The Crime Numbers Game: Management by Manipulation

by John A. Eterno, Eli B. Silverman

Overview

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. This volume 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 statistic's manipulation in the NYPD and the repercussions suffered by crime victims and those who blew the whistle on this corrupt practice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439810316
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/31/2012
Series:	Advances in Police Theory and Practice , #11
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	314
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

John A. Eterno, Eli B. Silverman

Table of Contents

Forewords by Sir Hugh Orde, OBE, QPM, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and Commissioner Andrew Scipione, APM, New South Wales Police Force, Australia. The Unusual Suspects. The NYPD’s Untold Story: Crime Report Manipulation. Performance Management: Pitfalls and Prospects. Police Performance Management: The View from Abroad. Big Bad Bully Bosses: Leadership 101. NYPD and the Media: Curbing Criticism. Compstat: Underpinnings and Implications. Silence Is Not An Option. Appendix. Index.

Editorial Reviews

"… absolutely worth reading. It raises serious concerns which, if true, amount to a terrible management system which has been allowed to run amok—raising some frightening civil liberties issues. It should be read by anyone involved in law enforcement and public safety statistical analysis because it highlights many possible ways to game the system and then describes the unintended consequences of such gaming."
—Nick Selby, in Police-Led Intelligence

From the Publisher