CompStat is one of the first computer-based programs created to map crime data and reports of crime for the purpose of analysis by police. Once generated, CompStat maps and reports additionally form the basis of a weekly analysis and strategy session between police district commanders and their supervisors, which claims to “hold police accountable” for the “numbers” in their area.
In this way, CompStat is used not only to map reports of crime, but to facilitate strategy planning sessions and to issue reports that are supposedly reflective of what a police unit or department is doing.
A 2019 report generated from LAPD’s CompStat.
A 2019 report generated from LAPD’s CompStat.
CompStat is the abbreviation for Computer Comparison Statistics. CompStat was developed by Jack Maple and William Bratton in the 1990s in New York, and came from the practice (which has been attributed to both Maple and Bratton) of physically mapping reports of crime on maps using push-pins with the intention of mapping crime “hot spots.” (See Hot Spot Policing and Crime Mapping (Esri GIS).)
According to Bratton, the intention behind CompStat was to analyze police actions and operations and reduce crime through proactive policing. CompStat was an early form of computer-based Predictive Policing technology (and is used in that capacity today) as it uses reports of crime to generate maps and analyses, which are used as “evidence” of where and when crime is happening.
After the pseudo-scientific process of mapping and identifying crime trends, CompStat reports and maps are used in a secondary internal process in which police departments examine and decide how they will assign and allocate police “resources” - Patrols, surveillance, task forces, and other forms of policing - to the areas identified, to “proactively” reduce crime.
Another important aspect of the CompStat process are internal department meetings at which precinct commanders have to answer questions and provide updates regarding what they are doing to reduce crime in their areas, utilizing (and in response to) CompStat reports. According to CompStat’s supporters, the intention behind this is to decentralize accountability and responsibility for crime reduction down to the precinct level. NYPD’s CompStat meetings were notorious for being aggressive questioning sessions, and have been linked to the intentional manipulation of crime data to make the reports appear more positive.
Image description: Inside a Compstat Meeting at LAPD, October 2023. Image source: Lillian L. Carranza, Assistant Commanding Operations Central Bureau, twitter.com
Compstat was first adopted by NYPD in 1994, when William Bratton became Police Commissioner. It is one of the earliest forms of computer-based Predictive Policing. Compstat furthers the collection and legitimization of crime data, treating it as scientific fact rather than a reflection of racist and subjective enforcement choices of police, and forms the basis of “data-driven policing” as future programs and policing tactics would be built on its reports.
Drawing its information directly from LAPD’s Crime Analysis Mapping System (CAMS), a database of reported crimes, CompStat has additionally served to bolster the notion of “professionalism” regarding police, and the narrative that police are data-driven, responding to and focusing on reports of crime.