CompStat
Definition
A police management and accountability system first implemented by the New York City Police Department in 1994. CompStat uses regularly updated crime maps to hold precinct commanders accountable for crime trends in their areas and to direct resources to emerging hotspots. It became a model for data-driven policing in many countries.
Related terms
- Crime hotspot
- A small geographic area where crime incidents cluster at a rate significantly higher than surrounding areas over a defined time period. Hotspot...
- Dark figure of crime
- The gap between the actual volume of crime and the amount recorded in official statistics. Crimes go unrecorded when victims do not...
- Geographic information system (GIS)
- Software that stores, analyses, and visualises data tied to geographic coordinates. In crime analysis, GIS platforms such as ArcGIS or the open-source...
- Recording rate
- The proportion of crimes known to police that are formally entered into official statistics. Recording rates below 100% produce a secondary dark...
- Victimisation survey
- A survey that asks a random population sample about crimes experienced in a reference period, regardless of whether those incidents were reported...
Explained in
- The Dark Figure of Crime and Crime MappingA police management and accountability system first implemented by the New York City Police Department in 1994. CompStat uses regularly updated crime maps to h...