274 results for search: truth commissions/feed/content/colombia/copyright
Quantitative Research at the AHPN Guatemala
In early 2006 I joined the Historical Archive of the National Police (Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional, or AHPN) without knowing the impact it would have on my future. I started with cleaning, organizing and classifying documents—and learning, with other colleagues, what a historical archive is and how it works.
By April of that year, parallel to these learning processes, I was selected along with 20 other people to begin work on the challenging Quantitative Research project. I started as a "coder," transferring key content from documents into a database. (more…)
Datasets available for research
Over the last few years, we've tried to make the data organized in our projects publicly accessible. We have encouraged our partners to publish the data at the completion of the project. We continue to believe it is important to offer access to the data used in our projects for the sake of transparency as well as to encourage further research and analysis. However, we are increasingly concerned about how raw data are used. Data collected by what we can observe is what statisticians call a convenience sample, which is subject to selection bias.
We're keeping these datasets available for researchers who want to use them for simulation or estimation ...
Speaking Truth to Power in Chad
Our hearty congratulations to our partners at Human Rights Watch (HRW), Association des Victimes des Crimes du Régime de Hissène Habré (AVCRP), Association Tchadienne pour la Promotion et la Défense des Droits de l’Homme (PDDH), and the Fédération Internationale des ligues des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH) on today's launch of "La Plaine des mortes: Le Tchad des Hissène Habré, 1982-1990." This book chronicles the alleged human rights abuses of Hissène Habré, the president of Chad between 1982 and 1990. It is the culmination of more than 13 years of investigations, documentation and research focused on uncovering the nature of political ...
A Human Rights Statistician Finds Truth In Numbers
The tension started in the witness room. “You could feel the stress rolling off the walls in there,” Patrick Ball remembers. “I can remember realizing that this is why lawyers wear sport coats – you can’t see all the sweat on their arms and back.” He was, you could say, a little nervous to be cross-examined by Slobodan Milosevic.
Herb Spirer, 1925 – 2018
Herb led and mentored a generation of statisticians working in human rights.
Convenience Samples: What they are, and what they should (and should not) be used for
As noted on our Core Concepts page, we spend a lot of time worrying about the ways data are used to make claims about human rights violations. This is because inaccurate statistics can damage the credibility of human rights claims. Analyses of records of human rights violations are used to guide policy decisions, determine resource allocation for interventions, and inform transitional justice mechanisms. It is vital that such analyses are accurate.
Unfortunately, all too often these decisions are based, inappropriately, on analyses of a single convenience sample. (more…)
Criminality registration and measurement
Patrick Ball and Michael Reed Hurtado. 2016. El registro y la medición de la criminalidad. El problema de los datos faltantes y el uso de la ciencia para producir estimaciones en relación con el homicidio en Colombia, demostrado a partir de un ejemplo: el departamento de Antioquia (2003-2011). Revista Criminalidad, 58 (1): 9-23.
Patrick Ball and Michael Reed Hurtado. 2016. El registro y la medición de la criminalidad. El problema de los datos faltantes y el uso de la ciencia para producir estimaciones en relación con el homicidio en Colombia, demostrado a partir de un ejemplo: el departamento de Antioquia (2003-2011). Revista Criminalidad, 58 (1): 9-23. Criminality registration and measurement. The problem of missing data, and the use of science to produce estimations relating to homicide in Colombia, as demonstrated with an example from one of its administrative and political divisions: the Department of Antioquia (2003-2011).
Reflections: A Simple Plan
I got an email from my superheroic PhD adviser in June 2006: Would I be interested in relocating to Palo Alto for six months in order to work with Patrick Ball at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group? (She'd gotten a grant and would cover my stipend.) Since I'd spent the last several months in New Haven wrestling ineffectually with giant, brain-melting methodological problems, I said yes immediately.
The plan with my adviser was simple: I'd digitize the ancient, multiply-photocopied pages of data from the United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, combine them with two other datasets, match across all the records, and produce reliable ...
Timor-Leste FAQs
How do you know that there are more conflict-related deaths than have been reported to the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR, by its Portuguese acronym)?
Where did the method of multiple systems estimation come from?
If you didn't have access to the whole population, how do you know how representative these data are of the entire population? i.e. How do you control for bias?
What are the total conflict-related mortality numbers? How many people were killed and disappeared between 1974 and 1999? And how many people died due to hunger and illness?
What is the margin of error associated with these results?
What is ...
Press Release, Timor-Leste, February 2006
SILICON VALLEY GROUP USES TECHNOLOGY TO HELP THE TRUTH COMMISSION ANSWER DISPUTED QUESTIONS ABOUT MASSIVE POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN TIMOR-LESTE
Palo Alto, CA, February 9, 2006 – The Benetech® Initiative today released a statistical report detailing widespread and systematic violations in Timor-Leste during the period 1974-1999. Benetech's statistical analysis establishes that at least 102,800 (+/- 11,000) Timorese died as a result of the conflict. Approximately 18,600 (+/- 1000) Timorese were killed or disappeared, while the remainder died due to hunger and illness in excess of what would be expected due to peacetime mortality.
The magnitude of deaths ...
El Salvador
Some of the earliest large-scale human rights information projects happened in El Salvador. One was developed by Patrick Ball at the Salvadoran non-governmental Human Rights Commission, also known as Comision de Derechos Humanos de El Salvador (CDHES-ng). Between 1977 and 1990, more than 9,000 testimonies were taken in an effort to document the nature and scope of the bloody conflict between the army and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). Starting in 1991, Patrick worked with CDHES staff to organize the information in an early computer database. They linked reported human rights violations with the career structures of individual ...
Liberian TRC Data and Data Dictionary
The files linked on this page contain the data used in the calculations presented in Benetech's report to the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission entitled "Descriptive Statistics From Statements to the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission." In accordance with Benetech's Memorandum of Understanding with the TRC, these data are published on the Internet so that others can use the material to replicate our findings and continue research on past human rights violations in Liberia. In order to protect the privacy of the people who suffered, the information in the files below contains no personal identifying information about the victims or ...
New UN report counts 191,369 Syrian-war deaths — but the truth is probably much, much worse
Amanda Taub of Vox has interviewed HRDAG executive director about the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Right’s release of HRDAG’s third report on reported killings in the Syrian conflict.
From the article:
Patrick Ball, Executive Director of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group and one of the report's authors, explained to me that this new report is not a statistical estimate of the number of people killed in the conflict so far. Rather, it's an actual list of specific victims who have been identified by name, date, and location of death. (The report only tracked violent killings, not "excess mortality" deaths from from disease or ...
In Syria, Uncovering the Truth Behind a Number
Huffington Post Politics writer Matt Easton interviews Patrick Ball, executive director of HRDAG, about the latest enumeration of killings in Syria. As selection bias is increasing, it becomes harder to see it: we have the "appearance of perfect knowledge, when in fact the shape of that knowledge has not changed that much," says Patrick. "Technology is not a substitute for science."
Huffington Post Politics
Matt Easton
September 6, 2014
Link to story on HuffPostPol
Related blogpost (Updated Casualty Count for Syria)
Back to Press Room
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 ...
Newsletters
2025
24 June, 2025 - Breaking through the noise with evidence
20 March, 2025 - Focus on HRDAG’s US-based projects
2024
10 December, 2024 - Witnessing Syria on Human Rights Day
29 November, 2024 - Giving thanks
20 November, 2024 - We are resolute
22 October, 2024 - Gaining insights into wrongful convictions
9 October, 2024 - A new tool for tracking police misconduct
18 September, 2024 - Evaluating gunshot detection technology
18 June, 2024 - A Pulitzer for an HRDAG partner
1 March, 2024 - Citations with impact
2023
21 December, 2023 - Evaluating tools to weed out discrimination
15 December, 2023 - ...
The John Maddox Prize for Patrick Ball
Congratulations to Patrick on this well deserved award!
When Data Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
This blog is a part of International Justice Monitor’s technology for truth series, which focuses on the use of technology for evidence and features views from key proponents in the field.
As highlighted by other posts in this series, emerging technology is increasing the amount and type of information available, in some contexts, to criminal and other investigations. Much of what is produced by these emerging technologies (Facebook posts, tweets, YouTube videos, text messages) falls in the category we refer to as “found” data. By “found” data we mean data not generated for a specific investigation, but instead, that is generated for ...