In the mid-1990s, the NYPD created a performance management strategy known as Compstat. It consisted of computerized data, crime analysis, and advanced crime mapping coupled with middle management accountability and crime strategy meetings with high-ranking decision makers. While initially credited with a dramatic reduction in crime, questions quickly arose as to the reliability of the data.

The Crime Numbers Game: Management by Manipulation brings together the work of two criminologists—one a former NYPD captain—who present the first in-depth empirical analysis of this management system—exposing the truth about crime statistics manipulation in the NYPD and the repercussions suffered by crime victims and those who blew the whistle on this corrupt practice.


Providing insider insight into a system shrouded in secrecy, this volume:


Documents and analyzes a wide array of data that definitively demonstrates the range of manipulation reflected in official New York City crime statistics
Explores how the consequences of unreliable crime statistics ripple throughout police organizations, affecting police, citizens, and victims
Documents the widening spell of police performance management throughout the world
Reviews current NYPD leadership approaches and offers alternatives
Analyzes the synchronicity of the media’s and the NYPD’s responses to the authors’ findings
Explores the implications of various theoretical approaches to Compstat
Offers a new approach based on organizational transparency



Presenting a story of police reform gone astray, this book stunningly demonstrates how integrity succumbed to a short-term numbers game, casting a cloud on the department from which we can only hope it will emerge.
For more information, check out the authors' blog, Unveiling Compstat, at blogspot.com and their website.

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