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Frequently Asked Questions

Multiple Systems Estimation What is MSE?  What do you mean by statistical inference?  What is an overlap, and how do we know when lists overlap?   How does MSE find the total number of violations?  How was MSE originally developed?  How does the Benetech Human Rights Program use MSE?    1. What is MSE? A: 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. Return to Top 2. What do you mean by statistical inference? A: ...

Stephen Fienberg 1942-2016

We are saddened by the passing of Steve Fienberg yesterday in Pittsburgh, at the age of 74. He is perhaps best known around the world for bringing statistics to science and public policy and was a beloved professor at Carnegie Mellon University. At HRDAG we are in awe of and grateful for the work Steve did formalizing multiple systems estimation. His work on that front blazed a trail and essentially enabled all of our most important analytical work at the intersection of human rights and statistical science. If we are to reduce the amount of human violence in the world, the first task is to determine the scope of the violence, to know how much of ...

How many people have died in the Syrian civil war?


Guilty Verdict and 40 year Maximum Sentence in Edgar Fernando Garcia Case


Guatemala: Access to Archives Sheds Light on Case of Forced Disappearance


New Study Argues War Deaths Are Often Overestimated


Amnesty International Reports Organized Murder Of Detainees In Syrian Prison

100x100nprReports of torture and disappearances in Syria are not new. But the Amnesty International report says the magnitude and severity of abuse has “increased drastically” since 2011. Citing the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, the report says “at least 17,723 people were killed in government custody between March 2011 and December 2015, an average of 300 deaths each month.”


Justice Served in Guatemala: Testimonies from The National Security Archive & Benetech’s Human Rights Data Analysis Group


Unbiased algorithms can still be problematic

“Usually, the thing you’re trying to predict in a lot of these cases is something like rearrest,” Lum said. “So even if we are perfectly able to predict that, we’re still left with the problem that the human or systemic or institutional biases are generating biased arrests. And so, you still have to contextualize even your 100 percent accuracy with is the data really measuring what you think it’s measuring? Is the data itself generated by a fair process?”

HRDAG Director of Research Patrick Ball, in agreement with Lum, argued that it’s perhaps more practical to move it away from bias at the individual level and instead call it bias at the institutional or structural level. If a police department, for example, is convinced it needs to police one neighborhood more than another, it’s not as relevant if that officer is a racist individual, he said.


United Nations Issues Report on Deaths in Syria


Even if there’s a ceasefire, thousands of deaths projected in Gaza over next 6 months

In this NPR story, HRDAG’s Patrick Ball comments on first-of-its-kind projections.


PRIO Director Henrik Urdal’s 2022 Nobel Peace Prize Shortlist

Henrik Urdal has released his final Nobel Shortlist for 2022, and HRDAG is included on it, alongside Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Alexei Navalny, and others. The list highlights pro-democracy efforts, multilateral cooperation, combating religious extremism and intolerance, and the value that research and knowledge can have for promoting peace.


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.


Always Learning

The data science field is always changing, which means that I'll always be learning.

Welcoming Our 2019 Human Rights Intern

Trina Reynolds-Tyler is HRDAG's 2019 Human Rights Intern.

Welcoming Our 2018 Data Science Fellow

Shemika Lamare has joined the HRDAG team as our new data science fellow.

Unveiling Statistical Invisibility: The Structural Racism of the War on Drugs, its Impact on Social Inequalities, and the Need for Citizen Data Empowerment in Latin America

Cecilia Olliveira, Patrick Ball, Dayana Blanco, Eduardo Ribeiro, Juliana Borges, Maria Isabel Couto, Nathália Oliveira (2024)."Unveiling Statistical Invisibility: The Structural Racism of the War on Drugs, its Impact on Social Inequalities, and the Need for Citizen Data Empowerment in Latin America." T20 Brasil. September 2024.

Cecilia Olliveira, Patrick Ball, Dayana Blanco, Eduardo Ribeiro, Juliana Borges, Maria Isabel Couto, Nathália Oliveira (2024).”Unveiling Statistical Invisibility: The Structural Racism of the War on Drugs, its Impact on Social Inequalities, and the Need for Citizen Data Empowerment in Latin America.” T20 Brasil. September 2024.


HRDAG’s Year in Review: 2020

In 2020, HRDAG provided clarity on issues related to the pandemic, police misconduct, and more.

Big data may be reinforcing racial bias in the criminal justice system

Laurel Eckhouse (2017). Big data may be reinforcing racial bias in the criminal justice system. Washington Post. 10 February 2017. © 2017 Washington Post.

Laurel Eckhouse (2017). Big data may be reinforcing racial bias in the criminal justice system. Washington Post. 10 February 2017. © 2017 Washington Post.


Guatemala 1993-1999 – Using MSE to Estimate the Number of Deaths

Propelled by the impact of data analysis in El Salvador, Patrick Ball applied his WDWTW model to human rights information in other countries. Throughout the 1990’s, Ball worked at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) analyzing large-scale human rights violations in Ethiopia, South Africa, Haiti and Guatemala. Together with senior scientific colleagues, including statistician Dr. Herb Spirer, Ball developed new methods for analyzing state-sanctioned violence. This chapter documents how the research expanded when a group of nongovernmental organizations in Guatemala asked the scientific community to gather and analyze ...

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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