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Henrik Urdal from PRIO talks about his shortlist and HRDAG.
Tarak Shah, Cristian Allen, Ayyub Ibrahim, Harlan Kefalas, and Bavo Stevens (2024). The Use of Unstructured Data to Study Police Use of Force. 5 December, 2024. CHANCE, 37(4), 18–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2024.2434437
Tarak Shah, Cristian Allen, Ayyub Ibrahim, Harlan Kefalas, and Bavo Stevens (2024). The Use of Unstructured Data to Study Police Use of Force. 5 December, 2024. CHANCE, 37(4), 18–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2024.2434437
Kristian Lum, Erwin Ma and Mike Baiocchi (2017). The causal impact of bail on case outcomes for indigent defendants in New York City. Observational Studies 3 (2017) 39-64. 31 October 2017. © 2017 Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
Kristian Lum, Erwin Ma and Mike Baiocchi (2017). The causal impact of bail on case outcomes for indigent defendants in New York City. Observational Studies 3 (2017) 39-64. 31 October 2017. © 2017 Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
Version date: 2000.01.29
Current version: ATV20.1
Patrick Ball & Herbert F. Spirer
The unit of analysis for each record in this structure is VIOLATION.
Each violation was of a particular type, happened at a particular time and place, and was committed by zero, one, or several organizational perpetrators. The violation was committed against zero or one named (individually identified) victim, and zero or more anonymous (unidentified) additional victims. The violation was reported one or more times in one, two, or three source types.
Note that to count the number of times individuals suffered particular violations, users should sum either the ...
(This post is co-authored by Patrick Ball and Kristian Lum.)
Today the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released a report on their effort to document “all deaths that occur during the process of arrest in the United States.” The analysis estimates that the Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program covers only 34-49% of these deaths. A parallel program by the FBI (the Supplementary Homicide Reports, SHR) is estimated to cover approximately the same proportion of deaths. Even taking into consideration both programs, 28% of all police homicides remain unreported.
In order to estimate the total number of homicides that appear on neither the ARD or ...
For more than 20 years, HRDAG has been carving out a niche in the international human rights movement. We know what we’re good at and what we’re not qualified to do. We know what quantitative questions we think are important for the community, and we know what we like to do. These preferences guide us as we consider whether to take on a project. We’re scientists, so our priorities will come as no surprise. We like to stick to science (not ideology), avoid advocacy, answer quantifiable questions, and increase our scientific understanding.
While we have no hard-and-fast rules about what projects to take on, we organize our deliberation ...
HRDAG has published a report about the 500 Tamils who disappeared while in Army custody in Sri Lanka in 2009.
The HRDAG Tech Corner is where we collect the deeper and geekier content that we create for the website. Click the accordion blocks below to reveal each of the Tech Corner entries.
Sifting Massive Datasets with Machine Learning
Principled Data Processing
In Orleans Parish, Louisiana, home of New Orleans, 78 percent of wrongful convictions have been linked to a police officer’s failure to share exculpatory evidence with the defense. This is a rate more than double the national average.But while these actions, or any misconduct, by law enforcement personnel may be recorded officially, the data may be difficult to use or find. Depending on a parish’s resources, the data may be archived in a non-digital format, for example, on paper.
Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO) has as its mission the overturning of wrongful convictions in Louisiana. A police officer involved in a wrongful conviction may ...
ITJP and HRDAG are urging groups inside and outside Sri Lanka to share existing casualty lists.
Trina Reynolds-Tyler is HRDAG's 2019 Human Rights Intern.
Boston Police deployed SWAT teams disproportionately to Black neighborhoods, sometimes raiding homes with young children. HRDAG extracted data revealing just how disproportionate.
Patrick Ball and Jana Asher (2002). “Statistics and Slobodan: Using Data Analysis and Statistics in the War Crimes Trial of Former President Milosevic.” Chance, vol. 15, No. 4, 2002. Reprinted with permission ofChance. © 2002 American Statistical Association. All rights reserved.
Megan Price, Anita Gohdes and Patrick Ball (2016). Human Rights Data Analysis Group, commissioned by Amnesty International. August 17, 2016. © 2016 HRDAG. Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.