Effective Command or Minor Aberrations: Statistical Analyses of Police Administrative Data Systems in Human Rights Cases from Chad and Guatemala

• Activity Number: 394
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Social Statistics Section
• Author(s): Romesh Silva and Daniel Guzman*+
• Companies: Benetech and University of California at Berkeley
• Keywords: human rights ; command responsibility ; administrative data

Abstract

This paper presents recent statistical analysis used in two expert reports for international human rights prosecutions: from Chad and Guatemala. Background on the cases is outlined and motivation for each of the analyses is presented. Both analyses draw on administrative data systems maintained by by law enforcement agencies in Chad and Guatemala. Each data source is described and the missing data challenges from Chad are noted, whereas the notable sampling challenges in Guatemala are presented. I discuss how these data were coded and managed to engage policy questions of command responsibility defined in international law. I present how analyses of document flow from superiors to subordinates (in the form of orders) and from subordinates to superiors (in the form of situation reports and other routine reporting) were used to examine whether political leaders and senior police officials had "command responsibility" over their units. We note lessons learned from both cases: focusing particularly on data visualization techniques used in Chad and sampling/inference methods used in Guatemala. We conclude by noting the current status of each case and suggest future research directions.