The NYPD's Compstat: Compare Statistics or Compose Statistics?

Abstract

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) introduced Compstat in 1994. Since then, the NYPD and many other law enforcement agencies which have adopted Compstat, have declared dramatic decreases in reported index crime. Indeed, in New York City the claim is that index crime has decreased over 76 per cent. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this research examines Compstat's managerial environment. Our main concern in this paper is examining the extent (if any) of pressures which managers believe they are exposed to at Compstat, as well as how those pressures might influence unethical crime reporting. Results indicate that managers perceive that they are subject to significantly greater pressure in the Compstat era especially, but not exclusively, with respect to decreasing index crime. Further, these pressures help explain unethical crime reporting in the Compstat era.