CompStat Is Not the Problem

CompStat was created to make police departments more informed, responsive, and accountable. It gave command staff access to timely crime information, placed responsibility closer to the commanders overseeing affected areas, and created a process for examining whether police strategies were actually working.

Those are worthy goals.

Police departments should study their data. Leaders should understand crime patterns, calls for service, staffing demands, community concerns, use of force, traffic collisions, response times, and the conditions affecting the officers they lead. Commanders should be able to explain what is happening within their areas of responsibility and what they are doing about it.

The problem is not CompStat itself. The problem is what many departments have allowed CompStat to become.

In too many agencies, the meeting is no longer primarily about collaboration, learning, or solving problems. It has become a pressure chamber where commanders defend every number, explain every increase, and hope they are not the next person publicly called out.

That may create obedience. It does not necessarily create leadership.

Why CompStat Became So Powerful

CompStat emerged from the New York City Police Department during the 1990s and quickly became one of the most influential police management systems in the country. According to Compstat: Its Origins, Evolution, and Future in Law Enforcement Agencies, by the Police Executive Research Forum (Bureau of Justice Assistance), its core components center on timely and accurate information or intelligence, rapid deployment of resources, effective tactics, and relentless follow-through.

There is nothing unreasonable about those principles. Police organizations had long struggled with information moving slowly through layers of bureaucracy. Crime reports might be collected without being meaningfully analyzed. Commanders could remain disconnected from emerging problems until those problems became crises. Resources were not always placed where they were most needed, and ineffective strategies could continue because no structured process existed to question them.

CompStat offered clarity. It placed crime maps, operational data, and command responsibility in the same room. It gave executives greater visibility into what was happening across the organization. It also made it more difficult for commanders to ignore persistent problems or hide behind the size and complexity of the department.

That explains why the model spread so quickly. It gave police executives something every leader wants: a clearer picture of the organization and a way to hold people responsible for performance.

But every system carries the weaknesses of the culture operating it.

A healthy culture can use CompStat to encourage preparation, cooperation, and disciplined problem-solving. An unhealthy culture can use the same process to intimidate, embarrass, and reinforce the authority of those already in power.

The difference is leadership.

When Accountability Becomes Theater

From where I sit as a patrol sergeant, accountability is not optional. Supervisors and commanders should be expected to know their personnel, understand the conditions affecting their shifts, recognize developing problems, and explain the reasoning behind their decisions.

But accountability is not the same as humiliation.

There is a difference between asking difficult questions and creating an environment where people are afraid to answer honestly. There is a difference between demanding preparation and using a meeting to demonstrate who holds the most authority. There is a difference between challenging a commander’s strategy and reducing that commander to a set of numbers on a screen.

When leaders know that a meeting may become a public trial, their behavior changes. They become less concerned with exploring the problem and more concerned with surviving the room. They begin preparing defenses instead of ideas. They avoid admitting uncertainty because uncertainty may be interpreted as incompetence. They become reluctant to discuss failed strategies because failure may bring embarrassment rather than learning.

Eventually, the organization stops asking, “What are we missing?”

It starts asking, “What does command want to hear?”

That is the moment accountability becomes theater.

Everyone still attends. The charts are displayed. The questions are asked. Commanders provide answers, and directions are given. From the outside, it may appear that serious management is taking place.

But beneath the surface, people are managing impressions. They are protecting themselves. They are learning how to avoid being singled out.

The meeting may look disciplined while producing very little honest thought.

Obedience Is Not Innovation

Police organizations depend on lawful obedience. There are moments when orders must be followed immediately. During critical incidents, confusion and endless debate can cost lives. Clear command authority matters.

But a command meeting is not a critical incident.

Its purpose should not be to reproduce the same conditions as an emergency scene. It should be a place where experienced leaders can slow down, examine problems, challenge assumptions, and develop better decisions.

Innovation requires more than compliance. It requires people who are willing to question whether the current approach is working. It requires commanders who can admit that they do not have every answer. It requires the ability to present an idea that may fail without fearing that the failure will define the person who proposed it.

Research on CompStat has documented this tension. “COMPSTAT and Bureaucracy: A Case Study of Challenges and Opportunities for Change,” by James J. Willis, Stephen D. Mastrofski, and David Weisburd (Justice Quarterly), found that strengthening control through accountability could interfere with the reform’s own operation. The research suggested that traditional features of police bureaucracy could remain firmly in place even while the organization appeared to be adopting a modern management system.

Another study, Compstat in Practice: An In-Depth Analysis of Three Cities, by James J. Willis, Stephen D. Mastrofski, and David Weisburd (National Policing Institute), found that the pressure placed on supervisors sometimes caused them to severely restrict the discretion of their officers. Patrol officers were often excluded from the CompStat process even though they possessed direct knowledge of the streets, recurring locations, neighborhood dynamics, and the practical limitations of departmental strategies.

That is a serious contradiction.

A system designed to produce better information can exclude the people closest to the problem. A process designed to encourage innovation can create pressure that causes leaders to tighten control. A reform intended to improve organizational learning can reinforce the same command structures that prevent honest information from traveling upward.

This is how an organization creates obedience while believing it is creating accountability.

When the Numbers Become the Mission

Data matters, but data is never the entire truth.

A crime report can tell us what was officially recorded. It cannot always tell us what residents were afraid to report. An arrest number can show activity. It cannot tell us whether that activity improved public safety. A response time can measure how quickly an officer arrived. It cannot fully measure the quality of the officer’s decisions once there.

Numbers can show us patterns, but they cannot explain every human condition behind those patterns.

The danger begins when a measurement becomes more important than the mission it was designed to support. Once careers, reputations, and promotions become tied too closely to certain numbers, the incentive can quietly shift from improving reality to improving the appearance of reality.

This does not mean every department manipulates statistics or that every commander acts dishonestly. It means pressure can change behavior, especially when the people presenting the numbers believe an unfavorable result will be treated as a personal failure.

“The NYPD’s Compstat: Compare Statistics or Compose Statistics?” by John A. Eterno and Eli B. Silverman (International Journal of Police Science & Management), examined the pressure experienced by New York City police managers during the CompStat era and raised concerns about the relationship between intense performance demands and unethical crime reporting practices. More recent reviews of performance management systems have similarly warned that excessive pressure can produce unintended consequences.

The evidence review “CompStat,” by the College of Policing, notes that an excessive focus on accountability may pressure police leaders to deliver desired numbers regardless of how they are achieved.

That should concern every police executive.

A system built around data cannot remain credible if the culture surrounding that data makes people afraid to report bad news. If commanders are punished whenever the numbers move in the wrong direction, the organization may eventually stop receiving an accurate picture of itself.

Leaders should want the truth more than they want reassurance.

Meetings Should Do What Email Cannot

Crime statistics, staffing reports, activity summaries, deployment information, and operational updates can be distributed before a meeting. Commanders should be expected to review them, understand them, and arrive prepared to discuss them.

There is little value in assembling a room full of experienced leaders simply to read information that could have been sent electronically.

Meetings become valuable when they accomplish something that documents cannot.

A command meeting should allow leaders to compare perspectives, challenge assumptions, identify barriers, coordinate resources, and make decisions. It should allow one commander to explain what worked in one part of the city so another can determine whether the approach could be adapted elsewhere. It should reveal where patrol, detectives, dispatchers, community services, training personnel, and outside partners are working toward the same goal without communicating effectively.

The meeting should also reconnect people to the mission.

Data may show that calls increased in a neighborhood, but conversation can reveal why. Numbers may show repeated responses to the same address, but discussion may uncover that officers are addressing each call individually without examining the underlying problem. Statistics may indicate an increase in arrests while supervisors recognize that the arrests are consuming resources without changing the conditions producing the behavior.

This is where command experience matters.

Leaders should not gather merely to recite what happened. They should gather to decide what it means and what should happen next.

The meeting should answer questions that an email cannot. What are we failing to see? What have we already tried? Why did it fail? What did the officers closest to the problem observe? What support does the commander need? Which policy, practice, or organizational barrier is preventing progress? What decision must be made today?

Those questions create value because they require judgment, discussion, and diverse perspectives.

Accountability Without Humiliation

Some leaders hear criticism of public callouts and assume the alternative is lowering standards. It is not.

People can be held accountable with dignity. In fact, accountability becomes stronger when it is fair, specific, and focused on improvement.

A commander who failed to prepare should be addressed. A leader who ignored a developing problem should be expected to explain why. Strategies should be examined, poor decisions should be corrected, and repeated failures should have consequences.

But humiliation is not a leadership strategy.

Humiliation teaches people to hide mistakes. It encourages silence, defensiveness, and resentment. It may produce immediate compliance, but it weakens the trust required for long-term organizational learning.

The foundational study “Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams,” by Amy Edmondson (Administrative Science Quarterly), found that people are more likely to engage in learning behavior when they believe they can speak honestly, ask questions, and acknowledge mistakes without being personally punished or embarrassed.

Psychological safety does not mean an absence of standards. It does not mean everyone must agree, and it does not protect incompetence. It means people can raise concerns, challenge ideas, and admit what they do not know without fearing that honesty will be used against them.

Police departments need that kind of honesty.

The work is too complex and the consequences are too serious for leaders to pretend they have every answer. Commanders need to hear when a policy is failing in practice. Chiefs need to know when their intent is being misunderstood. Supervisors need to be able to explain when staffing, training, equipment, or organizational barriers make an expected outcome unrealistic.

If the culture punishes anyone who delivers unwelcome information, the truth will eventually stop reaching the top.

Restoring the Purpose of CompStat

CompStat does not need to disappear. It needs to return to its intended purpose.

The data should be reviewed before the meeting so that the meeting can focus on interpretation and decisions. Commanders should still be responsible for understanding their areas, but they should not be treated as if they personally created every social condition occurring within them.

The discussion should include more than crime totals. Departments should examine community trust, repeat calls for service, employee wellness, training needs, complaint patterns, problem locations, quality of investigations, and whether current strategies are creating sustainable results.

Patrol officers and first-line supervisors should have a meaningful way to contribute their observations. They see the difference between what a policy says and what actually happens on the street. Their knowledge should inform command decisions rather than remaining trapped at roll call.

Leaders should also distinguish between controllable performance and environmental conditions. A commander can control preparation, deployment, communication, follow-through, and the quality of supervision. That commander cannot personally control every crime committed within a district. Holding someone accountable for what they can influence is leadership. Blaming them for everything that happens within a geographical boundary is management by fear.

Most importantly, the meeting should end with clear decisions. Who is responsible for the next action? What resources are being provided? What does success look like? When will the strategy be reviewed? What did the organization learn?

If those questions remain unanswered, the department did not hold a strategy meeting. It held a presentation.

Leadership Is More Than Measurement

As police leaders, we cannot reject data simply because we dislike how it has been used. That would be a mistake. Experience matters, but experience without evidence can become habit. Instinct matters, but instinct without reflection can become bias.

We need data because data can challenge what we think we know.

But data also needs leadership because numbers cannot interpret themselves. They cannot understand context, inspire people, resolve conflict, or determine what is morally right. They cannot replace judgment, character, courage, or the willingness to listen.

A commander is not leading simply because the numbers moved in the desired direction. A chief is not building a healthy department simply because every division produced an impressive presentation. A meeting is not valuable simply because the people inside it felt pressure.

Real leadership is revealed by what the organization becomes after the meeting.

Are people clearer about the mission? Do commanders understand the intent behind the decision? Were different perspectives considered? Did someone identify a problem that had previously been ignored? Were resources aligned with priorities? Did the meeting produce action, learning, and responsibility?

Or did everyone simply learn to remain silent, protect themselves, and avoid being the next person called out?

CompStat became influential because it promised to make police organizations more intelligent and accountable. It can still serve that purpose. But only if leaders remember that accountability is supposed to improve performance, not display authority.

The goal should not be to create commanders who are skilled at surviving meetings. The goal should be to develop leaders who can think critically, communicate honestly, accept responsibility, and solve problems under difficult conditions.

Send the information before the meeting. Expect people to arrive prepared. Then use the room for what only people in honest conversation can accomplish.

Challenge assumptions. Debate ideas. Learn from failure. Realign the mission. Make decisions.

Data should inform leadership.

It should never replace it.

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Ayman Kafel is a patrol sergeant, combat veteran, and founder of Project Sapient, with more than 20 years of operational experience. He served in Iraq as a U.S. Army soldier and translator and has worked in law enforcement roles including SWAT, DEA task force work, and plainclothes interdiction; he also holds a master’s degree in counterterrorism. For The Havok Journal, he writes from that background on law enforcement, service, training, stress, resilience, and national security, often focusing on the physical and psychological demands of high-stress work. Follow Project Sapient on Instagram, YouTube, and all podcast platforms for engaging content. He can be reached at ayman@projectsapient.com.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.