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CompStat

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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 in the 1990s. Variations of the program have since been used in police departments across the world.[1] 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 conventions, short for "Comparative Statistics" and "Computer Statistics.".[2]

Origins

COMPSTAT is a management system created in April 1994 by Bill Bratton and Jack Maple, who Bratton met while serving as chief of the New York City Transit Police and hired him as the New York Police Department's top anti-crime specialist when he became Police Commissioner in 1993.[3]

COMPSTAT began as weekly meetings at One Police Plaza where officers were randomly selected from precincts and quizzed about crime trends in their districts and how to respond.[3] At the time, the NYPD collected crime statistics every 6 months; under threat of transfers, they began to collect information daily.[3] In February 1994, the department heads provided a hand count of major crimes in the first 6 weeks of 1993 and 1994.[4]

Maple drafted junior staffer John Yohe to modify an existing program to analyze the data.[3] COMPSTAT was named after a program called "compare stats".[4] It was originally ran on Informix's SmartWare desktop office system before being replaced by Microsoft's FoxPro database for business.[4] The Patrol Beureau's staff computerized the information provided by department heads and created the first 'CompStat' book, collating the information by precinct, patrol borough, and city.[4]

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.[5]

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.[5]

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.[5]

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 analysis and maps contained within the weekly CompStat reports.[5]

Impact

Research is mixed on whether CompStat had an impact on crime rates.[6] 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.[7]

Some, such as University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, have argued that COMPSTAT's crime-reducing effects have been minor.[8] 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
  • Widespread removal of graffiti
  • Programs that moved over 500,000 people into jobs from welfare at a time of economic buoyancy
  • Housing vouchers to enable poor families to move to better neighborhoods
  • Gentrification, 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 and a shift to a marijuana-based drug economy with a larger consumer base and less competition
  • Advances in emergency medicine 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.[9][10] According to journalist Radley Balko, "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."[11] 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."[12]

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 of the COMPSTAT system were dramatized in HBO's The Wire, as part of an overarching theme of systemic dysfunction in institutions.[13] Indeed, "[o]ne of the central themes of the critically acclaimed HBO series . . . was the pressure politicians 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."[14] In the show, this was referred to as "juking the stats".

The issue was further publicized in 2010 when NYPD officer Adrian Schoolcraft released recordings of his superiors urging him to manipulate data.[15][16][17]

In 2014 Justice Quarterly published an article stating that there was statistical evidence of the NYPD manipulating CompStat data.[18]

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. [19]

When Compstat was developed under then Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, high-ranking police officials widely incorporated the "stop, question and frisk".[20] 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.[21] 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 and community policing.[22]

TrafficStat

The NYPD's TrafficStat was modeled after CompStat. TrafficStat tracks motor vehicle, bicyclist, and pedestrian crashes.[23]

Examples of police departments that use CompStat

Canada

United States

  • In the CBS TV series The District, inspired by the real-life experience of former New York Deputy Police Commissioner Jack Maple, statistics clerk Ella Mae Farmer (played by Lynne Thigpen)[37] 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.[38]
  • The system is shown in use in Baltimore, Maryland, in The Wire on HBO, though in the show it is referred to as "ComStat". (Baltimore's real-life system is called Citistat.)[25]
  • The podcast Reply All aired two episodes regarding CompStat, titled "The Crime Machine Part I"[39] and "The Crime Machine Part II".[40]

See also

References

  1. ^ Didier, Emmanuel (2018-07-30). "Globalization of Quantitative Policing: Between Management and Statactivism". Annual Review of Sociology. 44 (1): 515–534. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053308. ISSN 0360-0572. S2CID 150164073.
  2. ^ Peter Moskos (2022-04-06). "Quality Policing Podcast" (Podcast). Retrieved 2022-12-08.
  3. ^ a b c d Smith, Chris (2018-03-02). "The Crime-Fighting Program That Changed New York Forever". New York Magazine.
  4. ^ a b c d Eterno, John A.; Silverman, Eli B. (2006). "The New York City Police Department's Compstat: Dream or Nightmare?". International Journal of Police Science & Management. 8 (3): 218–231. doi:10.1350/ijps.2006.8.3.218. ISSN 1461-3557.
  5. ^ a b c d Timoney, John F. Beat Cop to Top Cop : A Tale of Three Cities. ISBN 1-283-89641-9. OCLC 1303485421.
  6. ^ Didier, Emmanuel (2018-07-30). "Globalization of Quantitative Policing: Between Management and Statactivism". Annual Review of Sociology. 44 (1): 515–534. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-060116-053308. ISSN 0360-0572. S2CID 150164073.
  7. ^ Eckhouse, Laurel (2021). "Metrics Management and Bureaucratic Accountability: Evidence from Policing". American Journal of Political Science. 66 (2): 385–401. doi:10.1111/ajps.12661. ISSN 1540-5907. S2CID 243672885.
  8. ^ Steven D. Levitt. "Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not" (PDF). Pricetheory.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  9. ^ "Crime statistics doubts adding up". Nypdconfidential.com. 2003-06-30. Archived from the original on 2006-05-19. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  10. ^ "Village voice > news > Emergency Room Casualty Rates Shatter Mayor Bloomberg's Safe-City Boasts by Paul Moses". Archived from the original on August 11, 2007. Retrieved August 28, 2007.
  11. ^ Balko, Radley (2010-12-20) Beyond Bars, Reason
  12. ^ Chen, David (2010-02-08) Survey Raises Questions on Data-Driven Policy, The New York Times
  13. ^ Crime Stats From HBO to BSO Miami Herald, 1B, December 6, 2004.
  14. ^ Balko, Radley (2010-03-08) The Other Broken Windows Fallacy, Reason
  15. ^ Baker, Al; Rivera, Ray (10 September 2010). "Secret Tape Has Police Pressing Ticket Quotas". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  16. ^ Parascandola, Rocco (2010-09-11). "Cop in scandal: No fines, no jobs". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  17. ^ Colleen Long and Tom Hayes (October 9, 2010). "Cop who made tapes accuses NYPD of false arrest". Associated Press.
  18. ^ "Police Manipulations of Crime Reporting: Insiders' Revelations" (PDF). Justice Quarterly. Retrieved 8 June 2019.
  19. ^ Moore, Tina; McCarthy, Craig (June 24, 2020). "NYPD captains' union calls for end of CompStat program". New York Post. Retrieved June 24, 2020.
  20. ^ Naspretto, Ernie. "The real history of stop-and-frisk". nydailynews.com. Retrieved 2022-02-11.
  21. ^ "Ending New York's Stop-and-Frisk Did Not Increase Crime | Brennan Center for Justice". www.brennancenter.org. Retrieved 2022-02-11.
  22. ^ Smith, Chris (2018-03-02). "The Crime-Fighting Program That Changed New York Forever". Intelligencer. Retrieved 2022-02-11.
  23. ^ "New York City TrafficStat". NHTSA.gov. Archived from the original on 2012-09-21. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  24. ^ "Chief's Monthly Reports". City of Austin. Archived from the original on 2011-06-30. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
  25. ^ a b "Baltimore CitiStat". City of Baltimore. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
  26. ^ "COMPSTAT". The Los Angeles Police Department. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
  27. ^ "Nashville > Police Department > Chief of Police > Strategic Development > Crime Analysis". Nashville.gov. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  28. ^ Bass, Paul (2012-01-31). "CompStat Ramps Up". New Haven Independent. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  29. ^ "District-Based Investigations in Oakland: Rapid and Effective Responses to Robberies, Burglaries and Shootings" (PDF). The Bratton Group, LLC. 2013-05-01. Retrieved 2015-06-21.
  30. ^ "CompStat Process". Philadelphia Police Department. Archived from the original on March 10, 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
  31. ^ "SFPD CompStat". San Francisco Police Department. Archived from the original on 2010-04-08. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
  32. ^ Alvarez, Lizette (2011-06-20). "Murder Rate and Fear Rise in Puerto Rico". The New York Times.
  33. ^ "COMPSTAT". The Metropolitan Police Department Washington, DC. Retrieved 2010-04-24.[permanent dead link]
  34. ^ "Detroit Police Department takes data-driven approach to crime fighting". MLive. 2013-08-01.
  35. ^ "Crime Stats - COMPStat - NYPD". www1.nyc.gov. Retrieved 2018-08-19.
  36. ^ "Police: Crime decreasing in Nampa following change to CompStat policing". KTVB. 19 September 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-19.
  37. ^ "Lynne Thigpen Biography". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Retrieved February 18, 2016.[dead link]
  38. ^ "The District". TV.com. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  39. ^ "#127 The Crime Machine, Part I by Reply All". Gimlet Media. Retrieved 2018-10-12.
  40. ^ "#128 The Crime Machine, Part II by Reply All". Gimlet Media. Retrieved 2018-10-12.

Further reading

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