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

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.