CompStat
Geographic data- and productivity-driven strategy of policing
CompStat (also written COMPSTAT) is a police management system created by the New York City Police Department in 1994 with assistance from the New York City Police Foundation. Today, variations of the system are used in police departments worldwide. Under CompStat, the police department keeps a daily-updated digital record of crimes reported and in weekly meetings the department's leadership gathers to review trends in the data. During its early years, it was credited with decreased crime rates in NYC, though scholars are divided on whether it played a role. It has also been criticized in NYC for leading to data manipulation and increased stop-and-frisk searches.
Origins
CompStat (in NYPD it is said to be short for "compare stats", but in LAPD it is said to be short for “computer statistics”) is a management system created in April 1994 by Bill Bratton and Jack Maple, whom Bratton met while he was chief of the New York City Transit Police and later hired as the NYPD's top anti-crime specialist when he became Police Commissioner in 1993. CompStat began as weekly meetings at One Police Plaza where officers were randomly selected from precincts and quizzed about crime trends in their districts and how to respond. At the time, the NYPD collected crime statistics every 6 months; under threat of transfers, they began to collect information daily. In February 1994, the department heads provided a hand count of major crimes in the first 6 weeks of 1993 and 1994.
Maple drafted junior staffer John Yohe to modify an existing program (known as "compare stats", and that name became the basis for the CompStat name) to analyze the data.
“CompStat” enters the record as geographic data- and productivity-driven strategy of policing. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what CompStat, Geographic and data- can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“CompStat” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, CompStat, Geographic and data- provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4383418. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994 and 1993.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “CompStat”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow CompStat primary sources, CompStat archive and CompStat research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “CompStat”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “CompStat” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.