Talk:CompStat

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Untitled[edit]

I have merged the COMPSTAT article with this CompStat article and updated links so that all to go to this article. There is debate among law enforcement agencies, as to whether it's COMPSTAT, CompStat, COMSTAT, etc. The New York Police Department website [1] inconsistently uses both COMPSTAT and CompStat. --Aude 00:36, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I must point out in protest that this article is far too critical of CompStat. More objective review of this article should be in order. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.187.40.157 (talk • contribs) .

Thanks for the comments. I have to agree with you. We definitely welcome you to contribute to the article and make it more Neutral. You may edit from your IP address, though there are benefits to creating an account for editing. --Aude 20:06, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Was the point of merging the 2 articles to make it so boring that no one would be interested in even reading it: It's verbose, has no quick summary and lacks any analysis. What criticism that existed has been excised and replaced with the apparent refrain (and almost whiny), "this article is far too critical" in the discussion section. Well, criticism is a part of being objective. Don't mistake objectivity with blandness.

When someone criticizes CompStat to the point of making it look like all it's about is gathering a few meaningless statistics and asserting that it probably had nothing to do with NYC's 70% decline in violent crime in the 1990's, then sorry, that's not "objectivity," it's espousing a point-of-view that is not by any stretch of the imagination backed by facts. (Generally, the critics tend to be Guiliani haters who still can't come to terms with the fact that even an arrogant jerk like Rudy was able to do a great job cleaning house. Keep your political views out of your "objectivity" in the future.)
Not to mention the idiocy of the criticism: 1) The training and deployment of around 5,000 new better-educated police officers -- the deployment of those 5,000 new police officers was based upon the crime statistics gathered through CompStat. 5,000 cops aren't just thrown anywhere, they get sent to the high crime precincts and get sent on patrol in the problem areas of said precincts.

2) Police decision-making being devolved to precinct level -- This is precisely what CompStat is all about - holding precinct commanders accountable! I'm not sure how this critic/"scholar" turned that one into an argument against CompStat.

Consider the alternative to Compstat: Compstat is about measuring. It's true that whenever we measure something (measure crimes, sit in a room and take an algebra test, measure which horse is in the lead crossing the finish line), SOMEBODY is going to try to cheat. But the alternative to Compstat is not measuring anything at all. How is that better than Compstat? That's also what makes a lot of the criticism so stupid. There are officers who will do things like refuse to take crime reports because it makes their numbers look bad - but that doesn't invalidate the concept.

Basically, the root of the criticism of Compstat is this: when it comes to the NYPD, opinions are like rear ends - everyone has at least one! 03:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)Raryel

At this stage, this article should be deleted just for lacking functionality. It is also has a look and feel that differs greatly from any other wikipedia article on topic. Generally, I am all in for general authorship and collaborative works, but whoever is working on this article needs to stop!

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I removed a large portion of the intro as it was too long and too biased. I will post below what I removed.

Initially designed to quickly detect crime trends and assign personel as needed, CompStat, has degraded into a numbers game. Each Commanding Officer is held accountable for any increase in crime no matter how small, and are often threatened and intimidated in front of their peers at CompStat meetings. To avoid this humiliation, many have resorted to illegally downgrading index crimes to produce the results needed. There are a number of ways they go about this. One of which is simply reclassifying the crime. Felony Assaults are easily listed as Misdemeanors by carefully wording the report, a Robbery will be downgraded to a Grand Larceny by omitting any indication of force used by the perpetrator, Rape is often classified as "Investigate Aided", Burglary becomes Criminal Mischief to a door and no further investigation takes place, and most commonly, Grand Larcenies where property is simply stolen becomes a "Lost Property" report as long as the victim can not identify the thief.

Another way to avoid taking a crime number is to inconvienience the victim to the point where they no longer want to file a complaint. This is often done quite skillfully and the victim never realizes they have been victimized again by the NYPD. The responding supervisor, one hand picked by the Commanding Officer for just this sort of job, ensures the victim that a "full investigation" will be completed. Questions will be asked in extreme detail. An exstensive search of the area will be conducted to kill as much time as possible. If this delay hasn't detered the often time strapped victim, they are then told, even for the most minor of reports, that they will have to return to a police facility to be interviewed by Detectives. They are then told the Detectives are on another call and another two hours may pass. Eventually, the victim askes to be excused, thanks the officers for the time and effort they have made, and leaves without making an official report. The case is closed as "refusal to make report".


NYPD Commanders are promoted and rewarded with choice assignments based on these results and the entire rank structure benefits by their manipulations. When the numbers say crime is down in a particular area, businesses are more likely to open, visitors spend more money there, apartment rents can be increased, tax revenue for the city is made. The department looks good. The Commishioner appears effective. The Mayor gets re-elected. It's the dirty little secret inside the NYPD. It's the secret they don't want you to know.


Good call on the removal, although please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~). Ford MF 01:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Those are ways an individual can try to cheat, and there is some going on, but the idea that this cheating can be wholesale is...unsupported. The person laid out a claim without any credible evidence (beyond pointing to a few anecdotes) to back him up. Having attended Compstat as a guest of NYPD, I personally witnessed then-Chief of Department Louis Anemone's "pounding the table" interrogation of captains and deputy inspectors (I daresay some hospital residency programs visit that on hapless doctors-in-training) and it was merciless, but that does not translate into the scenario the writer laid out. I say to him: "Do some solid research. You'll help yourself and Wikipedia." 01:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)raryel

Question[edit]

- newbie to wikipedia, reviewing compstat page, trying to figure out if "compstat" is a process of doing anlysis, or of it is an integrated software package. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.39.224.74 (talk • contribs)

It's an analysis process that originated in the NYPD [2] and has since been adopted by many other law enforcement agencies. The Philadelphia Police Department describes what they do - http://www.ppdonline.org/hq_compstat.php Also, here's what the LAPD does - http://www.lapdonline.org/crime_maps_and_compstat/content_basic_view/6363 --Aude (talk) 17:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So I am new to discussing and editing articles. This is one I feel I can contribute to, but have no idea how to get involved in the merits of the discussion above. Time is not something I have lots of so reading lots of pages of directions is out, but I will read what I must if someone will point me in the right direction. Thunder27 (talk) 01:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jargon[edit]

I am a professional editor of several law enforcement magazines and I find this article full of police jargon and doublespeak ("operationalized"?). In my line of work, I see many examples of police writing, most of which are created by officers eager to make their program sound as official as possible; as a result, we see lots of extra words and overuse of the passive tense.This article is a prime example of that type of writing which obfuscates at best. Also, it is clear to me that it was written by someone with an agenda regarding CompStat. I STRONGLY recommend that this article be tagged for bias and that it be rewritten to be more readable for the general public. Otherwise, it is simply unreliable as a source of information.64.65.173.128 16:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)BG in MN[reply]

The first section of this article is clearly biased. It is probably written by someone in the NYPD who has found himself/herself on the punitive side of results based on the COMPstat system.

It is highly doubtful that "reprimand" and 'threats' are discussed in any instruction manual on said computer system and it's useage of data.

  • I edited the article to remove words that refer to gender and replace them with genderless words, removed words such as "we" and "Our". I'm not even going to try and tackle the doublespeak and slang --24.119.176.129 (talk) 22:42, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

COMPSTAT compstat etc[edit]

The editing of this page has made it really hard to read and is distracting. Bratton is basically responsible for COMPSTAT which is always used interchangeably with Compstat and depends on how it is being written. COMPSTAT is generally used as a coverpage or for statistics, but when writing about the program it is Compstat. The NYPD is linked to it because of Bratton and follows Bratton to the LAPD. This is very similar to Bratton moving police to semi-automatic weapons, and more specifically, the Glock. The basic purpose of the "system" is to attempt to identify trends in crime and be able to statistically address crime with a response. The article no longer conveys this information in my opinion. The academic and statistics provided by departments show that this basically works at management level. The links confirm this information. I don't see why statistical tracking of crimes and applying more police to a specific area at a specific time of day is a cause for dispute or whether or not it is disputed. The opposing articles are from 2003 and ONLY address the NYPD when all the departments listed are able to show statistics from different cities during the disputed year. Specifically LAPD COMPSTAT Plus. While I think the opposing views may be important, I do not think they should bias the whole article the way they are. COMPSTAT started in NY and is used all over the country. It should be re-written to incorporate that country-wide scope and not just focus on the NYPD specifically as a pro and con piece airboyd 07:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

TrafficSTAT[edit]

NYPD has adapted the system to prioritize traffic enforcement, based on crash and ticket statistics. An interesting feature is NYCDOT representatives attend the TrafficSTAT meetings, for a more comprehensive approach to road safety problems. Unfortunately, that's about all I know about the program.--72.0.130.202 (talk) 13:17, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Compstat is B.S.[edit]

Refusing to take police reports for major felonies, and then reclassifying other crimes by lowering the charges, is not crime fighthing. Enron did the same thing with their accounting sheets. If you think that crime is realy down, trying going for a walk in most of the neigborhoods in NYC after dark! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saltheshoe (talk • contribs) 01:36, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • This doesn't help the article, you are simple complaining about the system itself. This is not a forum or a place to voice opinions. Thank you --24.119.176.129 (talk) 22:43, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Steven Levitt[edit]

I could find no mention of Compstat in the article Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not. If someone doesn't have another source for the purported critique from Steven Levitt, I suggest it be removed from the article.--Jacob J. Walker (talk) 18:46, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Meaning?[edit]

This article claims the abbreviation stands for Complaint Statistics. The Jack Maple article tells us it's Computer Analysis for Computer Statistics. And the fictional use of the principle in the tv series "the District" is always called Comparative statistics.

Now which one is right? Shouldn't all these theories/uses be mentioned in this article and could it be that the use of the abbreviation is so widespread because then nobody must decide WHAT it exactly is meant to say?


Also i'm curious why "the Wire" is mentioned, but the above mentioned series "the District" whose central point the introduction of Compstat is and which is loosely based on the experiences of Jack Maple who invented the program does not get an honorary mention?--176.199.186.241 (talk) 00:15, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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