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CompStat
CompStat is a term that refers to comparative statistics or computer statistics. It is the systematic collection, analysis, and mapping of crime data and police performance measures toward addressing crime, while also holding police managers accountable for their own and their officers’ performance as measured by these data.
CompStat originated in 1994 at the New York City Police Department (NYPD) as a multilayered approach to reducing crime, improving quality of life, and establishing better accountability for personnel and resource management. A principal aim of CompStat was to engage NYPD’s precinct captains in employing problem-solving strategies and tactics to address neighborhood problems in their areas of command. As such, it represents a departure from conventional policing, which is characterized by organizational inflexibility, central authority, and limited discretion. Based on key features of community policing, problem solving, and broken windows theory, CompStat places the accountability for managing crime problems directly on the shoulders of a police organization’s mid-level managers (generally captains or commanders, depending on the agency’s size).
While critics argue the NYPD approach may not suit all agencies, CompStat-like programs were quickly adopted by agencies nationwide and abroad as a result of the NYPD’s highly publicized successes. This entry discusses the origins, expansion, premises and purposes, evaluation, current status, and future of this major tool for use in community policing and problem solving.
Origins
In 1994, William Bratton was appointed as the police commissioner for the NYPD and with the assistance of Deputy Chief Commissioner Jack Maple implemented CompStat. Four NYPD detectives are credited with creating the term as they were entering data onto a 5.25-inch floppy disk using a small business software package named SmartWare. The outdated computer operating system (known as DOS, for disk operating system) they were using restricted the officers to eight characters to name the file. One officer yelled out “CompStat,” and that in essence was the term’s humble beginnings. The implementation of CompStat as an organizational management tool and accountability system is credited to Jack Maple. He was a lieutenant in the New York transit authority police department when Bratton appointed him to deputy commissioner in 1994. Maple is credited by many as the architect of the department’s CompStat program, which placed accountability on precinct commanders to use crime statistics to examine problems at rigorous weekly meetings with the department’s top officials.
Bratton’s policing approach differed in many ways from other police leaders who under community policing models were decentralizing decision-making authority to patrol officers. Bratton identified precinct commanders as being better suited for the task of decision making because young officers were inexperienced at addressing many of the serious issues facing New York City. Prior to his appointment as head of the NYPD, Bratton was head of the city’s subway system, which under his leadership showed significant reductions in crime. That success led to his appointment as head of the NYPD by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who wanted the same reduction in crime throughout the city.
Overcoming Conventional Crime Fighting Methods
Prior to CompStat, NYPD generally had a three- to six-month delay in reporting crime statistics, which made it nearly impossible to provide officers with meaningful or timely analysis. NYPD’s precincts had the ability to perform crime analysis but did not do so systematically. Precinct captains simply did not consider the analysis of crime data or crime reduction as their principal responsibility. This was traditionally common among police departments across the nation, where reactive, incident-driven patrol was seen as more important and detective and patrol bureaus rarely communicated or collaborated.
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- Changing Agency Culture
- Agency Mission and Values, Changes in
- Community Policing, Discretionary Authority Under
- Community Policing: Resources, Time, and Finances in Support of
- Customer-Based Policing
- Decentralizing the Organization/Organizational Change
- Implementation of Community Policing
- Involving Local Businesses
- Learning Organization
- Measuring Officer Performance
- Officers’ Job Satisfaction
- Publicity Campaigns
- Recruiting for Quality and Diversity
- Roles, Chief Executives’
- Roles, First-Line Supervisors’
- Roles, Middle Managers’
- Roles, Officers’
- Strategic Planning
- Crime Analysis: Technologies and Techniques
- Evaluation and Assessment
- Foundations: Evolution of Community Policing and Problem Solving
- Broken Windows Theory
- Building Partnerships and Stakeholders
- Citizen Patrols
- Collaboration With Outside Agencies
- Community Cohesion and Empowerment
- Community Justice
- Community Policing and Problem Solving, Definition of
- Community Policing, Evolution of
- Community Policing: What It Is Not
- Community Prosecution
- Community, Definition of
- Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
- Directed Patrol, Studies of
- Evidence-Based Policing
- Fear of Crime
- Flint, Michigan, Experiment
- Foot Patrols
- Generations (Three) of Community Policing
- Intelligence-Led Policing
- International Community Policing
- Investigations, Community Policing Strategies for
- Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment
- Metropolitan Police Act of 1829
- Place-Based Policing
- Police Mission
- Police-Community Relations
- Policing, Three Eras of
- Predictive Policing
- Problem-Oriented Policing, Goldstein’s Development of
- Problem-Oriented Policing: Elements, Processes, Implications
- Problem-Solving Courts
- Problem-Solving Process (SARA)
- Problem, Definition of
- Restorative Justice
- Situational Crime Prevention
- Social Capital
- Team Policing
- Volunteers, Police Use of
- Wickersham Commission
- Future Considerations
- Public Safety Issues
- Supporting Legislation and National Organizations
- Center for Problem-Oriented Policing
- Community Oriented Policing Services, Office of
- Community Policing Consortium
- Executive Sessions on Policing
- Homeland Security
- National Center for Community Policing
- National Crime Prevention Council
- Neighborhood Associations
- Operation Weed and Seed
- Police Foundation
- Regional Community Policing Institutes
- Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994
- Training and Curriculum
- “What Works”—Selected Strategies and Initiatives
- Colleges and Universities, Community Policing Strategies for
- Domestic Violence, Community Policing Strategies for
- Drug Crimes, Community Policing Strategies for
- Elderly Victimization, Community Policing Strategies for
- Gang Crimes, Community Policing Strategies for
- Immigrant Populations, Community Policing Strategies for
- Immigration: Issues, Law, and Police Training
- Public Housing, Community Policing Strategies for
- Repeat Victimization, Community Policing Strategies for
- Rural Areas, Community Policing in
- School Violence and Safety, Community Policing Strategies for
- State Police/Patrol, Community Policing Strategies for
- Traffic Problems, Community Policing Strategies for
- Youthful Offenders, Community Policing Strategies for
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