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CompStat—or COMPSTAT, short for COMPuter STATistics, is a computerization and quantification program used by police departments. It was originally set up by the
New York City Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act i ...
in the 1990s. Variations of the program have since been used in police departments across the world. According to a 2022 podcast by Peter Moskos with John Yohe and Billy Gorta, the name CompStat was suggested by detective Richard Mahere for the computer file name of the original program to comply with
8.3 filename An 8.3 filename (also called a short filename or SFN) is a filename convention used by old versions of DOS and versions of Microsoft Windows prior to Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.5. It is also used in modern Microsoft operating systems as an altern ...
conventions, short for "COMParative STATistics" and "COMPuter STATistics".


Origins

CompStat was started under the direction of
Jack Maple Jack Maple (September 23, 1952 – August 4, 2001) was a New York City deputy police commissioner for crime control strategies. He created the CompStat methodology of crime fighting and law enforcement strategy. He coauthored the book ''The Crim ...
when he was a
transit police Transit police (also known as transport police, railway police, railroad police and several other terms) are specialized police agencies employed either by a common carrier (a transit district, railway, railroad, bus line, or any other mass tr ...
officer in New York City. The system was called Charts of the Future and was simple – it tracked crime through pins stuck in maps. Charts of the Future is credited with cutting subway crime by 27 percent. The original commanding officer of the Transit Police Crime Analysis Unit was Lieutenant Richard Vasconi. Chief of New York City Transit Police
William J. Bratton William Joseph Bratton CBE (born October 6, 1947) is an American law enforcement officer and businessman who served two terms as the New York City Police Commissioner (1994–1996 and 2014–2016). He previously served as the Commissioner of th ...
was later appointed police commissioner by
Rudolph Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 198 ...
, and he brought Maple's Charts of the Future with him. Maple eventually made the NYPD adopt it after it was rebranded as CompStat, and it was credited with helping to bringing down crime by around 60%. There was a CompStat meeting every month, and it was mandatory for police officials to attend. The year after CompStat was adopted, 1995, murders dropped to 1,181. By 2012, there were 417 murders—the lowest number since records start in 1964.


Operations


Weekly crime reports

On a weekly basis, personnel from each of the NYPD's 77 precincts, nine police service areas and 12 transit districts compile a statistical summary of the week's crime complaints, arrests and summons activity, as well as a written report of significant cases, crime patterns and police activities. This data, with specific crime and enforcement locations and times, is forwarded to the chief of the department's CompStat Unit, where information is collated and loaded into a citywide database. The unit runs computer analysis on the data and generates a weekly CompStat report. The report captures crime complaints and arrest activity at the precinct, patrol borough and citywide levels, presenting a summary of these and other important performance indicators. The data is presented on a week-to-date, prior 28 days and year-to-date basis, with comparisons to previous years' activity. Precinct commanders and members of the department's senior officers can easily discern emerging and established crime trends, as well as deviations and anomalies. With the report, department leadership can easily make comparisons between commands. Each precinct is also ranked in each complaint and arrest category.


Accountability

The CompStat program involves weekly crime control strategy meetings. These gatherings increase information flow between the agency's executives and the commanders of operational units, with particular emphasis on crime and quality of life enforcement information. In the department's vernacular, these briefings are referred to as CompStat ("computerized statistics") meetings, since many of the discussions are based upon the
statistical Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industr ...
analysis and
map A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
s contained within the weekly CompStat reports. These meetings and the information sharing they generate are an important part of Bratton's comprehensive, interactive management strategy: enhancing accountability by providing local commanders with considerable discretion and resources. The program also ensures that precinct commanders remain aware of crime and quality of life conditions within their areas of responsibility. By meeting frequently and discussing the department's ten crime and quality of life strategies, the initiatives are fully implemented throughout the agency. Precinct and other operational unit commanders use this forum to communicate with the agency's top executives and other commanders, sharing the problems they face and successful crime reduction tactics. The process allows top executives to monitor issues and activities within precincts and operational units, evaluating the skills and effectiveness of middle managers. By keeping abreast of situations "on the ground," departmental leaders can properly allocate resources to most effectively reduce crime and improve police performance. It is important to note that the weekly CompStat report and crime strategy meetings do not focus simply on enforcement of the seven major crimes comprising the FBI's
Uniform Crime Reports The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program compiles official data on crime in the United States, published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). UCR is "a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of nearly 18,000 city, university and c ...
(UCR) Index, but also capture data on the number of shooting incidents and shooting victims, as well as gun arrests. Summons and arrest activity are also captured.


In concert with broken windows theory

By arresting or issuing summonses to people who engage in minor violations and quality of life offenses — such as public drinking and public urination, panhandling, loud radios,
prostitution Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...
and disorderly conduct — ensures that those behaviors are deterred. As explained in the
Broken windows theory In criminology, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes. The theory suggests that po ...
, aggressive enforcement of all statutes has been claimed to restore a sense of order. By capturing enforcement data as reflected in summons and arrest activity, the department is better able to gauge its overall performance.


Commander profile reports

The CompStat Unit also develops and prepares commander profile reports. These weekly reports help executives scrutinize commanders' performance on a variety of important management variables. All profiles furnish information about the unit commander's appointment date and years in rank, the education and specialized training he or she has received, his or her most recent performance evaluation rating, and the units he or she previously commanded. Every profile also captures some non-crime statistics: the amount of overtime generated by members of the command, the number of department vehicle accidents, absence rates due to sick time and line-of-duty injuries, and the number of civilian complaints logged against members of the unit. Community demographics and information on the unit's personnel is also included. With this data, executives can monitor and assess how commanders motivate and manage their personnel resources and how well they address important management concerns. The commander profile also acts as a motivational tool; profile subjects are familiar with the criteria used to evaluate them—and their peers—enabling report subjects to monitor and compare their own success in meeting performance objectives with others' achievements.


Crime strategy meetings

Crime strategy meetings are convened twice weekly in the Command and Control Center, a high-tech conference facility at police headquarters. These meetings are attended by all commanders of precincts, police service areas, transit districts and other operational unit commanders within a given patrol borough, including the commanding officers and /or supervisors of precinct-based and specialized investigative units. Depending on their weekly crime statistics, every commander can expect to be called at random to make his or her Crime Strategy Meeting presentation approximately once a month. Also in attendance are representatives from the respective district attorney's offices, command personnel from the department's School Safety Division and a variety of other outside agencies involved in law enforcement activities, the Transit and Housing Bureau commanders whose jurisdictions lie within the patrol borough, the Crime Strategy Coordinators from other patrol boroughs, Internal Affairs Bureau personnel, and ranking officers from a variety of support and ancillary units (such as the Legal Bureau and Management Information Systems Division) which do not perform direct enforcement functions. This configuration of participants fosters a team approach to problem solving, and ensures that crime and quality of life problems identified at the meeting can be immediately discussed and quickly addressed through the development and implementation of creative and comprehensive solutions. Because ranking decision-makers are present at the meetings and can immediately commit their resources, the obstacles and delays which often occur in highly structured bureaucratic organizations also tend to be minimized. Among the Command and Control Center's high-tech capabilities is its computerized "pin mapping" which displays crime, arrest and quality of life data in a host of visual formats including comparative charts, graphs and tables. Through the use of geographic mapping software and other computer technology, for example, the CompStat database can be accessed and a precinct map depicting virtually any combination of crime and/or arrest locations, crime "hot spots" and other relevant information can be instantly projected on the Center's large video projection screens. Comparative charts, tables and graphs can also be projected simultaneously. These visual presentations are a useful and highly effective adjunct to the CompStat Report, since it permits precinct commanders and members of the Executive Staff to instantly identify and explore trends and patterns as well as solutions for crime and quality of life problems. During their presentation, members of the executive staff frequently ask commanders probing questions about crime and arrest activity as well as about specific cases and initiatives they have undertaken to reduce crime and enforce quality of life offenses. Commanders are expected to demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the crime and quality of life problems existing within their commands and to develop innovative and flexible tactics to address them. As noted above, the weekly COMPSTAT meetings are but one facet of the department's comprehensive system by which is monitored and used to evaluate the department's performance. There are also pre-COMPSTAT briefings convened at the local patrol borough level, Precinct Management Team meetings in each precinct and strategy evaluation projects conducted by ranking members of the department. In addition, the police commissioner meets with New York City's mayor on a weekly basis to brief them on the department's activities and performance. The police commissioner also provides the mayor with a formal report capturing much of the data contained within the CompStat Report. Finally, a great deal of the CompStat data and other indices of performance are provided to the public through inclusion in the Mayor's Management Report. This report and the preliminary report issued four months into the fiscal year provide detailed comparative data on the performance of every mayoral agency within city government. The process permits personnel at all levels to monitor and assess the effectiveness of their efforts and re-direct those efforts when necessary.


Technology

Because it often relies on underlying software tools, CompStat has sometimes been confused for a software program in itself. This is a fundamental misconception. CompStat often does, however, incorporate
crime mapping Crime mapping is used by analysts in law enforcement agencies to map, visualize, and analyze crime incident patterns. It is a key component of crime analysis and the CompStat policing strategy. Mapping crime, using Geographic Information System ...
systems and a commercial or internally developed
database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases ...
collection system. In some cases, police departments have started offering information to the public through their own websites. In other cases, police departments can either create their own
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
feed or use a third party to display data on a map. The largest of these is CrimeReports.com, used by thousands of agencies nationwide.


Impact

Research is mixed on whether CompStat had an impact on crime rates. A 2021 study found no evidence that CompStat had an impact on serious crime, but the study did find substantial evidence that the program led police to engage in substantial data manipulation. Some, such as
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
economist
Steven Levitt Steven David Levitt (born May 29, 1967) is an American economist and co-author of the best-selling book '' Freakonomics'' and its sequels (along with Stephen J. Dubner). Levitt was the winner of the 2003 John Bates Clark Medal for his work in th ...
, have argued that COMPSTAT's crime-reducing effects have been minor. The introduction of COMPSTAT happened alongside: * The training and deployment of around 5,000 new better-educated police officers * The integration of New York's housing and transit police into the New York Police Department * Police decision-making being devolved to precinct level * The clearing of a backlog of 50,000 unserved warrants * Robust "zero tolerance" campaign against petty crime and anti-social behavior under Mayor Giuliani and Police Commissioner
Bill Bratton William Joseph Bratton CBE (born October 6, 1947) is an American law enforcement officer and businessman who served two terms as the New York City Police Commissioner (1994–1996 and 2014–2016). He previously served as the Commissioner of th ...
* Widespread removal of
graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
* Programs that moved over 500,000 people into jobs from welfare at a time of economic buoyancy *
Housing vouchers A housing voucher is a voucher A voucher is a bond of the redeemable transaction type which is worth a certain monetary value and which may be spent only for specific reasons or on specific goods. Examples include housing, travel, and food vouch ...
to enable poor families to move to better neighborhoods *
Gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and planning. Gentrification often increases the ...
, displacement of lower income individuals more likely to commit crimes from gentrifying or gentrified communities * Demographic changes including a generation raised in the social welfare systems started in the 1970s and 1980s * End of the
crack epidemic The crack epidemic was a surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States throughout the entirety of the 1980s and the early 1990s. This resulted in a number of social consequences, such as increasing crime and violence in Amer ...
and a shift to a
marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various t ...
-based drug economy with a larger consumer base and less competition * Advances in
emergency medicine Emergency medicine is the Medical specialty, medical speciality concerned with the care of illnesses or Injury, injuries requiring immediate medical attention. Emergency physicians (often called “ER doctors” in the United States) continuous ...
allowing more victims to survive * A further reduction in the lead contaminants in the environment Another criticism of the COMPSTAT program is that it may discourage officers from taking crime reports in order to create a false appearance of a reduction of community problems. According to journalist
Radley Balko Radley Prescott Balko (born April 19, 1975) is an American journalist, author, blogger, and speaker who writes about criminal justice, the drug war, and civil liberties. In 2022, he began publishing his work on Substack after being let go from ...
, "some recent reports from New York City suggest the program needs some tweaking to guard against the twin dangers of unnecessary police harassment and underreporting of serious crimes." An anonymous survey of "hundreds of retired high-ranking police officials . . . found that tremendous pressure to reduce crime, year after year, prompted some supervisors and precinct commanders to distort crime statistics." Similarly, crimes may be reported but downplayed as less significant, to manipulate statistics. As an illustration, before a department begins using CompStat it might list 100 assaults as aggravated and 500 as simple assault. If there were a similar pattern of underlying criminal activity the next year, but instead 550 assaults are listed in CompStat as simple and 50 as aggravated, the system would report that progress had been made reducing major crimes when in fact, the only difference is in how they are reported. Manipulating reporting data may also negatively affect personnel and financial disbursement; communities whose improvements (on paper) show they need less resources could lose those resources—and still face the same amount of actual crime on the streets. Many of these negative effects in the possible weaknesses of the COMPSTAT system were dramatized in HBO's ''
The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...
'', as part of an overarching theme of systemic dysfunction in institutions. Indeed, " e of the central themes of the critically acclaimed HBO series . . . was the pressure
politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...
s put on police brass, who then apply it to the department’s middle management, to generate PR-friendly statistics about lowering crime and increasing arrests." In the show, this was referred to as "juking the stats". The issue was further publicized in 2010 when NYPD officer
Adrian Schoolcraft Adrian Schoolcraft (born 1976) is a former New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who secretly recorded police conversations from 2008 to 2009. He brought these tapes to NYPD investigators in October 2009 as evidence of corruption and w ...
released recordings of his superiors urging him to manipulate data. In 2014 Justice Quarterly published an article stating that there was statistical evidence of the NYPD manipulating CompStat data.

NYPD Captains Endowment Association
On June 24, 2020, the NYPD Captains Endowment Association president, Chris Monahan, wrote a letter to then NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea calling for the NYPD to end its use of COMPSTAT. His criticisms of COMPSTAT include dividing police and the community, particularly black and brown communities, and increasing the chances of officers engaging in street encounters. When Compstat was developed under then Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, high-ranking police officials widely incorporated the "stop, question and frisk". Statistically, no relationship between stop-and-frisk and crime seems apparent. A 2016 Brennan Center analysis showed part of New York remaining safer was the introduction of CompStat. CompStat detractors say it helped fuel harassment of hundreds of thousands of black and brown New Yorkers. Cities including Houston and Phoenix saw similar declines and attributed them mostly to
economic development In the economics study of the public sector, economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and ...
and
community policing Community policing, or community-oriented policing (COP), is a strategy of policing that focuses on developing relationships with community members. It is a philosophy of full-service policing that is highly personal, where an officer patrols ...
.


TrafficStat

The NYPD's TrafficStat was modeled after CompStat. TrafficStat tracks motor vehicle, bicyclist, and pedestrian crashes.


Examples of police departments that use CompStat


Canada

*
Halifax Regional Police The Halifax Regional Police (HRP) is one of a number of law enforcement agencies operating in the Halifax, Nova Scotia; the other primaries being the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Forces Military Police. The city also is home to a ...
*
Vancouver Police Department The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) (french: Service de police de Vancouver) is the police force for the City of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several police departments within the Metro Vancouver Area and is the second ...


United States

*
Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
, TX *
Baltimore, MD Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore wa ...
, where the system is called Citistat. In 2007, then Governor of Maryland
Martin O'Malley Martin Joseph O'Malley (born January 18, 1963) is an American lawyer and former politician who served as the 61st Governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he was Mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007. O'Malley ...
implemented Maryland StateStat, the first statewide performance management system based on CompStat. *
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
, CA *
Nashville, TN Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
*
New Haven, CT New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...
*
Oakland, CA Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...
*
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
, PA *
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
, CA *
San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan (, , ; Spanish for "Saint John") is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the ...
*
Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morg ...
*
Detroit, MI Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
*
New York, NY New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
where statistics are available to the public through th
NYPD CompStat 2.0 Website
*
Nampa, ID Nampa () is the largest city in Canyon County, Idaho. Its population was 100,200 at the time of the 2020 Census. It is Idaho's third-most populous city. Nampa is about west of Boise along Interstate 84, and six miles (10 km) west of Meridian. ...


In popular culture

* In the CBS TV series ''
The District ''The District'' is an American crime drama and police procedural television series which aired on CBS from October 7, 2000, to May 1, 2004. The show followed the work and personal life of the chief of Washington, D.C.'s police department. Pr ...
'', inspired by the real-life experience of former New York Deputy Police Commissioner Jack Maple, statistics clerk Ella Mae Farmer (played by
Lynne Thigpen Cherlynne Theresa Thigpen (December 22, 1948 – March 12, 2003) was an American actress of stage and screen. She was known for her role as "The Chief" of ACME Crimenet in the game show '' Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?'' and various spi ...
) was shown to be a wiz at using the system, which proved invaluable to the success of Washington, D.C. Police Chief Jack Mannion and to the department, and which contributed to her promotion from an obscure position located in an out-of-the-way office to Director of Administrative Services. * The system is shown in use in
Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore wa ...
, in ''
The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2 ...
'' on HBO, though in the show it is referred to as "ComStat". (Baltimore's real-life system is called Citistat.) * The podcast '' Reply All'' aired two episodes regarding CompStat, titled "The Crime Machine Part I" and "The Crime Machine Part II".


See also

*
Crime mapping Crime mapping is used by analysts in law enforcement agencies to map, visualize, and analyze crime incident patterns. It is a key component of crime analysis and the CompStat policing strategy. Mapping crime, using Geographic Information System ...


References


Further reading

*
Crime and Restoring Order: What America Can Learn from New York's Finest
by William J. Bratton
The Growth of CompStat in American Policing
By David Weisburd, Stephen D. Mastrofski, Rosann Greenspan, and James J. Willis
CompStat and Organizational Change in the Lowell Police Department

Steven Levitt's Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not



Ford Foundation Report: "Mapping Crime in Philadelphia" Winter 2001

COMPSTAT AND CITISTAT: SHOULD WORCESTER ADOPT THESE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES?


* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120921173032/http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/outreach/safedige/spring2000/spr00-11.html New York City TrafficStat


External links


How CompStat Began, an Interview with creator Jack Maple



Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, DC Crime Mapping

Philadelphia Police Department COMPSTAT





San Francisco CompStat
{{New York City Police Department Law enforcement techniques New York City Police Department Law enforcement databases in the United States Crime mapping Crime statistics