Reflections: Pivotal Moments in Freetown

The summer of 2002 in Washington, DC, was steamy and hot, which is how I remember my introduction to HRDAG. I had begun working with them, while they were still at AAAS, in the late spring, learning all about their core concepts: duplicate reporting and MSE, controlled vocabularies, inter-rater reliability, data models and more. The days were long, with a second shift more often than not running late into the evening. In addition to all the learning, I also helped with matching for the Chad project – that is, identifying multiple records of the same violation – back when matching was done by hand. But it was not long after I arrived in Washington ...

How We Choose Projects

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 ...

Multiple Systems Estimation: Collection, Cleaning and Canonicalization of Data

<< Previous post: MSE: The Basics Q3. What are the steps in an MSE analysis? Q4. What does data collection look like in the human rights context? What kind of data do you collect? Q5. [In depth] Do you include unnamed or anonymous victims in the matching process? Q6. What do you mean by "cleaning" and "canonicalization?" Q7. [In depth] What are some of the challenges of canonicalization? (more…)

Data Mining for Good: CJA Drink + Think

At the Center for Justice and Accountability's happy hour, "Drink and Think," Patrick Ball spoke about "Data Mining for Good." The talk included a discussion of how HRDAG brings human rights abusers to justice through data analysis, and HRDAG's work conducting quantitative analysis for truth commissions, NGOs, the UN and other partners. The event was held at Eventbrite. More photos are below. The Center for Justice and Accountability Young Professionals' Committee for Human Rights September 16, 2014 San Francisco, California Link to CJA event page Back to Talks All photos © 2014 Carter Brooks.

Full Updated Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic

Price, Megan, Jeff Klingner, Anas Qtiesh, and Patrick Ball. 2013. Commissioned by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Human Rights Data Analysis Group (June 13). © 2013 HRDAG. Creative Commons BY-NC-SA. [pdf via UN]

Cuentas y mediciones de la criminalidad y de la violencia

Exploración y análisis de los datas para comprender la realidad. Patrick Ball y Michael Reed Hurtado. 2015. Forensis 16, no. 1 (July): 529-545. © 2015 Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses (República de Colombia).

String matching for governorate information in unstructured text

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Selection Bias and the Statistical Patterns of Mortality in Conflict.

Collecting Sensitive Human Rights Data in the Field: A Case Study from Amritsar, India.

Romesh Silva and Jasmine Marwaha. “Collecting Sensitive Human Rights Data in the Field: A Case Study from Amritsar, India.” In JSM Proceedings, Social Statistics Section. Alexandria, VA. © 2011 American Statistical Association. All rights reserved.

Measuring lethal counterinsurgency violence in Amritsar District, India using a referral-based sampling technique

Romesh Silva, Jeff Klingner, and Scott Weikart. “Measuring lethal counterinsurgency violence in Amritsar District, India using a referral-based sampling technique.” In JSM Proceedings, Social Statistics Section. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association, 2010. © 201o JSM. All rights reserved.

Different Convenience Samples, Different Stories: The Case of Sierra Leone.

Updated Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic

Megan Price, Anita Gohdes, and Patrick Ball (2014). Human Rights Data Analysis Group, commissioned by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). August 22, 2014. © 2014 HRDAG. Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.

To Count the Uncounted: An Estimation of Lethal Violence in Casanare,

Tamy Guberek, Daniel Guzmán, Megan Price, Kristian Lum and Patrick Ball, “To Count the Uncounted: An Estimation of Lethal Violence in Casanare,” A Report by the Benetech Human Rights Program. 10 February 2010. (Available in Spanish) © 2010 Benetech. Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.

Counting the Unknown Victims of Political Violence: The Work of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group

Ann Harrison (2012). Counting the Unknown Victims of Political Violence: The Work of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, in Human Rights and Information Communications Technologies: Trends and Consequences of Use. © 2012 IGI Global. All rights reserved.

Preliminary Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic.

Megan Price, Jeff Klingner, and Patrick Ball (2013). The Benetech Human Rights Program, commissioned by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). January 2, 2013. © 2013 HRDAG. Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.

On ensuring a higher level of data quality when documenting human rights violations to support research into the origins and cause of human rights violations

Romesh Silva. “On ensuring a higher level of data quality when documenting human rights violations to support research into the origins and cause of human rights violations.” ASA Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, the International Biometric Society (ENAR and WNAR), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the Statistical Society of Canada. August, 2002.

Political Killings in Kosovo, March–June, 1999

Political Killings in Kosovo, March–June, 1999. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science and Human Rights Program. © 2000 American Bar Association Central and East European Law Initiative.

Making the Case. Investigating Large Scale Human Rights Violations Using Information Systems and Data Analysis

Patrick Ball, Herbert F. Spirer, and Louise Spirer, eds. Making the Case. Investigating Large Scale Human Rights Violations Using Information Systems and Data Analysis . © 2000 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. [full text] [intro] [chapters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12]

Multiple Systems Estimation: The Basics

Multiple systems estimation, or MSE, is a family of techniques for statistical inference. MSE uses the overlaps between several incomplete lists of human rights violations to determine the total number of violations. In this blogpost, and four more to follow, I’ll answer both conceptual and practical questions about this important method. (In posts to follow, questions that refer to specific statistical procedures or debates will be marked, "In depth.") (more…)

Letter from the Executive Director

Dear Friends, This has been quite a year, and I don’t just mean the recent political events in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. Thanks to your ongoing support, HRDAG has a number of accomplishments to be proud of this year: Patrick’s testimony in the trial of Hissene Habré for crimes against humanity was cited by the judges three times in their determination of guilt. We launched a book describing ten years of collaborative work with the Historic Archive of the National Police in Guatemala. We contributed quantitative analyses to Amnesty International’s report on deaths in Syrian custody, and published an ...

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How We Choose Projects

Multiple Systems Estimation: Collection, Cleaning and Canonicalization of Data

Data Mining for Good: CJA Drink + Think

Full Updated Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic

Cuentas y mediciones de la criminalidad y de la violencia

String matching for governorate information in unstructured text

Selection Bias and the Statistical Patterns of Mortality in Conflict.

Collecting Sensitive Human Rights Data in the Field: A Case Study from Amritsar, India.

Measuring lethal counterinsurgency violence in Amritsar District, India using a referral-based sampling technique

Different Convenience Samples, Different Stories: The Case of Sierra Leone.

Updated Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic

To Count the Uncounted: An Estimation of Lethal Violence in Casanare,

Counting the Unknown Victims of Political Violence: The Work of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group

Preliminary Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic.

On ensuring a higher level of data quality when documenting human rights violations to support research into the origins and cause of human rights violations

Political Killings in Kosovo, March–June, 1999

Making the Case. Investigating Large Scale Human Rights Violations Using Information Systems and Data Analysis

Multiple Systems Estimation: The Basics

Letter from the Executive Director

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.

Donate

HRDAG

Selected projects

Stay informed about our work

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. Donate

HRDAG

Selected projects

Stay informed about our work

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.

Donate