Cities find new uses for crime fighting tool
In the mid-1990s, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) began placing more decision-making power to direct law enforcement strategy in the hands of precinct commanders rather than headquarters personnel. To do that, the department correlated data from daily crime reports in a project called Computerized Statistics (CompStat), generating maps of criminal hot spots around the city. The technique has spread to other cities large and small, and has expanded beyond public safety to other city services.
Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton brought CompStat, which he helped create while working for the NYPD, to the city four years ago. All Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) crime and arrest reports are entered into standard computer software, such as Microsoft Excel, coded by type of crime and plotted on computer maps. The department’s 19 division commanders meet once a month to review the data and decide how to best use their limited resources. “It allows you to put the cops where the crimes are occurring,” says LAPD CompStat Director Detective Jeff Godown, estimating that 60 percent of U.S. cities have some kind of CompStat program in place.
This month, the city is implementing the Community CompStat program that will focus on school security, Godown says. Parents, teachers, school administrators and residents living near schools will be invited to attend CompStat meetings and suggest actions to augment the computer-generated data. Godown says Community CompStat will soon be available throughout the community.
All major city departments in Baltimore, such as public works, began using a similar program called Citistat three years ago. An initial investment of $20,000 for office space and equipment is expected to save an estimated $350 million in the program’s first five years, mostly by reducing overtime and absenteeism, says Citistat Director Matt Gallagher.
Bureau chiefs file reports to Citistat staff on their departments’ finances, operations and services, such as garbage pickup and street cleaning. Maps and charts track city workers’ performance, and the department heads are held responsible for problems such as overtime or missed garbage pickups. The Citistat staff also gathers data from Baltimore’s 311 call center. The program has improved the city’s response to work orders from 311 calls because it prioritizes those calls. “We [pledged] that if you call in a pothole request, we would respond in 48 hours,” Gallagher says. The city has kept its promise for 90 percent of its pothole-repair calls. Department heads meet every two weeks to discuss the agencies’ performance and areas that need improvement, he says.
Similarly, at the Long Beach, Calif., Police Department (LBPD), CompStat is used to evaluate the performance of patrol commanders, says LBPD Senior Crime Analyst Corinne Swart. “[The commanders] have to demonstrate their awareness of their area’s issues,” she says. They also have to explain their response to those issues.
Long Beach has been using CompStat for three years, Swart says, and crime has decreased each year. The smaller LBPD can meet on all four divisions at once, while LAPD usually meets about two precincts at a time, Swart says.
Long Beach officials may apply the CompStat concept as part of a city-wide performance management initiative currently under development, says Deputy City Manager Suzanne Mason. “We will be setting up structures to review the results on a regular basis,” Mason says.
CompStat is spreading as techniques are passed from city to city. Decision makers across the country have visited LAPD and LBPD to observe their programs, and Godown says cities in other nations, such as Japan, have contacted him as well. The Los Angeles Fire Department also is implementing a CompStat program, and LAPD is expanding its use to other areas, such as internal affairs and terrorism prevention. “There’s a litany of different entities that we’re starting to CompStat,” Godown says.
