Crime by the Numbers

By WILLIAM BRATTON

A RECENT survey of retired New York Police Department personnel strongly implies that the police’s reporting of crime statistics in New York City has been skewed for years, with precinct commanders and others downgrading crimes to make their results look better. According to the survey’s authors, criminologists John Eterno and Eli Silverman, and to spokesmen for the Captains Endowment Association, the pressures exerted by the department’s CompStat crime-tracking program forced commanders and their subordinates to manipulate statistics to protect themselves from abuse at CompStat meetings, where their results were discussed. Nothing could be further from the truth.

CompStat originated on my watch as police commissioner, from 1994 through early 1996, and I acknowledge that it was intended to be a tough system, using rigorous weekly reports to refocus commanders on combating crime. Nevertheless, I believe that very few precinct commanders would downgrade crimes under such pressure — and that there wouldn’t have been much effect on overall crime rates even if they had.

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An editorial in the New York Times. Tom