This new report by the United Nations Office of High Commissioner of Human Rights builds on three prior analyses and new statistical analysis by HRDAG on killings in Syria.
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What we’ll need to find the true COVID-19 death toll
From the article: “Intentionally inconsistent tracking can also influence the final tally, notes Megan Price, a statistician at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group. During the Iraq War, for example, officials worked to conceal mortality or to cherry pick existing data to steer the political narrative. While wars are handled differently from pandemics, Price thinks the COVID-19 data could still be at risk of this kind of manipulation.”
Families flock to Syria’s prisons looking for released inmates
According to the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, at least 17,723 people were killed in government custody from the start of the uprising in March 2011 to December 2015 – an average of 300 deaths each month. There are no figures for subsequent years but there is no reason to believe the killings stopped.
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.
Reflections on Data Science for Real-World Problems
Trina Reynolds-Tyler's internship at HRDAG helped her use data science to find patterns in state-sanctioned violence.
Skoll World Forum 2018
Illuminating Data's Dark Side: Big data create conveniences, but we must consider who designs these tools, who benefits from them, and who is left out of the equation.
Disrupt San Francisco TechCrunch 2018
On September 7, 2018, Kristian Lum and Patrick Ball participated in a panel at Disrupt San Francisco by TechCrunch. The talk was titled "Dismantling Algorithmic Bias." Brian Brackeen of Kairos was part of the panel as well, and the talk was moderated by TechCrunch reporter Megan Rose Dickey.
From the TechCrunch website, "Disrupt is a 3-day conference focused on breaking technology news and developments with big-name thought leaders who are making waves in the industry."
Video of the talk is available here, and Megan Rose Dickey's coverage is here.
Welcoming Our 2019 Data Science Fellow
We’re pleased to announce that Camille Fassett has joined our team as our new data science fellow.
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?
Using MSE to Estimate Unobserved Events
At HRDAG, we worry about what we don't know. Specifically, we worry about how we can use statistical techniques to estimate homicides that are not observed by human rights groups. Based on what we've seen studying many conflicts over the last 25 years, what we don't know is often quite different from what we do know.
The technique we use most often to estimate what we don't know is called "multiple systems estimation." In this medium-technical post, I explain how to organize data and use three R packages to estimate unobserved events.
Click here for Computing Multiple Systems Estimation in R.
Watch now: “In the Face of Tyranny,” a Webinar with HRDAG
The Human Rights Data Analysis Group recently hosted a conversation about the significant threats facing human rights researchers and scientific NGOs in the United States. We are posting the first part of this conversation on YouTube so that others may watch:
In addition to this community conversation, HRDAG put out a statement outlining our specific concerns about the targeting of the human rights and research community. Read the statement and our blog post.
As HRDAG Executive Director Dr. Megan Price explained, this is not a departure for HRDAG. As a scientific organization grounded in evidence, HRDAG remains fundamentally nonpartisan. ...
Reflections: It Began In Bogotá
It was July of 2006, I’d spent five years working at a local human rights NGO in Bogotá, and I had reached retirement age. But then a whole new world opened up for me to discover. Tamy Guberek, then HRDAG Latin America coordinator, whom I had met at the NGO, approached me about becoming part of the HRDAG Colombia team as a research/administrative assistant. Over a cup of suitably Colombian coffee, the deal was quickly "signed.” My responsibilities ranged from fundraising to translations, from support in data gathering for estimates on homicides and disappearances in various regions of Colombia to editorial support to different Benetech-HRDAG ...
HRDAG contributes to textbook Counting Civilian Casualties
Next week, on June 11, Oxford University Press officially puts Counting Civilian Casualties: An Introduction to Recording and Estimating Nonmilitary Deaths in Conflict on the market. This textbook, edited by Taylor B. Seybolt, Jay D. Aronson, and Baruch Fischhoff, responds to the increasing concern for civilians in conflict and aims to promote scientific dialogue by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the most commonly used casualty recording and estimation techniques.
HRDAG is very well represented here, as our colleagues have co-authored four chapters, and Nicholas Jewell, who sits on our Science Committee, has co-authored a fifth. ...
The Profile of Human Rights Violations in Timor-Leste, 1974-1999
Romesh Silva and Patrick Ball. “The Profile of Human Rights Violations in Timor-Leste, 1974-1999″, a Report by the Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group to the Commission on Reception, Truth and Reconciliation. 9 February 2006.
Assessing Claims of Declining Lethal Violence in Colombia
Patrick Ball, Tamy Guberek, Daniel Guzmán, Amelia Hoover, and Meghan Lynch (2007). “Assessing Claims of Declining Lethal Violence in Colombia.” Benetech. Also available in Spanish – “Para Evaluar Afirmaciones Sobre la Reducción de la Violencia Letal en Colombia.”
Colombia (eng)
Text in English
Assessing Claims of Declining Lethal Violence
In March 2007, HRDAG published a study entitled "Assessing Claims of Declining Lethal Violence in Colombia." The authors of this report evaluated assertions that violence in Colombia declined after the demobilization of paramilitaries. They showed that these claims rest both on the overinterpretation of unadjusted data and on unsound causal inferences. The authors concluded that multiple data sources are needed to estimate the true rates of violence in Colombia after demobilization and they suggest avenues for further research.
This research paper is also available in Spanish at ...
Are journalists lowballing the number of Iraqi war dead?
The Columbia Journalism Review investigates the casualty count in Iraq, more than a decade after the U.S. invasion. HRDAG executive director Patrick Ball is quoted. “IBC is very good at covering the bombs that go off in markets,” said Patrick Ball, an analyst at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group who says his whole career is to study “people being killed.” But quiet assassinations and military skirmishes away from the capital often receive little or no media attention.
Reflections: The G in HRDAG is the Real Fuel
It took me a while to realize I had become part of the HRDAG incubator—at least that’s what it felt like to me—for young data analysts who wanted to use statistical knowledge to make a real impact on human rights debates.
Studying Millions of Rescued Documents: Sampling Plan at the Guatemalan National Police Archive (GNPA).
Daniel R. Guzmán, Tamy Guberek, Gary M. Shapiro, Paul Zador (2009). “Studying Millions of Rescued Documents: Sampling Plan at the Guatemalan National Police Archive (GNPA).” In JSM Proceedings, Survey Research Methods Section. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association.
Applications of Multiple Systems Estimation in Human Rights Research
Lum, Kristian, Megan Emily Price, and David Banks. 2013. The American Statistician 67, no. 4: 191-200. doi: 10.1080/00031305.2013.821093. © 2013 The American Statistician. All rights reserved. [free eprint may be available].