Compstat process.

Managing, directing, and controlling a modern law enforcement organization is a complex and demanding job. It is not sufficient for the chief to merely control the budget and the daily operations of the most visible segment of government; rather, he also is expected to control the human phenomenon known as crime. (1)

How to control crime and disorder always has been a conundrum. Through the 1970s and 1980s, many criminologists posited that "collective 'root causes' like social injustice, racism, poverty [and economics] caused crime. [These implications suggested that] crime could only be prevented if society itself were radically changed ... [therefore,] when it came to preventing (and thus reducing crime), police did not really matter." (2)

The fact is, however, that the police do matter when it comes to preventing crime and keeping communities safe, despite many criminologists' academic explanations that they can do little to prevent crime and restore order. With some reorganization, law enforcement executives can put into practice one of the most innovative, deceptively simple, and economical means to controlling crime and disorder--a management process known as Compstat. (3)

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The Compstat process, pioneered by former New York City police commissioner William Bratton and his management team after he assumed command in January 1994, "is based on the principle that by controlling serious crime, police are better poised to maintain order and solve other community problems in the promotion of public safety." (4) The Compstat model stands as a classic example of how reengineering (5) processes within a bureaucracy can produce significant public safety gains.

The essence of the Compstat process is to "collect, analyze, and map crime data and other essential police performance measures on a regular basis and hold police managers accountable for their performance as measured by these data." (6) This also reflects a larger overall paradigm: accountability and discretion at all levels of the organization. By creating a management structure that keeps everyone focused on the core mission, officers and executives alike can shed the cloak of cynicism that often comes from trying to do a job whose requirements sometimes are in irreconcilable conflict. (7)

Most of all, "Compstat is not just for the huge departments. Any size department--10-officer, 25-officer--can benefit from the Compstat process. The police can make a difference. The police do make a difference. The police must make a difference. Compstat is how." (8) To fully explore this concept, the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin presents this article in three parts. The first part concentrates on four crime-reduction principles that create the framework for the Compstat process.

THE PRINCIPLES

Compstat, a strategic crime-control technique, centers around four crime-reduction principles: accurate and timely intelligence, effective tactics, rapid deployment of personnel and resources, and relentless follow-up and assessment. (9) As an agency reengineers to support Compstat, the chief and his executive managers must set specific objectives, driven by these four principles. "This is important because establishing specific objectives sends a powerful message to all [levels of the organization]; the message indicates what the department determines worthy of focus and attention." (10) Specific objectives could include reducing gang-related homicides. ATM robberies, and disorderly youth in and around a shopping mall, along with several others. For example, the New York City Police Department developed 10 specific objectives that drove its crime reductions. (11) Once an agency sets the objectives, it can use Compstat to ensure that accountability is fixed and the desired results are achieved. (12)

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Accurate and Timely Intelligence

Compstat, an information-driven managerial process, depends on accurate and timely in telligence. Without this, it would be seriously diluted, as would any other meaningful managerial process. The basic information necessary for prudent, informed decisions by department executives can come from a variety of sources, such as calls for service, field interview reports, prisoner debriefings, incident reports, and FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) records, with UCR reports and calls for service constituting the two most common.

Accurate intelligence reflects what actually occurred at a given time and place. Supervisory inspection and approval can authenticate accuracy. Supervisors usually review and approve all written documents before they become official records. For example, with incident reports that serve as the basis for UCR, a supervisor usually reviews and reclassifies them, when necessary, before submitting them to the FBI (e.g., reclassifying a burglary to a theft). (13) This quality control mechanism ensures that the department possesses accurate crime reports before publishing or acting upon them.

In the case of calls for service, a field or communications supervisor compares the disposition (e.g., no cause) with the actual call classification (e.g., shots fired) and may reclassify the call if investigation determines that the initial call differs from what responding officers actually discovered (e.g., a call for shots fired reclassified to youngsters playing with fireworks). Another way to ensure that the department operates on accurate intelligence involves independent corroboration. Officers and detectives always must independently corroborate the information they receive. The personal observations of experienced, well-trained officers will confirm or dispel information gleaned from police reports and calls for service. Independent corroboration also will confirm or dispel rumors, community rhetoric, and anecdotal information that so often become "fact" because of misunderstandings or misinterpretations of events or statements.

Information tends to go stale rather quickly. Timely, or "real-time," intelligence is the most current information available, being collected and acted upon as near to the occurrence of the event as possible. Real-time data generation occurs when officers in the field write reports and submit them electronically, such as via wireless mobile data computers (MDC), where they are stored immediately and become instantly retrievable. This enables decision makers (e.g., commanding officers and executive staff) to view crime data as near to the time it happened as possible and respond swiftly and certainly. (14)

Many departments do not have the capability to submit reports via MDC. They must rely on information at least a few days or, in most cases, a week old. Of course, responding to week-old crime data is slightly less advantageous, particularly because the crime phenomenon is dynamic; however, agencies still can successfully deploy around such data. Crime trends and patterns rely on historical information; in fact, the more data, the better the analysis. But, for purposes of correcting daily conditions, commanders will fare well if they reflect on that week-old information because the same criminals and the same antecedents inevitably will be present when the commanders deploy their counterstrategy.

Effective Tactics

"Nobody ever got in trouble because crime numbers on their watch went up ... trouble arose only if the commanders didn't know why the numbers were up or didn't have a plan to address the problems." (15) Once commanders receive accurate and timely intelligence, they must develop and implement a plan of action and devise effective tactics that deal with as much of the problem as possible. They cannot simply issue a directed patrol order because the likelihood of such action abating a particular problem is small. For example, when faced with drug sales emanating from a 24-hour fast-food restaurant, commanders could augment the directed patrol strategy with undercover operations, such as buy-bust initiatives and street surveillance, as well as inspections from the code enforcement, fire, and health departments. If the problem persisted, then they could seek civil enforcement (permanently closing the establishment after identifying it as a nuisance) through the city's corporation counsel. Finally, the police department, via the municipal council, could pursue legislation to regulate 24-hour establishments more stringently, such as mandating specific closing times.

For tactics to be effective, commanders must direct specific resources toward specific problems. An array of city, county, state, and federal resources exists to help commanders accomplish their goals (see Specific Resources for Specific Problems chart).

Whatever strategies commanders eventually devise. Compstat can provide the impetus for creative mind-mapping sessions where they can develop responses and gather and commit resources. By having commanders commit their resources, no delay arises and no excuse exists for not developing effective tactics. Compstat breeds this integrated approach, which reflects a departure from the traditional model of policing where most elements of the department operate independently (see Traditional Model Versus Performance Model chart).

Devising effective tactics becomes the point in the Compstat process where accountability attaches. If commanders fail to act, they risk being derelict in their duties or, worse, insubordinate. Large agencies may replace them for failing to act. However, smaller ones, with a restricted number of command-rank personnel, may use alternatives to compel commanders' participation, such as--

* holding one commander to task for a longer period of time during a Compstat meeting by asking an extensive number of probing questions to accelerate the learning curve and underline the criticality of the process;

* rewarding minimal success, at first, as a positive reinforcer until the commander becomes more deeply involved in the process and energized by the satisfaction that comes with success;

* being stern and finding other ways to communicate displeasure with performance without verbally assaulting or insulting the commander;

* working with a commander's subordinates to get the job done, in the event that the commander exhibits reluctance initially to get involved (being bypassed tends to send an urgent [and embarrassing] message);

* seeing that subordinates become invested in the process, with or without the commander, because this will motivate the commander to become involved as a way to reassert command and control;

* speaking in relatively harsh tones without demeaning the individual, addressing criticism directly to performance or behavior rather than to the personal qualities of the individual (this being the only way, for some personalities, to change the person's level of involvement); or

* demonstrating that the jurisdiction is receiving a lot of praise for its new actions to convince a commander that if he does not participate, promotion or other desirable positions will not be an option. (16)

One final and important word about accountability--the essence of the Compstat process is results. Accountability must be affixed to achieve results; however, when the "dots on the map" disappear, the inevitable result is fewer crimes. In this respect, the true measure of success becomes the absence of crime. The results commanders derive emanate directly from their leadership. Strong-willed commitment from commanders to empower personnel with the authority and discretion to carry out a problem-solving effort and the fortitude to reward creative risk taking, even when mistakes occur, will yield positive gains. Commanders should give their subordinates the benefit of the doubt. If it turns out that some employees made a mistake, there will be time to hold them accountable. But, if commanders abandon them at the first accusation, and they later are exonerated, the commanders will never "wash away the smell of betrayal." They will have lost the trust of those employees and of those who never have been accused of making a mistake. Standing behind their subordinates is critical to morale, not just for the employees but for the enterprise as well. (17)

Additionally, commanders should not consider their mistakes as failures per se. They should remember that "a mistake is just another way of doing things. The word failure carries with it finality, the absence of movement characteristic of a dead thing, to which the automatic human reaction is helpless discouragement. But, for the successful leader, [mistakes are] the beginning, the springboard to hope." (18)

Rapid Deployment of Personnel and Resources

Once commanders identify appropriate means and develop suitable strategies, they must rapidly deploy their personnel and resources. This may include adjusting work schedules, if permitted, to meet the demands. In some instances, restrictive labor agreements do not permit changing officers' work schedules as quickly or as frequently as may be needed. The least attractive solution to this problem involves paying overtime to counter the crime issue. While fine for short-term strategies, overtime funds, however, usually are scarce and limited. Moreover, appropriations probably never reach a level that an agency could sustain over a long period of time.

The split-force patrol concept offers one effective solution to restrictive labor agreements. "Under the split-force concept, one part of the patrol force is assigned to respond to calls for service, investigate crimes, and perform other assigned duties. Another part of the patrol force is held in reserve for the express purpose of conducting preventive patrol. [Instances may arise when the second portion of the patrol force must answer calls for service; however,] the primary intent is for one portion of the patrol force to be devoted exclusively to preventive patrol." (19)

Generally, assigning two-thirds of the force to answer calls for service while one-third remains on proactive patrol provides a workable solution. "The primary advantage of split-force patrol is that it allows more attention to be devoted to preventive patrol activities and that officers are assigned this function as a primary responsibility." (20) The commander now has a sufficient number of personnel unencumbered by the constant demands of the dispatcher. The proactive personnel can focus on the commander's obligations derived from Compstat, and the commander knows exactly who to hold accountable for the outcomes. The split-force patrol concept has received favorable results because it increases calls-for-service response productivity, enhances the arrest-related effectiveness of the patrol force, and results in improved police professionalism and accountability. (21)

To gain the upper hand, commanders need to set their plan in motion rapidly and decisively, for the next Compstat meeting is only 1 week away. At that time, commanders will have to provide an update on their progress toward alleviating the problem.

Relentless Follow-Up and Assessment

Many who practice Compstat consider the last crime-reduction principle, relentless follow-up and assessment, the most onerous and time-consuming--also, the most important. It is foolish for commanders to design and implement an action plan and trust that others have carried it out without witnessing the results firsthand. Commanders cannot expect if they do not inspect. Periodic follow-up to orders acts as an early warning to detect problems that may arise, thereby enabling commanders to make adjustments.

Most of all, commanders must discern whether the solution met the intended goals. If not, why not? Commanders should not wait until the day before the next Compstat meeting to check with the supervisors tasked with implementing the action plan. Instead, within a few days of executing the plan, commanders should know whether the treatment has achieved the intended results (output and outcome).

If applied properly, the "output" should be linked to the "outcome." That is, if drug sales from a 24-hour fast-food restaurant are the problem, then effecting arrests and issuing summonses (output) in and around the restaurant should solve the problem (outcome). This reveals why conducting relentless follow-up and assessment proves essential: it establishes if the treatment (output) achieved the desired result (outcome). Other outcome measures include the ratio of calls handled per officer (including the possibility that excessive individual sick time might adversely affect collective performance) and response time (taking into account that at-fault and contributory accidents might adversely affect patrol car availability, also known as the serviceability factor). "Managers need to monitor decision implementation to be sure that things are progressing as planned and that the problem that triggered the decision-making process has been resolved." (22) According to the New York City Police Department, some of the follow-up methods commanders can use include--

* touring the confines of their precinct (e.g., "management by walking around");

* reviewing incident reports, as well as the "Unusual Incident Report," on a daily basis;

* talking often with uniformed personnel about the issues;

* speaking frequently with the precinct detective squad supervisor and the detectives about conditions and their investigations; and

* analyzing the Compstat reports for individual performance and performance compared with other precincts, as well as trends and patterns. (23)

To ensure that commanders conduct this follow-up, a scribe takes copious notes during each Compstat meeting and, at the following session, reports on what issues required attention. The affected commanders receive these notes the day after the meeting and must follow up on the outstanding issues. During the next Compstat meeting, the facilitator opens the session by asking these commanders what they have done to alleviate the problem or correct the condition. The commanders must show what they have done (the tactics, the deployment, and the investigative follow-up) to abate the matter and expound upon the results. Figure 1 summarizes Compstat's crime-reduction principles and how each successive principle flows from the preceding one.

CONCLUSION

The Compstat process creates a management structure that can help law enforcement agencies control crime and disorder in their communities. Next month, the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin will feature the second part of this article. In it, the author will address the design of the Compstat model, including such administrative details as required attendees, facility arrangement, and, most important, data collection, analysis, and presentation.

Specific Sources for Specific Problems

    Local          County                 State         Federal

Housing Authority  County Police          State Police  Coast Guard
Sanitation/Public  Prosecutor's/District  Attorney      FBI, DEA, ATF,
Works Department   Attorney's Office      General's     IRS, INS, EPA
                                          Office
Health and         County Sheriff's       Department    Marshal's
Human Services     Office                 of            Service
                                          Corrections
                                          (DOC)
Code Enforcement   Traffic Engineering    National      Customs Service
                                          Guard
Parks and          Welfare (Public        Probation     Social Security
Recreation         Assistance)            Department    Administration
Department
Public             Substance Abuse/       Alcoholic     Postal
Utilities Company  Mental Health/AIDS     Beverage      Inspectors/
                                          Control       Postal Service
                                          (ABC)
Fire Department    Homeless Outreach      Division of   Secret Service
                                          Parole
Board of           Public Works           Department    U.S. Attorney's
Education          Department             of Community  Office
                                          Affairs
Economic           Division of Youth      Division of   Bureau of
Development        Services               Motor         Prisons
Corp.                                     Vehicles
                                          (DMV)

Traditional Model           Versus  Performance Model

Output                              Outcome
Incidents                           Problems
Summary results                     Feedback
Reaction                            Prevention
Control of serious crime            Public safety
Accountability for rules            Accountability for problems solved
Individual attribute-based          Unit or agency performance
performance evaluation              management
Intuition                           Data
Isolation                           Integration

Source: P.P. McDonald. Managing Police Operations: Implementing the New
York Crime Control Model--Compstat (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002),
78-82.

Endnotes

(1) For illustrative purposes and to maintain clarity, the author refers to the leaders of law enforcement organizations as chiefs and employs masculine pronouns for these individuals, as well as other command-level personnel, throughout the article as needed.

(2) G.L. Kelling and William H. Sousa, Jr., The Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute, Civic Report 22, "Do Police Matter? An Analysis of the Impact of New York City's Police Reforms" (New York, NY, 2001), 1-2; retrieved on May 4, 2003, from http://www.manhattaninstitute.org/html/cr_22.htm. 2003. The findings of this study concluded that 1) "broken windows" policing is linked significantly and consistently to declines in violent crime; 2) over 60,000 violent crimes were prevented in New York City from 1989 to 1998 because of "broken windows" policing; 3) changes in the number of young men of high school age were not associated with a decline in violent crime; 4) decreasing use of crack cocaine also was not associated with a decline in violence; 5) other changes in police tactics and strategy also may be responsible for some of the city's drop in crime; and 6) as implemented by the New York City Police Department, "broken windows" policing is not the rote and mindless "zero tolerance" approach that critics often contend that it is. Case studies show that police vary their approach to quality-of-life crimes, from citation and arrest on one extreme to warnings and reminders on the other, depending on the circumstances of the offense.

(3) Compstat is known by many names throughout the policing industry. The New York City Police Department coined the term Compstat, which stands for COMPuter STATistics. Other terms include ComStat (Command Status) in Newark and FastTrack, formerly in Los Angeles.

(4) P.P. McDonald, Managing Police Operations: Implementing the New York Crime Control Model--Compstat (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002).

(5) Michael Hammer and James Champy, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (New York, NY: Harper Business. 1993). This work defines five ideals that characterize business reengineering. An agency introducing Compstat likely will find these principles necessary to support the process: 1) a focus on a revolutionary, rather than an evolutionary, approach, or an abandonment of "outdated" assumptions; 2) a dramatic change in the shape of the program, instead of less painful incremental improvements; 3) a radical redesign, or disregarding existing structures and inventing new ways of accomplishing work; 4) a shift to process-oriented thinking and away from task-based policies; and 5) the use of information/technology as an enabler to allow an organization to do its work in a radically different way.

(6) Philadelphia Police Department, The Compstat Process (Philadelphia, PA, 2003); retrieved on May 6, 2003, from http://www.ppdonline.org/ppd_compstat.htm.

(7) G.L. Kelling, "How to Run a Police Department," City Journal 5, no. 4 (Autumn 1995).

(8) Ed Sanow, "Compstat, the Real Cops on the Dots," Law and Order, August 2003, 4 (emphasis added).

(9) New York City Police Department, "The Compstat Process" (New York, NY, 1994, unpublished document BM 754).

(10) Supra note 4, 8; and John M. Bryson, Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement (San Franciseo, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1995), 30. Bryson describes how to identify strategic issues, both internally and externally, that threaten the organization.

(11) V.E. Henry, The Compstat Paradigm: Management Accountability in Policing, Business and the Public Sector (New York, NY: Looseleaf Law Publications, 2002), 227. See also http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/chfdept/strategies.html.

(12) One of the most effective and efficient ways to determine what the strategic objectives should be is to undergo a simple environmental assessment (i.e., SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats). To learn about SWOT analysis, see supra note 10 (Bryson).

(13) The definition of a particular crime differs between the national UCR program and an individual state's criminal code. Most police departments investigate a crime based upon the state-provided definition offered in the criminal code. The UCR definition may differ significantly; therefore, for deployment and investigative purposes, the state's definition should supercede the administrative definition offered by UCR.

(14) A wireless records-management environment provides commanders access to current data that they could not get from any other source. Real-time data contain dynamic information of events that concern the police; hard-copy Compstat reports usually are a week or more old, but, nonetheless, contain useful information for commanders. Used effectively, real-time data enable commanders to become actively involved in their crime-control efforts and to assume a leadership role while exploring trends and correlations and identifying connections.

(15) Jack Maple with Chris Mitchell, The Crime Fighter: Putting the Bad Guys Out of Business (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1999).

(16) Supra note 4, 15.

(17) R. W. Guiliani, Leadership (New York, NY: Talk Miramax Books-Hyperion, 2002).

(18) W. Bennis and Burt Nanus, Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1997).

(19) C.D. Hale, Police Patrol: Operations and Management (New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1981). For further evaluation of the split-force patrol concept, see James T. Nolan and Laurie Solomon, "An Alternative Approach in Police Patrol: The Wilmington Split-Force Experiment," The Police Chief, November 1977, 58-64; and James M. Tien et al., Public System Evaluation, Inc., An Evaluation Report of an Alternative Approach in Police Patrol: The Wilmington Split-Force Experiment (Cambridge, MA, 1977).

(20) Supra note 19, 122.

(21) Supra note 19 (Hale), 122.

(22) K.M. Bartol and David C. Martin, Management (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1991), 272.

(23) R.W. Guiliani and Howard Safir, New York City Police Department, Compstat: Leadership in Action (New York, NY, 1998).

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The author thanks his friend and colleague Chief Anthony F. Ambrose of the Newark, New Jersey, Police Department for his inspiration and insight concerning this article.