Compstat Model, Essay Example

The COMPSTAT model is often cited as a breakthrough approach to crime prevention. As Weisburd et al. (2006) note, “its originators and proponents have given COMPSTAT credit for impressive reductions in crime and improvements in neighborhood quality of life in a number of cities that have adopted the program.” (p. 284) The success of COMPSTAT begins in New York City, where crimes reductions in the 1990s were attributed to the implementation of the program. These achievements in New York have led to the subsequent implementation of COMPSTAT in other American cities. Despite such apparent successes, on a practical level, theoretical debates concerning COMPSTAT remain prevalent within the academic literature. Accordingly, when considering the possible implementation of COMPSTAT in our department, the apparent practical and empirical successes in New York, while significant, should not overshadow the importance of theoretical considerations. These theoretical considerations should take a two-tiered approach: Firstly, to analyze the possible plus and minuses of the COMPSTAT model, in order to critically evaluate this model; Secondly, to apply this analysis of the pluses and minuses of COMPSTAT in relation to the specific situation of our police department. Regarding the first-tier, we are to suggest that perhaps some of the achievements of COMPSTAT have in fact been overstated. We are to argue that this is primarily tied to the quantitative style of crime analysis that COMPSTAT endorses. This is not to imply, however, that certain aspects of COMPSTAT, such as emphases on intelligence gathering, a geographic analysis of crime, and the commitment to the development of new strategies and tactics, are not of value: these are positive aspects of the model. Regarding the second-tier, while previous reasons for not implementing COMPSTAT have been cited by the Department Chief as primarily budgetary in nature – with secondary reasons including a lack of personnel and the maintenance of the status quo because of current good relations with the political sector – we shall argue that some of the aforementioned theoretical shortcomings are in themselves sufficient for demonstrating that the COMPSTAT model in its entirety is not ideal for our particular department. Rather, certain aspects of the model should be considered for implementation: the acceptance or rejection of COMPSTAT is not an all or nothing proposal.

COMPSTAT, short for “comparative statistics” or “computer statistics”, as the name suggests, takes a statistical approach to crime prevention. According to Samaha, COMPSTAT is primarily “a means of statistically analyzing where and when crimes are occurring.” (Samaha, 2005, p. 216) In addition, COMPSTAT is commonly reduced to five guiding principles: “objectives; timely and accurate intelligence; effective tactics; rapid deployment of personnel and resources; and relentless follow-up and assessment.” (Henry, 2006, p. 118) These five principles in themselves, however, are vague, and need to be considered in terms of some of the specific approaches that have already been employed by the COMPSTAT model in places such as New York. Arguably, a key “meta-principle” that guides these five principles is that COMPSTAT employs a management approach to crime prevention, in which “authority, resources and power were decentralized to the precinct police commanders.” (Samaha, 2005, p. 216) This decentralization is crucial to the organization of COMPSTAT in New York: in effect, it is a micro-management approach, which essentially localizes all crime prevention efforts. Hence, local COMPSTAT units compliment micro-managed departments (Barak, 2007, p. 91), units which have responsibility for analysis and management of crime data on the precinct level. This data tracks “number and percentage changes of index crimes, misdemeanors, and quality-of-life offences are reproduced by jurisdictions.” (Barak, 2007, p. 92) Moreover, COMPSTAT analyzes and “ranks all precinct commands by the number of crimes committed and arrests conducted.” (Barak, 2007, p. 92) This allows the police department of New York to have a broad, over-arching view of crime, while at the same time essentially creating minimal pockets of crime analysis and prevention: for example, resources may be concentrated in certain problem areas using this approach.

One of the advantages of COMPSTAT can be viewed as the need to create COMSTAT itself. This need was the result of the realization of a goal to “reduce crimes with right strategies and tactics.” (Barak, 2007, p. 91) Here, the advantage of COMPSTAT is twofold. Firstly, there is a desire within the criminal justice community to posit new strategies and tactics, as opposed to merely following crime prevention measures that may be archaic and outdated. Accordingly, regardless of the specificities of COMPSTAT, the goal to remain active through the thinking and development of new strategies and tactics demonstrates an understanding of the law enforcement paradigm as a dynamic paradigm. That is to say, the law enforcement paradigm is continually subject to change, since crime itself can be considered to be heterogeneous and dynamic: the recognition of the need for new strategies and tactics takes seriously the essence of criminality. Secondly, the emphasis on tactics and strategy stresses the fact that good organization is fundamental to a successful police department: for the department to be effective, its entire top-to-bottom structure must be thoroughly posited.

Regarding the specifics of the COMPSTAT model, the geographic approach to crime combined with statistical analysis represents a rigorous attempt to delineate where crime occurs and how frequently. The geographic approach can lead police personnel to clearly identify obvious problem areas within a community that necessarily require more attention. At the same time, the statistical information can help identify trends in certain areas, which can thereinafter aid in the adoption of correct strategies and tactics. Furthermore, COMPSTAT’s emphasis on intelligence can be considered crucial to the very nature of crime prevention, as the fundamental aim of the department is not merely to capture criminals, but also to reduce crime. Effective intelligence places crime prevention at the forefront, insofar as it entails stopping crimes before they occur.

Nevertheless, whereas the geographic aspect helps to identify where crimes occur, the reliance on pure statistical data suggests a quantification of the crime problem. In this regard, the emphasis on quantification resembles something to the effect of the implementation of business practice into crime prevention: crimes become merely numbers, and a certain dehumanization of crime takes place. The quantitative approach treats crime as just another statistical phenomenon, whereas the impact of crime and crime prevention on social life are much greater: it relates to the notion of an overall quality of life in the community. Whereas COMPSTAT has attempted to include quality-of-life statistics in its analysis, the emphasis on quantitative data suggests that the fundamentally social dimension of crime and crime prevention is lost in the analysis. The police department has a fundamentally social function, and its place within the community cannot be reduced to mere numbers. For example, a single crime may have a more traumatic effect on the community. Certainly, the quantitative approach is valuable for providing statistical information, but the value of this statistical information should not over-determine the performance of the police department: rather, it should be used as a potential tool for law enforcement, as opposed to defining the essence of law enforcement.

Problems with the quantitative approach become clear when considering that precincts and departments must submit their own statistics, such as number of arrests made, etc. Such an approach may encourage officers to present faulty numbers in order to meet quantitatively determined objectives. For example, the New York police department “has been accused by critics, including its unions, of downgrading felonies to misdemeanors to make the crime rate appear lower.” (Samaha, 2005, p. 215) This quantitative approach follows a standard capitalist/economic model that over-determines the crime justice paradigm, as it forces a police department to meet quotas, while overlooking the primary goal of preventing crime and ensuring quality of life. To adopt this approach would essentially be conceding that crime prevention is reducible to a business model: this suggests an obliviousness to both the task and essence of crime prevention.

When considering the implementation of COMPSTAT in our department, it would seem that some of the advantages of COMPSTAT are not conducive to such a small department. For example, one of the strengths of COMPSTAT is its geographic analysis, which is obviously most important in a metropolitan area, where operations are burdened by geographic size. In the case of our department, such geographic problems are not a concern. Furthermore, the micro-management of authority inherent to COMPSTAT is not applicable to a small department, as the size of the department is already minimal. The introduction of such micro-management could also have the undesired effect of creating division within the department, effectively creating unnecessary competition. Whereas the implementation of the statistical aspects of COMPSTAT are relevant to both understanding how frequently crime occurs and conceiving strategies to minimize the latter, such quantitative analysis is only relevant to the extent that the department is not thereinafter reduced to a purely “numbers-based” approach to crime prevention. This qualitative approach implies the introduction of the aforementioned economic model into the crime prevention paradigm: objectives can easily become misconstrued in terms of the production of arrests, as opposed to the minimization of crime.

Nevertheless, COMPSTAT’s emphasis on intelligence can be viewed as crucial to the effectiveness of the department. This aspect of COMPSTAT is compelling because it stresses crime prevention. Moreover, increased intelligence will increase the police presence in the community, as the uniformed presence of officers on the street is supplemented by an intelligence presence, which will augment the department’s effectivity, while also producing an image of the department as omnipresent within the community that could be invaluable for crime prevention.

Thus, what becomes clear in analyzing COMPSTAT is that the model possesses both positive and negative aspects. Accordingly, what is recommended is not the implementation of COMPSTAT in its entirety, but rather to consider the implementation of elements of

COMPSTAT that are relevant to the particular situation of our department. The emphasis on statistical data and geographic locations are valuable resources; however, only to the extent that crime prevention does not become subject to purely quantitative evaluation. Intelligence is also crucial to the nature of crime prevention itself; however, with only 150 officers in our department, intelligence must fit with budget constraints and be implemented in an appropriate manner, such as the development of contacts within the community. In consequence, what is not needed is merely the acceptance or the rejection of the COMPSTAT model in its entirety: rather, according to the similar initial impulse which started COMPSTAT, what is required in criminal justice is a more dynamic style of thought, one that continually evaluates situations both theoretically and practically.

Works Cited

Barak, Gregg. (2007). Battleground: A-L. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Henry, Vincent E. (2006). “Managing Crime and Quality of Life Using COMPSTAT: Specific Issues in Implementation and Practice.” In Tauchi, Masahiro (ed.). UNAFEI Resource

Material Series No. 68, Fuchu, Japan: UNAFEI. Samaha, Joel. (2005). Criminal Justice. London, UK: Cengage Learning.

Weisburd, David, Mastrofski Stephen D., Willis James J. and Greenspan Rosann. (2006).

“Changing everything so that everything can remain the same: COMPSTAT and American Policing”, In Weisburd D. and Braga A.A. (eds.) Police Innovations: Contrasting Perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.