The case of Ana Lucrecia Orellana Stormont

When working with documents in an archive, every document offers the opportunity for statistical study and quantitative research. But a document can also offer the discovery of a story. That is the case with the disappearance of Ana Lucrecia Orellana Stormont, who was reported missing on June 6, 1983, at the age of 35. Ana Lucrecia, a professor of psychology at the University of San Carlos, was scheduled to attend a meeting with Edgar Raúl Rivas Rodríguez at the Plaza Hotel in Guatemala’s capital city. Edgar, who also went missing, was a teacher at the School of Political Science at the University. (Ana Lucrecia’s case is explained more fully ...

Training with HRDAG: Rules for Organizing Data and More

I had the pleasure of working with Patrick Ball at the HRDAG office in San Francisco for a week during summer 2016. I knew Patrick from two workshops he previously hosted at the University of Washington’s Centre for Human Rights (UWCHR). The workshops were indispensable to us at UWCHR as we worked to publish a number of datasets on human rights violations during the El Salvador Civil War. The training was all the more helpful because the HRDAG team was so familiar with the data. As part of an impressive career which took him from Ethiopia and Kosovo to Haiti and El Salvador among others, Patrick himself had worked on gathering and analysing ...

In Solidarity

We stand with our partners and every organizer fighting for justice.

String matching for governorate information in unstructured text

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The Demography of Large-Scale Human Rights Atrocities: Integrating demographic and statistical analysis into post-conflicthistorical clarification in Timor-Leste.

Romesh Silva and Patrick Ball. “The Demography of Large-Scale Human Rights Atrocities: Integrating demographic and statistical analysis into post-conflicthistorical clarification in Timor-Leste.” Paper presented at the 2006 meetings of the Population Association of America.

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.

State Violence in Guatemala, 1960-1996: A Quantitative Reflection

Patrick Ball, Paul Kobrak, Herbert F. Spirer. State Violence in Guatemala, 1960-1996: A Quantitative Reflection. © 1999 American Association for the Advancement of Science. [pdf – english] [pdf – español]

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.

Sierra Leone Statistical Appendix

Richard Conibere, Jana Asher, Kristen Cibella, Jana Dudukovic, Rafe Kaplan, and Patrick Ball. Sierra Leone Statistical Appendix, A Report by the Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group and the American Bar Association Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. October 5, 2004.

How Many Peruvians Have Died?

Preliminary Statistical Analysis of AVCRP & DDS Documents – A report to Human Rights Watch about Chad under the government of Hissène Habré

Miguel Cruz, Kristen Cibelli, and Jana Dudukovic. “Preliminary Statistical Analysis of AVCRP & DDS Documents – A report to Human Rights Watch about Chad under the government of Hissène Habré”. Benetech. November 4, 2003.

Killings and Refugee Flow in Kosovo, March–June, 1999 (A report to ICTY).

Patrick Ball, Wendy Betts, Fritz Scheuren, Jana Dudukovic, and Jana Asher. Killings and Refugee Flow in Kosovo, March–June, 1999 (A report to ICTY). © 2002 American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Bar Association Central and East European Law Initiative. [full text]

Corrigendum: Killings and Refugee Flow in Kosovo, March–June, 1999 (A report to ICTY)

Justice Unknown, Justice Unsatisfied? Bosnian NGOs Speak about the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Kristen Cibelli and Tamy Guberek. “Justice Unknown, Justice Unsatisfied? Bosnian NGOs Speak about the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.” A project of Education and Public Inquiry and International Citizenship at Tufts University. December, 2000.

Guatemala Memory of Silence: Report of the Commission for Historical Clarification Conclusions and Recommendations

Tech Corner

The HRDAG Tech Corner is where we collect the deeper and geekier content that we create for the website. You can browse by Category or scroll to view find all articles listed.

IRR: Agreement Among Coders is Key

For years I have been engaged in a quantitative study at Guatemala’s Historic Archive of the National Police, or AHPN. (See the blogposts below.) In this study coders collect data on sheets of paper according to criteria established and explained in manuals. But when collecting data, there’s always room for human error—this is why the validity of the study hinges on verifying that coders use the correct criteria. It is important to mention that the mainstay of coding is the use of a controlled vocabulary. A controlled vocabulary gives analysts a framework, or frame of reference, when converting qualitative information into categories ...

The John Maddox Prize for Patrick Ball

Congratulations to Patrick on this well deserved award!

A geeky deep-dive: database deduplication to identify victims of human rights violations

In our work, we merge many databases to figure out how many people have been killed in violent conflict. Merging is a lot harder than you might think. Many of the database records refer to the same people--the records are duplicated. We want to identify and link all the records that refer to the same victims so that each victim is counted only once, and so that we can use the structure of overlapping records to do multiple systems estimation. Merging records that refer to the same person is called entity resolution, database deduplication, or record linkage. For definitive overviews of the field, see Scheuren, Herzog, and Winkler, Data Quality ...

Existe la posibilidad de que no se estén documentando todos los asesinatos contra líderes sociales

En ocasiones, las discusiones sobre ese fenómeno se centran más sobre cuál es la cifra real, mientras que el diagnóstico es el mismo: en las regiones la violencia no cede y no se avizoran políticas efectivas para ponerle fin. En medio de este complejo panorama, el Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justicia y Sociedad (Dejusticia) y el Human Rights Data Analysis Group, publicaron este miércoles la investigación Asesinatos de líderes sociales en Colombia en 2016–2017: una estimación del universo.

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The case of Ana Lucrecia Orellana Stormont

Training with HRDAG: Rules for Organizing Data and More

In Solidarity

String matching for governorate information in unstructured text

The Demography of Large-Scale Human Rights Atrocities: Integrating demographic and statistical analysis into post-conflicthistorical clarification in Timor-Leste.

The Profile of Human Rights Violations in Timor-Leste, 1974-1999

State Violence in Guatemala, 1960-1996: A Quantitative Reflection

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

Sierra Leone Statistical Appendix

How Many Peruvians Have Died?

Preliminary Statistical Analysis of AVCRP & DDS Documents – A report to Human Rights Watch about Chad under the government of Hissène Habré

Killings and Refugee Flow in Kosovo, March–June, 1999 (A report to ICTY).

Corrigendum: Killings and Refugee Flow in Kosovo, March–June, 1999 (A report to ICTY)

Justice Unknown, Justice Unsatisfied? Bosnian NGOs Speak about the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Guatemala Memory of Silence: Report of the Commission for Historical Clarification Conclusions and Recommendations

Tech Corner

IRR: Agreement Among Coders is Key

The John Maddox Prize for Patrick Ball

A geeky deep-dive: database deduplication to identify victims of human rights violations

Existe la posibilidad de que no se estén documentando todos los asesinatos contra líderes sociales

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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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