CompStat Models of Police Performance Management

Abstract

In the early 1990s, New York City, along with many other jurisdictions across the United States, were faced with burgeoning crime and a deteriorating quality of life, while the New York City Police Department (NYPD) simultaneously suffered from a lack of accountability and an opaque mission. In response to these challenges, the NYPD, then led by Police Commissioner William Bratton and assisted by his key strategist, Jack Maple, developed CompStat. CompStat, short for Computer Statistics, allowed the NYPD to geographically examine crime trends, define the agency’s mission with precision (i.e., to reduce violent crime), and hold middle-managers accountable for achieving this mission. Shortly after the NYPD’s introduction of CompStat, CompStat was quickly recognized as an effective tool in increasing a shared understanding of the police department’s mission, tactics to decrease violent crime, and promoting accountability within the police hierarchical management structure. This recognition resulted in rapid adoption of CompStat within the field of policing, to define and strive to achieve public safety goals and create an environment of middle-manager responsibility. CompStat also quickly began to serve as a model for performance management and accountability within criminal justice (e.g., within community supervision) and across the domain of government more broadly (e.g., across a municipality in CitiStat and other similar initiatives). CompStat continues to serve as one of the most commonly applied performance management platforms in policing with countless adoptions. CompStat, however, is not without criticisms and challenges. This multifaceted approach is reflected in the CompStat literature as well as in this bibliography. Sources of information pertain to CompStat’s General Overviews, Development, Theory, Applications, Commentary, Organization, Community Policing, Adoptions, and Future Directions. This bibliography provides context and references, in this order, related to CompStat.