NCJ Number
241359
Date Published
2012
Length
313 pages
Annotation
This book investigates crime statistics manipulation in the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the repercussions suffered by crime victims and those who blew the whistle on this corrupt practice.
Abstract
This book presents the first in-depth empirical analysis of the Compstat management system. It documents and analyzes a wide array of data that definitively demonstrates the range of manipulation reflected in official New York City crime statistics; explores how the consequences of unreliable crime statistics ripple throughout police organizations, affecting police, citizens, and victims; documents the widening spell of police performance management throughout the world; reviews current NYPD leadership approaches and offers alternatives; analyzes the synchronicity of the media's and the NYPD's responses to the presented findings; explores the implications of various theoretical approaches to Compstat; and offers a new approach based on organizational transparency. In the mid-1990s, the NYPD created a performance management strategy known as Compstat. It consisted of computerized data, crime analysis, and advanced crime mapping coupled with middle management accountability and crime strategy meetings with high-ranking decision makers. While initially credited with a dramatic reduction in crime, questions quickly arose as to the reliability of the data. Figures, references, and appendixes