Police leadership of tomorrow: comprehensive compstat performance management moving from stagnation to innovation

ABSTRACT

In 1994 New York City began its police performance management system called Compstat – compare statistics. It is now used by many law enforcement agencies throughout the world. Its use, however, is generally confined to reducing crime. Police departments’ roles in a democratic society is far more complicated: protecting Constitutional rights, preventing corruption from within, working under the authority of the people (the social contract), delivery of a wide variety of services not involving criminal enforcement and developing community partnerships. These are only a few ideas about the difficult role police have. We present evidence from a survey we conducted in 2012 with the New York City Police Department with a sample of 1,962 retired officers of all ranks. The survey demonstrates how performance management can morph into a top-down numbers crunching bureaucracy whose focus on crime fighting fails to accomplish the true mission of police in democracies. Moreover, federal, state and local political demands in the United States and other countries may exacerbate the problem. We suggest a path forward using transformational leadership, Compstat and community policing as vehicles for changing police, police bureaucracy, and police culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Police performance
• Compstat
• policing
• police management
• democratic policing
• community policing
• service

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John A. Eterno

John A. Eterno, Ph.D. is a professor, associate dean and director of graduate studies in criminal justice and legal studies at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, New York. Dr. Eterno is a retired captain in the New York City Police Department. He is former managing editor and now on the Board of Editors for Police Practice and Research. Dr. Eterno is a representative to the United Nations for the NGO the International Police Executive Symposium. Dr. Eterno is widely published.

Eli B. Silverman

Eli B. Silverman, Ph. D, is Professor Emeritus, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Graduate Center, City University of New York. He served with the U.S. Department of Justice and National Academy of Public Administration, Washington D. C and Exchange Professor, Police Staff College in England. Areas of interest include: police performance management, community policing, policy analysis, stop and frisk, and compstat.

Michael M. Berlin

Michael M. Berlin, J.D., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Criminal Justice Graduate Program at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Berlin’s areas of specialization include: constitutional law and criminal procedure, community policing, criminal justice leadership and management and terrorism/homeland security.