The Change Mariner

Compstat Shakes Up Police Departments from NY to Baltimore to Boston to LA

The New York Times:

In the mid-1990's, a new management program called Compstat shook up the New York Police Department. Detectives stopped working 9-to-5 and started working at the hours when most crimes occur. Crime statistics, once compiled every few months, were updated and mapped weekly. Commanders who displayed a feeble grasp of their precincts' problems were summarily replaced. Crime rates raced downward, outpacing a national decline. Since then, the gospel of New York-style policing specialized units, statistics-driven deployment, and a startling degree of hands-on leadership has been spreading throughout the country. So have the people who personify those tactics, a diaspora of zealous former New York Police Department officers who have gone on to lead other departments.

Some of the dozen or more in this wave of New York exports are well known, like John F. Timoney in Miami and William J. Bratton in Los Angeles. But further from the public eye, New Yorkers have been remolding departments one by one, from crime-plagued midsize cities like Baltimore down to Newton, Mass., a bedroom community near Boston whose police force numbers about one-half of 1 percent of New York's 37,000 officers. "It's culture shock," said Capt. Jeff Fluck.