Willis Et Al. (2004) - Compstat and Organizational Change in the Lowell Police Department

7/31/2019 Willis Et Al. (2004) - Compstat and Organizational Change in the Lowell Police Department

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Compstat andOrganizational Change

in the LowellPolice Department

Challenges and Opportunities


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WASHINGTON, DC

Compstat andOrganizational Changein the Lowell

Police DepartmentChallenges and Opportunities

James J. WillisStephen D. MastrofskiDavid Weisburd

Rosann Greenspan


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The Police Foundation is a private, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to supportinginnovation and improvement in policing. Established in 1970, the foundation has conducted seminalresearch in police behavior, policy, and procedure, and works to transfer to local agencies the bestinformation about practices for dealing effectively with a range of important police operational and

administrative concerns. Motivating all of the foundations efforts is the goal of efficient, humanepolicing that operates within the framework of democratic principles and the highest ideals of thenation. The Police Foundations research findings are published as an information service.

This project was supported by Grant Number 98-IJ-CX-007 by the National Institute of Justice, Officeof Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view or opinions contained in this docu-ment are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of theU.S. Department of Justice or the Police Foundation.

Additional reports are forthcoming from the larger project, Compstat and Organizational Change,from which this report on the Lowell, Massachusetts, Police Departments implementation ofCompstat is derived. A Police Foundation Report, The Growth of Compstat in American Policing, will

describe the national survey that assessed the number of American police agencies using Compstatand measured the degree to which the elements of Compstat were part of their routine and structure.A third report will describe intensive examinations of Compstats implementation in three policedepartmentsNewark, New Jersey, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Lowell, Massachusetts.

2003 by the Police Foundation. All rights, including translation into other languages, reservedunder the Universal Copyright Convention, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary andArtistic Works and the International and Pan American Copyright Conventions. Permission to quotereadily granted.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

CompStat and organizational change in the Lowell Police Department :challenges and opportunities / James J. Willis ... [et al.].

p. cm.ISBN 1-884614-19-1 (alk. paper)

1. Lowell (Mass). Police Dept. 2. Police administrationMassachusettsLowell.3. Police administrationData processing. 4. Law enforcementData processing.5. Crime analysisData processing. I. Willis, James J.

HV8148.L85C66 2004363.2'0285--dc22

2004001900

ISBN 1-884614-19-1

1201 Connecticut Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20036-2636(202) 833-1460 Fax: (202) 659-9149Email: [email protected]


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VI. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

Mission Clarification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Internal Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Geographic Organization of Operational Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54

Organizational Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

Data-Driven Problem Identification and Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

Innovative Problem-Solving Tactics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56

External Information Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

VII. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58

Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61

Appendix I: Lowell Police Department Organizational Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Appendix II: Map of the City of Lowell and City Neighborhoods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67

Appendix III: Patrol Officer Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71

Appendix IV: Sample Compstat Prep Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87

Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89


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Foreword

The birth of Compstat dates back to 1994, whenformer NYPD police commissioner William Brat-ton asked a team of officers to create a simple data-base with information about the major crimes that

cities must report to the FBI. A significant changein police practice ensued when the simple data-base became an elaborate program where policeentered crime reports into a computer system thatsorted them by type. With the continuing evolu-tion of the program, officers began scrutinizingthe statistics it generated to create maps and chartsshowing notable changes and emerging problemspots. Meanwhile, department heads convenedregular meetings to discuss crime trends, to ques-tion district commanders on their responses tocrime, and to work out future strategies.

The systematic use of hard data and height-ened accountability to reduce crime has been her-alded as a seminal innovation in police manage-ment. Compstats many advocates claim that it hasspurred the development of innovative, local,crime-fighting strategies and improved publicsafety. These perceived successes have caused anexuberant Compstat movement to rapidly sweepthe nation. A Police Foundation survey found thata third of the countrys 515 largest police depart-ments had implemented a Compstat-like programby 2000 (Weisburd et al. 2001).

The aurathat surrounds Compstat in polic-ing circles stems from the marvels that it report-edly worked in New York, where crime plummetedin the 1990s. Faith in the program is not univer-sal, however, and a number of detractors havearisen to contestthe Compstat dogma. They haveargued that crime dropped in New York as a re-sult of factors such as demographic shifts, the endof the crack epidemic, and a strong economy. Theyhave pointed to other U.S. cities that saw crimesimilarly declinein the 1990s though they lacked

the benefit of Compstat. They have also challengedCompstat by questioning the ability of police workto significantly affect crime trends that reflect fac-tors beyond the control of the police. Brattonlaunched Compstat in the conviction that policecan manage for better outcomes, but skeptics havecontended that police reforms, including Comp-stat, make little dent on the economic trends andsocial pathologies that spawn crime.

This report provides another challenge toCompstats proponentsby showing the programto be a toolwhose potential is unfulfilled. Accord-ing to Bratton, Compstat meetings created a senseof immediate accountability that galvanized NewYorks local commands, fostered innovative prob-

lem solving, and guided the department in ration-ally allocating resources to precincts that mostneeded them. Implementation of the program inthe much smaller Lowell Police Department re-veals, however, that a gap divides the theory andpractice of Compstat.

Lowell, Massachusetts, like New York City,stoked Compstats reputation for working miraclesin crime-ridden streets. Lowells crime rate beganto decline in 1994 and continued to drop after thedepartment implemented Compstat. Like NewYork, Lowell conductsbiweekly Compstat meet-ings where the departments leadersquestion sec-tor commanders on problems and crime spikes.While many cities that use Compstat only callmeetings when a particular sector needs attention,Lowell holds regular meetings where command-ers present statistics on their sectors and face anunnerving grilling if crime has increased.

The theory of Compstat notwithstanding,Lowells program was subject to internal conflictsthat made it deviate from New Yorks prototype.Scarce resources and a veiled sense of competi-

tion made commanders reluctant to share re-sources with sectors that were hardest hit by crime.Lack of training in data analysis and general ex-clusion of rank-and-file officers from the Compstatprocess bred indifference toward the programamong many department members. Conservativeattitudes toward crime fighting led to continuedreliance on traditional police responses rather thanthe innovative, problem-solving strategies that arecentral to the Compstat process. The absence ofsystematic follow-up at Lowells Compstat meet-ings often caused the department to plot strategy

on the basis of officers impressions of what hadpreviously worked, not on the basis of the data.Moreover, the hefty burden of accountability car-ried by sector commanders may have made themreluctant to try new approaches to problems,though Bratton had seen accountability as a cata-lyst that would energize police to attack crime.The prospect of being publicly criticized by thesuperintendent may have made more impact on


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Acknowledgments

We are deeply indebted to Superintendent EdwardF. Davis III for granting us access to his police de-partment and for his unconditional backing of thisproject. We would also like to thank Deputy Super-

intendent Kenneth Lavallee for all his assistanceduring our time at Lowell, especially when it cameto administering the officer survey. A note of ap-preciation also goes to Deputy SuperintendentDennis Cormier and Captain William Taylor fortheir support. We would also like to acknowledgeJill Casey, Stephanie Hunter, and Suzannah Hackerfor all their administrative help. In addition, wewould like to thank Officer Mark Trudel for hisencouragement. Thanks also to Sergeant DavidAbbott for explaining the intricacies of the detail.

This case study would have been impossible

without the unfailing support of the sector cap-tains, Captain Arthur Ryan Jr., Captain SusanSiopes, and Captain Robert DeMoura. Their can-did and intelligent remarks contributed mightilyto the overall quality of this project. Moreover,their thoughtful observations provided invaluableinsights into the complexities, rewards, and chal-lenges of modern police work.

We would like to thank Carol Fitzgerald andBrenda Bond for their immeasurable help in ex-plaining how Compstat works in the Lowell Po-lice Department. We very much appreciated theirtime and effort in answering our queries and pro-viding us with relevant documents. Thanks alsoto the rest of the Crime Analysis Unit: Officer TomLombard, Dawn Reeby, Derek Desrochers, andRobin Smith. Their comments and patience con-tributed significantly to our understanding of theoverall Compstat process.

We would especially like to thank the dozensof precinct personnel who we interviewed andobserved in meetings, as well as those patrolofficers who completed our survey.

We would also like to thank Ann MarieMcNally, a former research associate at the PoliceFoundation, for her help with the data entryprocess.

Finally, we wish to express thanks to Dr. LisaYarkony, Police Foundation research associate andeditor of this report, and to Police FoundationCommunications Director, Mary Malina, manag-ing editor, who oversaw its production.

some sector commanders than Compstats ven-turesome ideal of crime fighting.

This report suggests that we should temperour enthusiasm for Compstat, but it also acknowl-edges the valuable impact that the program hasmade on the Lowell Police Department. The de-

partments decision makers have become morefamiliar with the use of data and better informedabout what is taking place in their areas. Sectorcaptains feel more accountable for identifying andaddressing crime problems, and there has beensome successful use of innovative, crime-fightingstrategies. At the same time, the endurance of tra-ditional practices and structures appears to haveinhibited Compstats potential for innovation.Additional training is necessary if police are to putmore faith in Compstats data-driven approachthan in time-honored responses to crime, andother members of the department must shouldersome of the burden of accountability that weighsso heavily on sector commanders. The most ad-vanced technology is pointless unless the policethemselves understand its value and have thetraining to use it. By exploring both Lowells fail-ures and successes in carrying out Brattons vision,this report reveals the fallible, human dimensionof the Compstat process.

Hubert WilliamsPresident


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Compstat and Organizational Change in the Lowell Police Department

I. Introduction

What the late Jack Maple, formerly deputy policecommissioner of the New York Police Department,pithily called putting cops on dots has rapidly

become a fixture in many large police departmentsacross the country. Between 1994, when the NYPDfirst implemented Compstat,1 and 2001, when wecompleted our national survey, a third of depart-ments with one hundred or more sworn officershad implemented a Compstat-like program and26 percent were planning to do so.2 Widely vauntedand even referred to as anemerging paradigmin law enforcement, Compstat is an informationand management tool that maps crime statisticsand holds command staff more accountable forthe level ofcrime in their beats (Walsh 2001, 347).Its sweeping popularity among police and policymakers has been fueled by a flurry of nationalpublicity that attributes the recent plummet inNew Yorks crime rate to Compstats innovativeuse of geographic information systems technol-ogy and cutting-edge management principles.

Much of the literature on Compstat consistsof brief studies that rely heavily on anecdotal evi-dence or concentrate on the nations largest andmost exceptional police department, the NYPD.3

To date, there has been little systematic analysis

of the elements of Compstat and their implemen-tation in smaller departments. This report, whichis an in-depth evaluation of how Compstat worksin a much smaller agency, the Lowell Police De-partment (LPD), is part of a project funded by theNational Institute of Justice and conducted by thePolice Foundation. In an earlier component of theproject, Compstat and Organizational Change:

A National Assessment, we identified seven coreelements of Compstat: (1) mission clarification;(2) internal accountability; (3) geographic orga-nization of operational command; (4) organiza-tional flexibility; (5) data-driven identification of

problems and assessment of the departments prob-lem-solving efforts; (6) innovative problem-solv-ing tactics; and (7) external information exchange(Weisburd et al. 2001). Using these elements as ageneral framework, we analyzed how Compstatis being implemented across the country. Theprojects initial stage consisted of a national sur-vey that assessed the number of local police de-partments that were using Compstat and measuredthe degree to which these Compstat elements werepart of a departments structure and routine. Thesecond stage involved sixteen short site visits toidentify emerging patterns and differences amongCompstat programs across police agencies. Finally,we selected three police departments, Newark,New Jersey; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Lowell,Massachusetts, as sites suitable for lengthier andmore intensive research and sent a researcher toeach department for a period ranging from two toeight months. He or she was responsible for gath-ering detailed information that explained howCompstat worked at all levels of the police orga-nization.

There are three primary reasons for selectingthe Lowell Police Department as a case study: (1)Its high score on our national survey indicatedthat it had fully implemented Compstat; (2) It hadreceived considerable publicity as an innovativedepartment under Davis leadership;4 and (3) Itwas relatively small compared to most other de-partments that had received publicity for their

1. There is some disagreement about what the acronym Compstat actually means. Former NYPD police commissioner William Brattonsuggests that it stands for computer-statistics meetings (Bratton 1998, 233), but Silverman attributes its name to compare Stats, a computerfilename (Silverman 1999, 98). Some commentators have collapsed these interpretations and argue that Compstat refers to computer comparison

statistics (U.S. National Agricultural Library 1998, http://www.nalusda.gov/pavnet/iag/cecompst.htm ).

2. Forty-two percent had not implemented a Compstat-like program. For the first detailed analysis on the extent of Compstats implementationby police departments across the country, see Compstat and Organizational Change: Findings from a National Survey, Weisburd et al., PoliceFoundation (2001).

3. James L. Heskett, NYPD New, Harvard Business School Report no. N939629 (April 1996); Eli Silverman,NYPD Battles Crime, NortheasternUniversity Press (1999); Phyllis McDonald, Sheldon Greenberg, and William J. Bratton, Managing Police Operations: Implementing the NYPDCrime Control Model Using COMPSTAT, Wadsworth Publishing Co. (2001); Vincent E. Henry,The COMPSTAT Paradigm: Management Accountabilityin Policing, Business, and the Public Sector, forewordby William J. Bratton, LooseLeaf Law Publications (2002).

4. In May 2002, Superintendent Davis was awarded one of only two Leadership Awards by the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) for hisrole in bringing major changes in the department that greatly benefited the city. In this context, Compstat was recognized as an innovativecrime-tracking program (Skruck, 2002).


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Compstat efforts, notably, New York City, Balti-more, New Orleans, Newark, and Philadelphia.The last reason was the most compelling becausean examination of Lowell had potential to pro-vide insights into the special challenges and op-

portunities that arise when small departments tryto institute a program of organizational changethat originated in much larger agencies. On theone hand, smaller departments typically havefewer resources to mobilize for new tasks, pro-grams, and structures. On the other hand, theymay find it easier to overcome some of the inter-nal resistance that is so endemic to large policeorganizations (Mastrofski, Ritti, and Hoffmaster1987). What could Lowells experience withCompstat teach us and other researchers?

This report serves three purposes: (1) to pro-vide a detailed description of Lowells Compstatprogram that should interest police chiefs andother police personnel who are curious aboutCompstat; (2) to explain the benefits and chal-lenges of implementing the various key elementsof Compstat; and (3) to use our knowledge ofLowell to provide some insights into Compstatsfuture in law enforcement.

Compstats primary goal is to make police or-ganizations more rational and responsive to man-agements direction. The seven elements of Comp-

stat had been discussed in the organizationaldevelopment literature and used by numerouspolice departments for many years before theNYPD launched its Compstat program. TheNYPDs contribution was to assemble these ele-ments into a coherent package (Weisburd et al.2001). According to Compstats principal propo-nents, Compstats various elements interweave toform a program with its own logical integrity andto make Compstat work like a well-oiled machine.Indeed, Compstat as a crime-fighting tool is intu-itively appealing, with its use of sophisticated tech-

nology for the timely identification of crime prob-lems and practice of holding middle managersaccountable for reducing them (Bratton 1998,23339; Maple 1999, 3133; Kelling and Sousa2001, 23; Silverman 1999, 97124). Our exami-nation of Lowells Compstat, however, challengedthe programs accepted image as a smoothly func-tioning machine by revealing numerous paradoxesand incompatibilities among its various elements.

Background on Lowelland its police

The City of Lowell, Massachusetts, is located thirtymiles northwest of Boston on the banks of the

Merrimack and Concord Rivers. Formerly a pow-erful center for U.S. textile production, Lowellbegan to decline during the Great Depression. Thecitys long slump came to a halt, however, whenthe late Senator Paul Tsongas spearheaded thelaunch of the Lowell Plan in the early eighties.The plan provides for a partnership between pub-lic and private sectors to encourage and guidebusiness development in the city. Its ultimate goalsare to strike a balance between manufacturing andknowledge-based industries and to create an at-tractive downtown that encourages use of public

spaces for civic, cultural, and recreational activi-ties (Bluestone and Stevenson 2000, 5456, 72).

According to the 2000 census, Lowell had105,167 residents within its fourteen square miles.The city is divided into several neighborhoods andis moderately diverse: 62.5 percent white, 16.5percent Asian, 14.0 percent Latino, 3.5 percentblack, 0.2 percent American Indian and AlaskanNative, and 3.3 percent other race or two or moreraces (U.S. Census Bureau 2002). Income levelsfor 2000 are currently unavailable, but in 1990Lowells median family income was $29,351, with

18 percent of families living below the poverty line.The Lowell Plan envisions a thriving and livablecity for the twenty-first century, and an importantelement of this vision is a strong emphasis on con-trolling crime and disorder. Since Edward F. DavisIII became superintendent in 1995, Lowell hasincreased the number of patrol officers from 159to 210, a 32 percent increase, and implemented anationally recognized community-policing pro-gram. As part of a joint city government and com-

Compstats primary goal is to

make police organizations more

rational and responsive to

managements direction.


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munity initiative, the department has establishedseven precinct stations and formed fourteen neigh-borhood groups that meet regularly with policeofficers to identify their most pressing concernsand offer suggestions for their resolution. A com-

bination of efforts by city government, commu-nity members, and local police led Lowell to winthe prestigious 1999 All-America City Awardfrom the National Civic League in recognition ofexemplary community problem solving.

There were 260 sworn officers and approxi-mately eighty civilians in the Lowell Police De-partment when we visited in 2000.5 In terms of itsorganization, the department consisted of an In-vestigative and Prevention Bureau, an OperationsBureau, and an Administrative Division (see Ap-pendix I). The bureaus were each headed by adeputy superintendent, and the AdministrativeDivision was supervised directly by the superin-tendent. The citys neighborhoods were dividedinto three sectors determined by both census blockpopulation and the presence of physical bound-aries, such as rivers and roads: North (Pawtucket-ville, Centralville, and Belvidere), East (Back Cen-tral, Downtown, and South Lowell), and West(The Highlands and The Acre) (see Appendix II).These sectors or service divisions were underthe command of a sector captain and contained

within the Operations Bureau, along with theTraffic Division, Headquarters Division, and Com-munity Response Division. The Merrimack andConcord Rivers provided clear, natural bound-aries, with a major road further subdividing theEast and West Sectors. The different sectors cov-ered approximately the same area, but their dif-ferent demographic groups and socioeconomicstructures presented each sector captain with aunique set of problems. A department report,based on the 1990 census, indicated that the NorthSector was the most populous with a population

of 40,635, followed closely by the West with apopulation of 40,442, and finally the East with apopulation of 22,617. In general, the North Sec-tor had the highest median family income of about$35,000, compared to the West, where half of

Lowells poor now reside, and the East, which cov-ered Lowells downtown and contained a large eld-erly population. All of Lowells patrol officers wereassigned to a sector, aside from the handful thatcovered various housing developments through-

out the city and were assigned to specialty posi-tions. As of August 2000, there were approxi-mately the same number of patrol officers in eachsection, with forty-eight assigned to the North,fifty-one to the East, and fifty-two to the West.

In addition to the Operations Bureau, the de-partment was divided between an Investigative andPrevention Bureau, also headed by a deputy, andan Administrative Division that answered directlyto Davis. The Crime Prevention Division, EvidenceResponse Division, Special Investigation Section,Criminal Investigation Section, and Legal Divisionfell under the command of the deputy in chargeof the Investigative and Prevention Bureau. Finally,the Administrative Division consisted of the Ac-creditation Section, Budget and Finance Section,Communications Section, Detail Section, Informa-tion Technology Section, Intelligence Crime Analy-sis Section, Professional Standards Section, Train-ing Section, and Employees Assistance Section.

II. Overview of Compstat

at LowellThis section provides an overview of how Comp-stat has operated in recent years. It introduces itsmajor features and provides a reference point fromwhich to assess how much Compstat has evolvedsince its inception. An in-depth discussion of themajor features of Lowells Compstat program willappear in subsequent sections.

Superintendent Davis first implemented theexisting format for a Compstat presentation onFebruary 22, 2001. It calls for one of the three

sector captains to be present at each biweeklyCompstat meeting and for data to be presentedfor all sectors over a six-week period. Meetingstake place on alternate Thursdays, when approxi-mately twenty to thirty members of the depart-

5. In addition to the superintendent and the 210 line officers, there were two deputy superintendents, eight captains, thirteen lieutenants, andtwenty-six sergeants.


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ments top brass, plus a handful of invited guests,sergeants, and patrol officers, file into a large roomat Lowells Cross Point Training Facility. Davis sitsat one end of several tables that form an orderlyrectangle and is flanked on either side by mem-

bers of his command staff. He or one his deputies,in his absence, begins the meeting at 9 a.m. withsome introductory comments. Then the lights dimto focus attention on the lone figure of the sectorcaptain who stands in the front of the room. Mem-bers of the Crime Analysis Unit (CAU) use laptopcomputers to project crime data and maps onto anearby screen, and over the course of the next two-and-a-half hours the sector captain, who is en-tirely responsible for the policing of his or her areaof the city, reports on the sectors crime incidents,trends, and tactical responses. The sector captainalso faces questions, suggestions, and commentsfrom audience members. Typical remarks mightinclude: What are you doing about motor vehiclebreaks on East Street? They seem to be up fromthe last Compstat period; I have always felt thattraffic stops are useful for identifying potentialsuspects; Has anyone got any suggestions abouthow we should deal with this latest outbreak ofgraffiti in the downtown area?

The multiple goals of this Compstat meetinginclude eliciting collective input on crime patterns

and problem-solving strategies; encouraging in-formation sharing on crime locations, victims, andsuspects; and facilitating the deployment of de-partment resources. In addition, the forum acts asa mechanism for holding the sector captain ac-countable for crime in his or her beat. Even thoughconversation is shared around the room, the pri-mary focus of audience members remains on thesector captain. Any failure to provide a satisfac-tory response to the various inquiries may lead toa rebuke from Davis.

The Compstat presentation at Lowell is the

end product of a lengthy process that begins whenan individual patrol officer files an incident re-port. Once this report is scanned into the depart-ments mainframe, the members of the CAU areresponsible for inputting relevant crime data intoa database and using these data to aggregate, ana-lyze, and map crime incidents. Prior to 1996, whenCompstat came to Lowell, crime analysis barelyexisted, since Lowells administration, like that of

many agencies across the country, merely con-ducted an annual review of local Part I crime ratescollected in the FBIs Uniform Crime Reports(UCR). The purpose of this brief examination wasto provide the department with a general indica-

tion of its overall success in controlling crimeduring the previous year. In contrast to this rela-tively narrow focus, Lowells Compstat programplays a continuous and critical role in the depart-ment-wide process of identifying specific crimesas soon as they emerge, driving decision making,and facilitating problem-solving strategies.

Lowells CAU now inputs data on a daily basisfor a wide variety of crimes ranging from aggra-vated assaults to traffic accidents. Some of thesedata are made available via the mainframe to alldepartment personnel, as well as through roll-callannouncements and a daily newsletter. The CAUalso uses these data to prepare maps, spreadsheets,and descriptive statistics, which are given to sec-tor captains on the Monday before the Compstatmeeting. The presenting captain is then respon-sible for examining the detailed analysis for his orher sectora process that may take a period ofseveral hours over the next few daysin order toprepare fully for Thursdays meeting. In additionto preparing for Compstat, Lowells sector captainsand their executive officers are responsible for

accessing and reviewing all daily police reportsfrom their sectors and for responding to crimeproblems.

Before Compstat, the use of timely crime datafor the implementation of crime-reduction strate-gies had no place in the organization and opera-tion of the LPD. The following section will exam-ine the factors that led to the formation of Lowellsprogram. It will also show that departments canimplement and adopt Compstat with a modestoutlay of resources and can readily adapt it to workwithin their existing organizational structures.

Hence, Compstat is not a program that is prohibi-tively expensive for small departments, nor doesit require a great deal of organizational change.Indeed, Compstats low cost and flexibility con-tributed to its rapid development within Lowellsrelatively small police department.


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III. Origins and Development ofCompstat at Lowell

Our examination of the implementation and de-

velopment of Lowells Compstat program revealsseveral key points that are worth highlighting: (1)Lowells program drew heavily on the NYPD ex-perience; (2) Nearly all of the impetus for itsimplementation came from Davis; (3) The super-intendents innovative reforms received strongpolitical support from city hall, while externalgovernment grants enabled the initial formationand rapid growth of the CAU; and (4) The Comp-stat format has changed significantly in the fewyears since its inception.

The influence of the NYPD

Davis and his command staff tailored Compstatto suit their own departments priorities but alsoborrowed heavily from the NYPDs program. Somebackground on the NYPD experience, therefore,will help frame our understanding of Lowells ef-forts. When William Bratton became commis-sioner of the NYPD, he sought to transform a slug-gish, bureaucratic organization with demoralizedpersonnel into an outfit that responded keenly and

effectively to crime problems. He did so by adopt-ing management principles advanced by organi-zational development experts, such as using datato make informed decisions, giving priority tooperational rather than administrative concerns,and holding key personnel accountable. Commis-sioner Bratton, as a result, managed to turnaround the NYPD and reduce crime throughoutthe city (Bratton 1998).

The NYPDs Compstat is a strategic controlsystem that identifies and disseminates informa-tion on crime problems and tracks efforts to ad-

dress them by implementing four basic principles:(1) accurate and timely intelligence about crimemade available to all levels in the organization;(2) the selection of the most effective tactics forspecific problems; (3) rapid deployment of peopleand resources to implement those tactics; and (4)relentless follow-up and assessment to learnwhat happened and make subsequent tactical ad-justments as necessary (Bratton 1998, 224). These

principles are most evident at the departmentsregular, twice-weekly meetings where precinctcommanders tell top brass about ongoing crimeproblems and their efforts to address them. In itsuse of these basic principles, Compstat represents

a transformation in police operations and man-agement, as well as in attitudes toward the capac-ity of law enforcement to influence crime rates(McDonald et al. 2001).

According to our national survey, the NYPDsexperience has had a powerful impact on depart-ments across the country, since about 70 percentof police departments with Compstat programsreported attending a Compstat session in NewYork City (Weisburd et al. 2001). The NYPD alsoinfluenced Lowells implementation of Compstatas a result of a casual conversation that took placebetween Davis and Bratton at a promotion cer-emony in New York during 1996. Bratton, as Davisrecalled, described Compstat as a useful way ofbringing a private sector mentality to the publicsector, and this remark made him eager to tryout the program. Davis, as one officer remarked,came back from one of his visits with Brattonand said, Lets have a Compstat here. Shortlythereafter, he followed Brattons basic model, ortook stuff from their [New Yorks] game planbook, as another officer put it, and brought

Compstat to Lowell.

The role of the superintendent

Davis brief encounter with Bratton in 1996 con-vinced him to implement Compstat, but he hasremarked that two other factors contributed to itsdevelopment. Around the same time, he readJames Hesketts case study of the NYPD (1996) asa participant in the Senior Executives in State andLocal Government Seminar at Harvards KennedySchool of Government. Davis explained that this

informative article gave him some ideas forLowells Compstat program by emphasizing therelationship between crime strategies and crimestatistics, as well as the value of breaking cities downinto sectors. He also recalled how ameeting withFrank Hartmann at Harvards Senior ManagementInstitute for Police underscored the value of data fordriving the decision-making process, a perspectivethat mirrored his own organizational philosophy.


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Convinced that Compstat would be a usefuladdition to the department, Davis ran the idea byhis civilian staff and commanding officers duringone of the departments annual strategic planningretreats in late 1996. The retreats purpose was to

continue exploring the possibility of decentraliz-ing the department geographically as part of amajor transformation toward community polic-ing. The initial impetus for this move to commu-nity policing had emerged from a 1994 strategicplanning session. The department was still imple-menting the strategic plan in 1996 when Davissuggested that they implement Compstat.

Proponents of community policing argue thatpolice reform requires geographic decentralizationand devolution of decision making down the chainof command (Eck and Maguire 2000, 218). Inkeeping with this school of thought, these factors,rather than the implementation of Compstat,drove Davis decision to reorganize the departmentunder the twenty-four-hour supervision of thesector captain (Thacher 1998, 36). The creationof this sector structure was certainly consistentwith Compstats requirements, but the departmentwent much further. Stating that one of the basictenets of community policing was one officer, oneneighborhood, Davis explained that assigningofficers to specific sectors encouraged them to get

to know the residents on their beats and to be re-sponsive to community problems. He highlightedthe importance of line officer decision making bycommenting that he wanted his patrol officers torecognize their responsibility for their beat andby quoting former LAPD chief Edward M. Davis,who talked about the significance of territorialimperative. Ironically enough, as we shall see,community policing and Compstat operate atcross-purposes in relation to the decentralizationof command. Community policing delegates deci-sion-making authority as far down the chain of

command as possible, while Compstat concen-trates decision-making power among middle man-agers and holds them directly accountable to thetop brass. Since district commanders are prima-rily responsible for identifying and solving prob-lems, the capacity of the rank and file to exercisediscretion is necessarily constrained.

Davis may have been the catalyst for decen-tralizing the organization geographically, but he

attributed the ultimate decision to a strategic plan-ning process involving all his command staff. Healso noted that there was generally a lot of diffi-culty getting officers to think geographically, de-spite commands support for the change. Officers

had mixed responses to the change, according tothe recollection of one Lowell lieutenant:

You know, you got a variety of responses at alllevels. Some were kind of interested. A lot wereon the fence. And there were a few adamantlyopposed to any kind of change whatsoever,who feel its just constitutionally wrong tochange (quoted in Thacher 1998, 35).

Ultimately, the department moved toward asystem that established three sector captains, orsector bosses in department vernacular, each re-

sponsible for a separate area of the city. In con-trast to the decision to decentralize, no respon-dents, including Davis, remembered any resistancewithin the department to the decision to imple-ment Compstat. It seems likely that officers re-garded the implementation of Compstat as a rela-tively minor event when compared to the large-scale, structural transformation implied in themove to community policing. Since managementis structured geographically under both Compstatand community policing, Lowells Compstat pro-gram was easily adapted to the departments pre-existing community-policing model. None ofthose interviewed suggested that Compstat wasrevolutionary, and our overall impression was thatmost remembered it as somewhat of a novelty.

Government supportCity Halland the Office of CommunityOriented Policing Services

In NYPD Battles Crime, Eli Silverman (1999, 181)argues that a major factor in Compstats success

in New York was the strong external backing itreceived from Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Similarly,Davis was appointed superintendent with thestaunch support of City Manager Richard Johnson,the head and arguably most powerful member ofcity hall. In contrast to New York, this politicalbacking was based upon Davis ardent commit-ment to community policing. Davis appointmentin 1994 corresponded with federal passage of the


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Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.The act provided for over $8 billion over a six-year period to deploy 100,000 additional com-munity-policing officers and also created the COPSOffice to oversee the process and administer ex-

tensive funding for nationwide implementation ofcommunity-policing programs (U.S. Departmentof Justice 1994). Davis was able to use the newresources earmarked for community policing toimplement Compstat. The years 1994 and 1995,therefore, represented a unique opportunity forhim, as he recalled, since he had both the power-ful support of city government and the suddenavailability of considerable federal and state funds.In addition, Davis and the department were gain-ing popularity with local residents who werethrilled when the city established its first com-munity-policing precinct in Centralville, a toughneighborhood in the North sector.

Davis reminisced fondly about this uniquepolitical environment. He remembered watchingSenator John Kerry at 3 a.m. on C-SPAN talkingabout the funds available through the 1994 crimebill, and he commented that any motion dealingwith crime that came before the city councilaround this time would pass by a wide margin ofeither seven to two or eight to one in the depart-ments favor. As a further illustration of this po-

litical support, he noted that the departmentsbudget had doubled in the five years between 1996and 2000 from $10 million to $20 million. Thissupport transferred into the considerable leewaythat the city granted Davis in the hiring process.

The COPS Office contributed significantly tothe emergence and development of Compstat inthe Lowell Police Department. To get Compstatoff the ground, Davis reassigned an input clerk,who was already working in Records, and a patrolofficer familiar with databases to form a new CrimeAnalysis Unit. The creation of the first civilian

crime analyst position was supported through aCOPS MORE grant (Thacher 1998, 51).6 UsingComputer-Aided-Dispatch (CAD) data, thefledgling CAU prepared and disseminated simplecrime sheets that helped identify crime trends and

patterns in the city by listing the location, address,and time of calls to the police.

Since its first appointments in 1996, the CAUhas grown to five full-time members, three ofwhom have masters degrees in criminal justice,

and several student interns from local universi-ties. Further financial support for full-time posi-tions and for computer hardware and softwarecame from additional local, state, and federalgrants that were made available for communitypolicing and problem-solving policing (Thacher1998, 51). Clear indications that Compstat doesnot require significant new resources are evidentin Davis decision to implement Compstat bymobilizing the departments existing personneland his use of available community-policing grantsto expand the CAU rapidly. Davis noted, The costis mainly people and estimated that it took only$100,000 to hire four additional employees for thefirst year of the program (Anderson 2001, 5).Compstats relatively low cost and adaptability arelikely to contribute to its speedy adoption bysmaller police departments across the nation, asour survey indicated. At the time of our survey, in1999, only 11 percent of departments with be-tween fifty and ninety-nine sworn officers hadimplemented Compstat. The popularity of theprogram can be seen, however, by the fact that 30

percent were planning to adopt it (Weisburd et al.2001).

Early Compstatsfuzzy memoriesand change

Memories fade with time, and after the passage ofseveral years, it is hardly surprising that individualaccounts of the first Compstat sessions at Lowelldiffer. Many people gave conflicting statements onwhether Compstat was actually implementedsometime in 1996 or early in 1997 and how the

first meetings were managed. Several of those in-terviewed remembered the early Compstats asbeing confrontational pressure cookers whereDavis played the role of a hard man and putcommand staff on the spot by peppering them

6. COPS MORE (Making Officer Redeployment Effective) grants were to help increase the amount of time officers could spend on communitypolicing by covering up to 75 percent of the total cost of technology, equipment, or civilian salaries for one year.


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with questions about crime rates in their sectors.One lieutenant recalled that what made Compstatparticularly tough was people did not knowwhere they were going with it.

Officers who attended the first Compstats alsogave varying accounts on the primary focus of themeetings. Davis commented that initial Compstatscentered on crime issues, but other attendeesremembered spending a significant amount of timedealing with administrative concerns. One officercommented that Compstat meetings often in-cluded discussions on the utility of decentraliz-ing the entire department, including the Crimi-nal Investigation Section. Another recalled that theearly Compstats were very administrative andlargely concerned questions about the work de-tail and problems with manpower, while crimeonly occupied about 20 percent of the talk time.

These accounts clearly indicate that Lowells

Compstat program, which required little changeto the existing organizational structure, hasevolved considerably since its inception. When wefirst arrived in October 2000, several captains andmembers of the administrative staff had been dis-cussing the possibility of changing a Compstatformat that had not been altered for two years. Atthe time, the three sector captains all presentedcrime data on a biweekly basis. Unfortunately, bythe time the third presenter walked to the podium,two to three hours had passed and members ofthe audience were weary, having difficulty con-

centrating, and less capable of providing usefulfeedback on crime problems (the NYPD had ex-perienced a similar scheduling problem). On Feb-ruary 12, 2001, Davis met with several of his com-mand staff and senior members of the CAU todiscuss some changes. He was concerned, as hetold them, that the sector captain who presentedlast received short shrift and that the two-weekreporting period might be too short for identify-

ing meaningful crime changes because the qual-ity of analysis was lacking. Ten days later thedepartment implemented Lowells existing Comp-stat with only one sector captain present at eachmeeting.

IV. Research Methods

Between October 2000 and June 2001, we ob-served eight biweekly Compstat meetings andseven weekly operations meetings in Lowell. Wealso conducted thirty-one formal interviews withcity and police department personnel including:the mayor, city manager, superintendent, middlemanagers or sector captains, civilian staff, captains,lieutenants, detectives, first-line supervisors orsergeants, and patrol officers. We tried to gain thetrust of department members by guaranteeinginterviewees anonymity, whenever possible, andby ensuring confidentiality through our uncondi-tional refusal to act as a conduit for informationwithin the department. Despite some initial sus-picion, most of those interviewed felt comfortableenough to engage in lengthy and candid discus-sions about Compstat. On average the interviewslasted one-and-a-half to two hours, with manyrunning over the allotted time.

We conducted six post-Compstat debriefings,each lasting about fifteen to twenty minutes, inorder to help us identify the main crime problemsin each sector and track responses to these prob-lems over time. We debriefed Davis or the deputysuperintendent who ran Thursdays biweeklyCompstat meeting immediately after the meetingand usually talked to the presenting sector cap-tains on the following Monday or Tuesday. Wedistributed surveys to 124 patrol officers in whichwe asked them to describe their involvement inCompstat and their views of the program; and we

collected ninety-seven completed surveys, yield-ing a response rate of 78 percent (See AppendixIII). We also collected documents that could fur-ther our understanding of Compstat, including allthe Compstat maps, spreadsheets, and crimeanalyses that were provided to sector captains;internal department memos; research grants; ar-ticles on Lowell; community handouts; and copiesof the departments newsletter, the Daily Bulletin.

. . . Lowells Compstat program, which

required little change to the existing

organizational structure, has evolved

considerably since its inception.


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We promised respondents that we would doour best to conceal their identities. It was obviouslyimpossible to guard against the identification of thesuperintendent of police, city manager and mayor,as we made clear. It was also challenging in such

a small police organization to protect the confi-dentiality of those who occupied the few special-ized and mid/upper-level management positions,especially the sector captains. We consequentlydecided to omit identifying characteristics, suchas a respondents ethnicity or number of years inthe department, in our initial draft of this report.We also made a concerted effort in our final revi-sion to identify and amend any text that couldpossibly breach a respondents confidentiality.

V. Analysis of LowellsExperience with Compstat

Using the seven key components we identified asCompstats general framework, we comparedLowells Compstat program with data from ournational survey to help assess how typical Lowellsprogram was of programs in other departments.We also used our qualitative data to assess thedosage or amount of each element within the de-partment to determine the extent to which each

of Compstats key components had been institu-tionalized throughout the organization. We tried,finally, to elucidate some of the problems associ-ated with Compstat by examining the challengesthe department faced. This gave us some insightsinto Compstats ability to operate as a coherent pro-gram and a clearer sense of its long-term prospects.

Mission Clarification

The first element of Compstat is mission clarifica-

tion. Compstat assumes that police agencies musthave a clearly defined organizational mission inorder to function effectively. When Bratton assumedcommand of the NYPD, one of top managementsfirst tasks was to clarify a mission statement thatembodied the organizations fundamental reasonfor existing. In order to convey a clear sense ofthe departments commitment, top managementreasoned that the mission statement should in-

clude specific terms, such as reducing crime by10 percent in a year, for which the organizationand its leaders could be held accountable (Bratton1998, 252). The establishment of a mission state-ment, therefore, helps police agencies to function

more effectively by encouraging leaders and lineofficers to commit to a clearly defined goal, likecrime reduction, that is highly valued by thedepartments leadership. Despite these seeminglyobvious benefits, our analysis of Lowells Compstatprogram suggests that mission statements mightresonate differently with the public than they dowith those inside the department. Furthermore,mission statements might present a set of chal-lenges to police agencies with potentially negativeoutcomes. A mission statement that is inappro-priate, for instance, or exceeds the organizationscapacities might contribute to organizational dys-function and ultimately undermine the policechiefs credibility if the agency fails to meet itsstated goal.

Our general survey showed that 92 percent oflarge departments that had reported implement-ing a Compstat program had also reported thatthey set specific objectives in terms that couldbe precisely measured. In other words, a generalstatement that clarified a departments overall mis-sion was closely associated with implementing a

Compstat program, and Lowell, in this sense, wastypical of other Compstat departments. The over-all mission that it clearly promulgated in much ofits literature and on its new Web site was: To workwith the community to reduce crime, the fear ofcrime, and improve the quality of life in the Cityof Lowell.

Compstat demands that departments establisha clear and specific organizational mission ratherthan a general commitment to a broad set of ob-jectives. When our national survey asked, In thelast twelve months has your agency publicly an-

nounced a goal of reducing crime or some otherproblem by a specific number?, only 49 percentof departments responded in the affirmative, andalmost a third of these departments reported fo-cusing on many different goals (Weisburd et al.2001). Since Lowell had announced a clearer andmore specific goalthat of making Lowell thesafest city of its size in the United Statesit wasatypical of other Compstat departments.


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When Davis was first appointed superinten-dent, he occasionally met with the late SenatorPaul Tsongas, a resident of Lowell, who initiallysuggested that, they come up with a vision forthe city. He did not recall having a particularly

lengthy discussion with Tsongas on this topic butnoted that these meetings enabled them to createthe goal of making Lowell the safest city of itssize in the United States. According to Davis,Tsongas believed it was important for them to ar-ticulate a goal that would be clear to everyone andhelp Lowell with its steep crime rate. Around 1995to 1996, Davis told us earnestly, Lowell was get-ting beaten down, and coming up with the goalwas about more than just trying to make peoplesafer . . . the citys future was hanging in the bal-ance . . . [and] the goal gave people in the citysome hope. Not only were city residents in crisisin the early 1990s, so was the Lowell Police De-partment. Public confidence in the department haddeteriorated to the point that the association ofdowntown businesses voted to hire private secu-rity to patrol Lowells rapidly deteriorating com-mercial district (Thacher 1998, 9).

Given that the mission statements intentionwas to rally public support for a department thatseemed incapable of stemming crime in a danger-ous city, it is not surprising that Davis and Tsongas

proclamation was unburdened with technical de-tails and emboldened with powerful symbolism.Similar to the NYPD, crime reduction lay at theheart of Davis mission for the departmenta goalthat he associated closely with Compstat. An im-portant point to note: Davis stated that Compstatallowed one to examine data before making anydecisions. If you approach problems any otherway, he commented, you are allowing the causedu jour to set your priorities when you should bedealing with the crime rate (emphasis added).However, in contrast to the NYPD, the resolution

to make Lowell the safest city of its size in theUnited States did not contain potentially confus-ing percentage reductions. Furthermore, it ap-pealed directly to residents by creating an attrac-tive vision of Lowell as a pleasant or desirable placeto live (again). One respondent stated that themission statement was a big deal and remem-bered that it was popular in the newspaper andamong community members. More importantly,

he believed that the articulation of this goal gavemomentum to the Davis overall plan to changethe department. He told us, The safest city phrasewas what brought it all together.

Lowells mission statement differed from that

of the NYPD by not committing the departmentto reduce crime by a specific percentage. It alsodiverged from the NYPD by primarily targetingcity residents. Commissioner Bratton used thedepartments mission statement to motivate po-lice personnel and hold them accountable, whilethis appeared to be a less important considerationin Lowell. Davis was more concerned with themission statements appeal to external constitu-ents than to department members, as another re-spondent recalled: It was really used for the ben-efit of those outside of the department . . . it wasnever used within the department . . . it was notlike the department rallied around it . . . the state-ment is not part of the guys [line officers] daily . . .you know . . . what they talk about.

Since Lowells broad mission statement wasdesigned to appeal primarily to city residents, itsimplementation did not resonate quite so stronglywithin the police department. In contrast to acrime-reduction goal defined by a modest percent-age over a finite period (a year, for example), theadoption of such an ambitious and enduring goal

as becoming the safest city of its size in the UnitedStates, may have further mitigated its impactwithin the police organizationit was just tooambitious for police officers to incorporate withintheir daily operations. One officer characterizedthe statement as more of a slogan than a missionbecause it was not realistic, and he embellishedhis claim by comparing it to the New EnglandPatriots recent win in the 2002 Super Bowl: Justlike the Patriots winning the Super Bowl, sure,they might have won . . . but now we expect themto do it again . . . it is not a practical statement.

In using this analogy, he was drawing attention tothe unrealistic expectations conjured up by thesafest city analogy and the fact that crime can-not continue to drop forever. The ambitious na-ture of the mission statement helped explain whythe few times he heard reference to it within thedepartment was when an officer at a crime scenejoked: Uh-huh . . . another murder in the safestcity in America.


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Some department personnel might then haveregarded the mission statement as unrealistic, al-though our observations and survey data sug-gested that patrol officers did recognize and ac-cept the relationship between Compstat and the

departments approach to fighting crime. Even ifmost doubted the practicality of the departmentssafest city mission, they endorsed the focus ofthe effort. One patrol officer described Compstatsexplicit focus on the identification of crime pat-terns by saying, It enables the department to givea focused effort on policing as opposed to hap-hazardly driving around in circles . . . it allows thedepartment to focus on a specific area. Resultsfrom our patrol officer survey further supportedthis observation that the rank and file clearly as-

cially in comparison to more ambiguous strate-gies or programs that appear to challenge the ca-nonical crime-fighting role of the police. Commu-nity policing, for example, has been the focus of aprodigious amount of scholarship over the last

twenty years, but its goal and key elements arestill subject to much debate among police practi-tioners and academics. What police department,however, would not want to adopt a programwhose clear purpose is to reduce crime throughthe implementation of a well-defined set of tech-nologies and procedures? The appeal of Compstatscrime-fighting goal to the police increases the like-lihood that it will endure.

There is an implicit and important consider-ation contained within the preceding commentsabout Compstats objective. What measures orbenchmarks will the department use to evaluateits progress toward a specific goal? This becamean issue every October or November, when theFBI published its annual Uniform Crime Reports,and Lowells crime analysts examined the sixty-two U.S. cities with populations between 95,000and 100,000. Lowells analysts listed these citiesalphabetically and used them to create a table,which they sent to Davis but not to the rest of thedepartment. Since the rankings were not dissemi-nated more widely, and we did not observe any

specific reference to the safest city goal duringour stay, it appeared that the table served prima-rily to give Davis an annual impression of howLowell was doing in relation to other cities of itssize. In short, the safest city goal remained animplicit rather than a highly visible element ofdaily operations. This does not mean that the goalwas merely symbolic, particularly since Davis de-scribed worrying about the extent to which thedepartment was meeting its goal at every biweeklyCompstat meeting. It may suggest, however, thatthe six-year-old safest city imagery had become

so commonplace as to no longer provoke muchinterest within the department.

Underlying the simplicity of the Compstatmission is a more complex set of challenges: Whathappens to Compstat when a police departmentfails to meet the crime-reduction goal of its mis-sion? Will failure to meet the goal lead to cyni-cism both within and outside the department? Willthe end result be the termination of Compstat, as

What police department . . . would not

want to adopt a program whose clear

purpose is to reduce crime through the

implementation of a well-defined set of

technologies and procedures?

sociated the goal of crime reduction with Comp-stat. Approximately 92 percent of those surveyed

responded that reducing violent crime in the cityand improving the quality of life in the city werevery or somewhat important to the departmentsCompstat strategy. The power of Compstats im-age as a crime-fighting tool is further reinforcedwhen we consider that: (1) Davis did not devise amission statement that explicitly defined Comp-stats goal but incorporated it within the depart-ments goal of making Lowell the safest city of itssize in the nation; and (2) The implementation ofCompstat was not accompanied by any depart-ment-wide training. Despite the absence of these

means of fostering a shared understanding ofCompstats purpose, there was still a general con-sensus that Compstat was a means of refocusingthe departments energy on reducing crime.

It seems likely that officers had a broad un-derstanding that the fundamental objective ofCompstat was to control crime. The simplicity andlong tradition of this goal in police departmentshelps to explain the programs popularity, espe-


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city residents and police officers question the valueof the entire program?

Tsongas and Davis were aware of the dangerof establishing a mission statement that set anunattainable benchmark for success. Davis com-

mented that in coming up with a vision for thedepartment, he remembered thinking that the saf-est city statement was kind of reaching. Henoted that even though he recognized that thesafest city goal was ambitious, he felt it was tan-gible. They both believed, he said, Lowell was aplace that they could get their hands around . . .that there was real potential for serious gains. Thedepartment has indeed had considerable successin achieving its goal, notwithstanding the risksinvolved in setting such an ambitious benchmarkfor success. For cities with populations between90,000 and 110,000, Lowell ranked the forty-fifthsafest in 1993 and jumped to the fifteenth safestin 1997. This drop in crime is among the reasonswhy many police administrators and scholars con-tinue to pay close attention to the departmentsachievements (Lehrer 2001).

Davis, who was reluctant to attribute the de-cline in crime to Compstat alone, cited three ad-ditional causes: an improving economy, an increasein the length of jail sentences, and the efforts ofthe police. Public opinion, however, focused on

the impact of Compstat, as shown in a newspaperheadline from October 1999which reported thatCrime in Lowell Continues to Plummet and at-tributed much of the success in combating crimeto targeted policing through the Compstat pro-gram (Iven 1999). This success, notwithstand-ing, there is reason to be cautious about Compstatsability to reduce crime. Silverman, like Kelling andSousa, has argued that the NYPDs success in re-ducing crime was a direct result of its Compstatprogram (Silverman 1999, 125177; Kelling andSousa 2001, 2), but many criminologists remain

unconvinced. Crime, they argue, is too complex aphenomenon to be mitigated by any single ap-proach (Bouza 1997; Eck and Maguire 2000;Harcourt 2002). In Lowells case, the implemen-tation of Compstat roughly corresponded with the

hiring of fifty-one new police officers, and it isthis increase that might have contributed to theoverall reduction in crime. Furthermore, Lowellsrecent crime increase appears to lend credence toa more cautious standpoint in attributing crime

reductions to the police in general or, more spe-cifically, to Compstat. In Lowell, index crimes for2001 increased 12.7 percent over 2000 (4,507 in-dex crimes compared to 3,999). As a result of itsincreasing crime rate, Lowell fell to the twenty-eighth safest city of its size in 2000.7 After a pe-riod of rapid decline, this reversal has been metwith some disquiet. In 2000, the local newspaperreported, If the past year is any indication, Supt.Ed Davis and the Lowell Police Department willhave their work cut out for them in the next 12months (Lowell Sun 2000).

Whatever the causes for mounting crime rates,some evidence suggests that Davis was feelingapprehensive as the local press reported on theslight upturn in crime. In a November 2000 inter-view he expressed concern that crime was risingfor the first time in six years, and by December2000 we overheard a comment that Davis was nowpaying for previous statements he had made inwhich he claimed credit for Lowells decliningcrime rate. One respondent noted that the firstresponse to any news of an increasing crime rate

was damage control, and he expressed disap-pointment that the department was not lookingat the 10 percent increase more critically and ask-ing questions such as, Whats different from lastyear; whats happening nationally? Two recentarticles in the local paper also suggested that criti-cism of Davis was becoming more acute. One re-marked that Davis reluctance to attend city coun-cil meetings appeared to reflect a lack of focus onpublic safety issues (Scott 2002), while the otherexpressed disappointment with the upward crimetrend given the departments $20 million budget

(Lowell Sun Online, April 4, 2002).These comments illustrate the conflicting pres-

sures that Compstat imposes on police chiefs andtheir departments. Compstat requires chiefs toformulate highly visible, public mission statements

7. According to the 2000 Uniform Crime Reports, Lowell experienced 3,803 Part I crimes per 100,000 people. In comparison, the crime rate forSimi Valley, CA, Americas safest city with a population between 90,000 and 110,000, was 1,441 per 100,000 people (US Department of Justice2001).


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that set tangible organizational goals for reducingcrime, as well as hold them and their departmentsaccountable for meeting these standards. Increasedexpectations for lower crime rates, therefore, putpolice chiefs under considerable pressure to claim

some responsibility and generate positive press forany successes. Absent convincing evidence thatpolice departments possess the capacity to reducecrime and that managers have the will and skill tomobilize that capacity, setting a specific crime-re-duction goal is like a batter of untested capabili-ties pointing to center field each time he comes tobat. This works only if he delivers a home runmore often than not.

Mission statements can do more than createunrealistic expectations; they can also be dysfunc-tional in other ways. An increasing crime rate islikely to foster a great deal of public scrutiny andconcern over a departments failure to fulfill itsgoals. The pressure that this places on a chief andhis organization may provoke a knee-jerk reac-tion from the police (damage control) ratherthan a more thorough investigation of the crimeincrease. A chief will probably respond to this pres-sure by exhorting his officers to work harder. This,in turn, might alienate managers and rank-and-file officers who feel the chief is blaming them forcrime problems that stem from factors beyond

their control, such as poverty, drugs, and unem-ployment.Typical of such officers was one respondent

who specifically noted the impact of broader struc-tural factors to support his earlier comments thatthe departments mission was not attainable in apractical sense: There are cities of the same size,say in California, where people have much higherincomes, and it is consequently easier to controlcrime. The departments failure to achieve its goal,as we have seen, threatened to breed this type ofcynicism among civilians and department mem-

bers who accused Davis, as the easiest target, ofdisingenuously claiming responsibility for previ-ous successes. In short, depending on the depart-ments capacity to meet its objectives, missionstatements might motivate the organization tosucceed or exacerbate its continuing failure tomeet those same objectives.

These observations suggest an obvious meansof reducing the dissonance caused by a depart-

ments failure to live up to its goalmodify themission statement. Davis suggested that this wascurrently happening at Lowell. He acknowledgedthat the department had recently experiencedsome drawbacks with the crime rate, and con-

tinued to say, Some people have come in andgiven a qualifier to amend the mission statement.He noted that it was important to take into ac-count Lowells socioeconomic and demographiccharacteristics in comparison to other cities, andhe added that they were now referring to Lowellas the safest city of its size and type in the UnitedStates (emphasis added). Of course, the depart-ment could decide to drop, rather than merelyrefine, its vision entirely, but this seemed veryunlikely at Lowell. Davis said firmly that Lowellssafest city statement was still vitally importanttoday.

Internal Accountability

For a departments mission statement to be effec-tive, workers need to be held responsible for meet-ing the goals that the department espouses.Compstat does this by holding operational com-manders accountable for knowing their command,being well acquainted with its problems, and mea-surably reducing themor at least demonstrat-

ing a diligent effort to learn from the experience.Compstat, in short, makes someone responsible fortackling and reducing crime and imposes adversecareer consequences, such as removal from com-mand, on those who fail to comply. In conductingour fieldwork, we discovered that accountabilitywas experienced most intensely by district com-manders and far less so by those further down thechain of command. In addition, our research re-vealed the paradox that holding officers to a veryhigh standard of accountability inhibited two otherCompstat components: Compstats ability to fa-

cilitate innovative problem solving through brain-storming and its capacity to reallocate resourcesto crime problems that most needed them, a com-ponent we address more fully under the sectionOrganizational Flexibility. Finally, we discoveredthat there are two challenges to the potency ofaccountabilitys ultimate threat to replace districtcommanders for poor performance: (1) There mayonly be a small pool of suitable replacements who


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are willing or able to do the job of district com-mander (this is particularly the case in smallerdepartments); and (2) Union and civil service re-quirements make it exceedingly difficult to removeofficers for poor performance.

Responses to our national survey and inten-sive site interviews suggested that departmentsthat have implemented a Compstat-like programconsider internal accountability to be a very im-portant feature of Compstat. Almost seven in tenof these departments told us that a district com-mander would be somewhat or very likely tobe replaced if he or she did not know about thecrime patterns in his or her district. Almost eightin ten of these departments told us, in turn, that acommander of a specialized unit would be some-what or very likely to be replaced if he or sheregularly failed to fulfill requests for cooperationfrom district commanders. A much smaller pro-portion of these departments reported that a dis-trict commander would be replaced simply if crimecontinued to rise in a district. Few departmentstake this extreme position because Compstat gen-erally requires commanders to be familiar withproblems and develop solutions to them but doesnot hold them too accountable for achieving out-comes that may be unresponsive to well-plannedpolice interventions (Weisburd et al. 2001).

Internal accountability was an integral part ofLowells Compstat program, as it was in manyother Compstat programs examined in our na-tional survey. In fact, Davis explicitly recognizedthe importance of this feature when he definedCompstat as a means to manage the police de-partment in a timely manner with an eye towardaccountability. He was not alone in acknowledg-ing the value of this element, as the comments ofother department members reveal. When askedwhat was particularly useful about Compstat, one

sector captain responded that it prevented slack-ing off. Another sector captain noted that Comp-stat was a way of keeping them honest sincehaving things up there on a map can show youhow bad things are, and you cannot say, Ooh, I

missed those reports; I did not see them.These sector captains clearly recognized and

accepted that Compstat held them accountable forall that occurred in their respective beats. Theircomments also brought out the central role thatCompstat meetings played in fostering account-ability by allowing Davis to visibly assert his lead-ership. Since all the command staff attended thebiweekly meetings, Compstat provided Davis withan ideal opportunity to display his authority andhold his sector captains publicly responsible.Compstat may provide a suitable venue, but ourresearch suggests that the accountability mecha-nism also relies upon the leadership style of theindividual who runs Compstat.

Davis leadership style, as observed at LowellsCompstat meetings, was to constantly ask ques-tions and make suggestions. Davis remarked thathe was seeking to foster data-driven decisionmaking in a learning organization by interrogat-ing his command staff about their responses tovarious crime problems and encouraging othersto promulgate helpful solutions. In an interview

with David Thacher (1998, 37), a researcher whovisited Lowell in 1997 as part of a national COPSevaluation, Davis explained, You have to be 90percent a teacher when you have this job and thatswhat I do. He hopes that by asking people, Whattheyre working on and how theyve come to thisconclusion . . . in front of people . . . eventuallytheyll get the idea of itthat its their responsi-bility.

In addition to promoting an information anddata-driven environment, a chief can use Compstatas an arena to reward or punish his command staff

in order to convey his expectations about accept-able performance. Holding command staff ac-countable for crime in their beats was a contro-versial element of the NYPD Compstat program.There is a well-known story in police circles thatduring one Compstat meeting Jack Maple repeat-edly flashed up a slide of Pinocchio while a mem-ber of the command staff struggled to explaincrime in his precinct (Maple later apologized). In

Internal accountability was an

integral part of Lowells . . .

program, as it was in many other

Compstat programs examined in

our national survey.


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contrast, Davis recognized that commanding of-ficers might be apprehensive or fearful about be-ing held accountable. Referring to this infamousbeating-up scenario in New York, he argued thatit was counterproductive to humiliate individu-

als during Compstat and adopted a more human-istic approach: Police officers are competitive bynature and all you really need to do is give themthe facts and ask them a question. They will gofrom there. Just asking them a question in frontof their peers, Davis opined, would make sectorcaptains feel accountable. That said, there havebeen occasions when Davis has been so displeasedby the lack of initiative of his command staff inresponse to his queries that he has taken a harderline and balled them out.

Compstats potential for confrontation ac-counts for why there is some concern that it canresult in command staff members being repri-manded. Outside of the usual command staff par-ticipants and audience, Compstat has a more pro-nounced reputation for being brutal. Despiteproviding a forum for making people do the jobthey do, many are clearly discouraged by the con-frontational atmosphere that can characterizeCompstat meetings. One officer described Comp-stat as a forum where officers had their ballsripped off and surmised that this only served to

make individuals reluctant to speak up . . . reluc-tant to do their job.Compstats reputation as a pressure-cooker

environment that holds sector captains account-able was widespread at Lowell. Even patrol offic-ers, who rarely attended Compstat, recognized thisfeature. Based on the survey we distributed at rollcall, 61 percent of officers reported that holdingsector captains accountable for crimes in theirbeats was very important (26 percent) or some-what important (35 percent). Only 34 percentreported that holding sector captains accountable

for crime in their beats was not at all important.Five percent responded that they dont know tothe question. In contrast, a slightly smaller pro-portion of officers, 56 percent, responded that,Holding officers accountable for crimes in theirbeats was very important (18 percent) orsomewhat important (38 percent). The fact thata greater proportion of patrol officers believed thatCompstat was very important for holding sec-

tor captains, in particular, accountable suggeststhat there is some general recognition that ac-countability is experienced most acutely bymiddle-level managers.

The conventional notion that grilling precinct

commanders on crime-reduction efforts rein-forces the patrol officers desire to combat crimeseems to overstate the case in Lowell (Silverman1999, 1945). Our research suggested a greaterlikelihood that the sense of accountability becamediluted as one moved down the command struc-ture. As one patrol officer put it when asked aboutCompstat, If you dont go, you dont know.Nearly the entire command staff attended Comp-stat, but only two or three patrol officers werepresent at any given Compstat meeting. Theymight answer a question or two, and they mightparticipate in a brief presentation, but they gener-ally played a peripheral role, leading one high-ranking officer to remark, Patrol officers can hidein the meeting and get away without saying any-thing.

Just because patrol officers were not regularattendees at Compstat did not mean that they didnot learn about or experience accountability; itsuggested, however, that they experienced it lessintensely. Several comments made to us suggestedthat when someone was chastised in Compstat,

news of their plight spread quickly throughout thedepartment. The roll-call survey results, however,indicated that what happened in Compstat wasmore likely to be communicated informally thanthrough a systematic process. Stories, anecdotes,and jokes expressing sympathy for, or humorabout, an individual who was unfortunate enoughto be chastened by Davis seemed to feed Comp-stats powerful reputation for holding officers ac-countable. However, the absence of a formalmechanism for transmitting this message fre-quently and directly to patrol officers could miti-

gate its impact on those at the bottom of the po-lice hierarchy. When asked, How often does yoursupervisor discuss what has happened at Compstatmeetings?, 61 percent of the patrol officers wesurveyed responded never (43 percent) or everyfew months (18 percent).

Since accountability relies heavily upon a pub-lic setting with high-ranking officials in atten-dance, it follows that accountability is experienced


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less acutely outside of this forum. In brief, a sec-tor captain who has been rebuked in Compstatfor an inadequate strategy may return to his sec-tor and admonish his line officers, but the forceof the message is considerably weakened for three

reasons: (1) Compstat ultimately holds middlemanagers, not line officers, accountable; (2) Themessage does not come from the highest rankingofficial in the police department, and (3) It, there-fore, does not result in public censure on the samescale.

Lowells Compstat is an independent program,but its impact on accountability relies heavily uponthe individual personality and leadership style ofthe superintendent, as shown by differences in thetenor and operation of Compstat meetings. WhenDavis was present, he tended to dominate Comp-stat meetings. In his absence, Compstat meetingswere more subdued. This difference in tonestemmed from a number of complex social dy-namics, as Davis pointed out. He was aware thatCompstat meetings ran differently in his absenceand proposed the general nature of police depart-ments as paramilitary organizations as a partialexplanation for the difference. He observed thatthese kinds of organizations, with their presumedemphasis on the command structure, didnt en-courage free-thinkers, but he was optimistic that

a system like Compstat could encourage indi-viduals to think differently. Davis comments re-veal that even though the individual responsiblefor running Compstat influences how accountabil-ity is experienced within the department, the or-ganization is simultaneously constrained by largerstructural limitations. These present significantchallenges to Compstats purported goals to en-courage information sharing and hold officers ac-countable for crime in their beats.

The departments organizational hierarchy,embodied in the rank structure, hampers the free

exchange of crime-related information and prob-lem-solving strategies at Compstat. Personal his-tories between officers intertwine with rank toform a complex set of social norms and relation-ships. Mutual exchange is clearly restricted by theexpectation that, on account of their social posi-tion, higher-ranking officers are primarily respon-sible for communicating crime information dur-ing Compstat. In addition, department norms

regarding camaraderie and respect curtail the free-dom to share ideas by prohibiting officers fromsharing potentially useful information that otherscould interpret as criticism.

This type of information might appear benign

to outside observers who are unfamiliar with thedepartments back-stage environment, but insid-ers know the least vague suggestion that a supe-rior is uninformed, misinformed, or incompetentcarries significant risk. The adamant refusal of onelieutenant to embarrass captains in Compstatreflects a feature of paramilitary organizationsembodied in the popular police maxim, shit rollsdownhill. Since information sharing at Compstatmay put a member of the command staff at fault,an officer may take the safest course of action andchoose not to participate in the meeting at all. Hemight also take the path of low risk by makingonly short and simple comments reiterating whathas already been said. Of course, he could alsodramatically increase the likelihood of negativerepercussions by directly criticizing a superior,even though we never witnessed this behaviorduring our research at Lowell.

Davis openly acknowledged that displays ofdeference limited the value of information ex-change by remarking that it was extremely dif-ficult to facilitate questions at Compstat. He noted

that an officer who is questioned by a peer or sub-ordinate during Compstat might later confront theinquisitor and complain, You really screwed mein there. To avoid this scenario, some membersof the command staff made a practice of givingadvance warning to colleagues whom they in-tended to call on at Compstat. One officer men-tioned that he preferred to discuss Compstat-related matters in private with Davis, rather thanbring them up at meetings; and Davis similarlyappeared to choose discrete rather than visiblesettings when directing his most vociferous criti-

cism at command staff. Members of the CAU alsoshared this tendency to bring discretion to theCompstat accountability process and describeddoing their best to inform sector captains of anychanges in the Compstat format because Compstatwas about providing information, not catchingpeople out.

We have already seen how Compstats stresson accountability conflicts with its emphasis on


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brainstorming, limiting effective collaborationbetween department members. The size of theorganization and its administrative rules and regu-lations, both factors independent of Compstat,limit, in turn, the level of accountability to which

a chief can formally hold his sector captains. Thesefactors also determine whether Compstat can liveup to its claim for predictably improving perform-ance by helping departments achieve greater ac-countability than they have in the past. Salientissues in this regard include how much a chiefcan punish those who fail to meet the goals of theorganization, whether he can remove them fromtheir position, an

Documents

Willis Et Al. (2004) - Compstat and Organizational Change in the Lowell Police Department