How Pretrial Risk Assessment Tools Perpetuate Unfairness

Tools like Compas allegedly help judges predict future criminal activities and eliminate bias. HRDAG and partners showed how the tools recycle bias.

South Africa

Under apartheid, South Africans from all sides suffered violence and human rights abuses. One of the mandates of the the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was to report truth by reporting on violations and victims. Dr. Patrick Ball, as Deputy Director of the Science and Human Rights Program (SHRP) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), used the who-did-what-to-whom data model to provide statistical analysis of the violations reported to the Commission, for use in the final report of the TRC. Links: http://shr.aaas.org/southafrica/trcsa/ http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/index....

Bangladesh

In December 2006, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report documenting torture and unlawful killings committed by Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism force. According to HRW, many of the deaths for which RAB is responsible resulted from summary executions or extreme physical abuse. The statistical analysis presented in the report, "Judge, Jury, and Death: Torture and Executions by Bangladesh's Elite Security Force," was conducted by Romesh Silva, a statistician who worked within the Benetech Human Rights Program at the time, and who now works with HRDAG. While researching these incidents, HRW compiled ...

Shots fired: Can technology really keep us safe from gunfire?

Bailey Passmore + Larry Barrett. 2025. Shots fired: Can technology really keep us safe from gunfire? Significance, Volume 22, Issue 4, July 2025, Pages 34–37. 27 May 2025. © Royal Statistical Society 2025. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrssig/qmaf042

Bailey Passmore + Larry Barrett. 2025. Shots fired: Can technology really keep us safe from gunfire? Significance, Volume 22, Issue 4, July 2025, Pages 34–37. 27 May 2025. © Royal Statistical Society 2025. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrssig/qmaf042

Data-Driven Efforts to Address Racial Inequality

From the article: “As we seek to advance the responsible use of data for racial injustice, we encourage individuals and organizations to support and build upon efforts already underway.” HRDAG is listed in the Data Driven Activism and Advocacy category.

Machine learning is being used to uncover the mass graves of Mexico’s missing

“Patrick Ball, HRDAG’s Director of Research and the statistician behind the code, explained that the Random Forest classifier was able to predict with 100% accuracy which counties that would go on to have mass graves found in them in 2014 by using the model against data from 2013. The model also predicted the counties that did not have mass hidden graves found in them, but that show a high likelihood of the possibility. This prediction aspect of the model is the part that holds the most potential for future research.”

Reflections: HRDAG Was Born in Washington

I began working with HRDAG in the summer of 2001 before it was ever even called HRDAG. In fact, not intended as a boast, I think I’m responsible for coming up with the name. After contracting with Dr. Patrick Ball for a time writing the Analyzer data management platform, I left New York City and joined him in Washington, DC, at AAAS in 2002. Soon after starting, Patrick decided to establish an identity for this new team, consisting mainly of myself, Miguel Cruz and a handful of field relationships. We discussed what to name it briefly in the AAAS Science & Policy break room, which at the time, being in the mind of unclever descriptive naming ...

PredPol amplifies racially biased policing

100x100-mic HRDAG associate William Isaac is quoted in this article about how predictive policing algorithms such as PredPol exacerbate the problem of racial bias in policing.

Civilian killings and disappearances during civil war in El Salvador (1980–1992)

Amelia Hoover Green and Patrick Ball (2019). Civilian killings and disappearances during civil war in El Salvador (1980–1992). Demographic Research, 1 October 2019. © 2019 Demographic Research. DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2019.41.27

Amelia Hoover Green and Patrick Ball (2019). Civilian killings and disappearances during civil war in El Salvador (1980–1992). Demographic Research, 1 October 2019. © 2019 Demographic Research. DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2019.41.27

Quantitative Data Analysis and Large-Scale Human Rights Violations: An Example of Applied Statistics at the Grassroots.

Romesh Silva. “Quantitative Data Analysis and Large-Scale Human Rights Violations: An Example of Applied Statistics at the Grassroots.” Gazette of the Australian Mathematical Society. Canberra (Australia). Volume 32, Number 2, May 2005.

Film: Solving for X

Solving for X documents Patrick's team as they travel to Guatemala, Kosovo, and Liberia, helping human rights supporters apply sophisticated computer analysis to human rights events.

Innocence Discovery Lab – Harnessing Large Language Models to Surface Data Buried in Wrongful Conviction Case Documents

Ayyub Ibrahim, Huy Dao, and Tarak Shah (2024). “Innocence Discovery Lab - Harnessing Large Language Models to Surface Data Buried in Wrongful Conviction Case Documents." The Wrongful Conviction Law Review 5 (1):103-25. https://doi.org/10.29173/wclawr112. 31 May, 2024. Copyright (c) 2024 Ayyub Ibrahim, Huy Dao, Tarak Shah. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Ayyub Ibrahim, Huy Dao, and Tarak Shah (2024). “Innocence Discovery Lab – Harnessing Large Language Models to Surface Data Buried in Wrongful Conviction Case Documents.” The Wrongful Conviction Law Review 5 (1):103-25. https://doi.org/10.29173/wclawr112. 31 May, 2024. Copyright (c) 2024 Ayyub Ibrahim, Huy Dao, Tarak Shah. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The World According to Artificial Intelligence (Part 1)

The World According to Artificial Intelligence: Targeted by Algorithm (Part 1)

The Big Picture: The World According to AI explores how artificial intelligence is being used today, and what it means to those on its receiving end.

Patrick Ball is interviewed: “Machine learning is pretty good at finding elements out of a huge pool of non-elements… But we’ll get a lot of false positives along the way.”

New Study Argues War Deaths Are Often Overestimated

How many people disappeared on 17–19 May 2009 in Sri Lanka?

Drug-Related Killings in the Philippines

Measures of Fairness for New York City’s Supervised Release Risk Assessment Tool

There may have been 14 undocumented Korean “comfort women” in Palembang, Indonesia

Patrick Ball, Ethan Hee-Seok Shin and Hyerin Yang (2018). There may have been 14 undocumented Korean “comfort women” in Palembang, Indonesia. Human Rights Data Analysis Group. 26 December 2018.© 2018 HRDAG. Creative Commons.

Happy Hacking

From my first introduction to the HRDAG community at the annual retreat it was clear to me that mentorship is an organizational priority and that the contributions of interns are valued. Much of my first couple weeks as a summer intern at HRDAG were spent familiarizing myself with Patrick’s paradigm for principled data processing. At the same time, I was learning the skills and tricks (bash, make, vim, git) that promote an effortless programming workflow, a pursuit that Patrick calls “sharpening the saw” (just like in programming, you can cut down a tree with a dull blade, but your life will be much easier if you take the time to sharpen ...

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.

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How Pretrial Risk Assessment Tools Perpetuate Unfairness

South Africa

Bangladesh

Shots fired: Can technology really keep us safe from gunfire?

Data-Driven Efforts to Address Racial Inequality

Machine learning is being used to uncover the mass graves of Mexico’s missing

Reflections: HRDAG Was Born in Washington

PredPol amplifies racially biased policing

Civilian killings and disappearances during civil war in El Salvador (1980–1992)

Quantitative Data Analysis and Large-Scale Human Rights Violations: An Example of Applied Statistics at the Grassroots.

Film: Solving for X

Innocence Discovery Lab – Harnessing Large Language Models to Surface Data Buried in Wrongful Conviction Case Documents

The World According to Artificial Intelligence (Part 1)

New Study Argues War Deaths Are Often Overestimated

How many people disappeared on 17–19 May 2009 in Sri Lanka?

Drug-Related Killings in the Philippines

Measures of Fairness for New York City’s Supervised Release Risk Assessment Tool

There may have been 14 undocumented Korean “comfort women” in Palembang, Indonesia

Happy Hacking

New report published on 500 Tamils missing while in Army custody

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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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