Police Performance Management in Practice: Taking COMPSTAT to the Next Level

William J. Bratton is Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and former Chief of the NYPD. He is best known for leading the development and expansion of COMPSTAT, the internationally acclaimed command accountability system that uses computer-mapping technology and timely crime analysis to target emerging crime patterns and coordinate police response. Sean W. Malinowski, Ph.D., is a Lieutenant with the LAPD serving as the Assistant Commanding Officer of the LAPD's Real-time Analysis and Critical Response Division. He is a senior fellow with Long Island University's Homeland Security Management Institute. In this article, they consider police performance management in practice, through the lens of Chief Bratton's own experience of reducing crime in New York and Los Angeles. By measuring the performance of police managers whilst holding them to account for crimes, they explain the role COMPSTAT played in fighting crime in these areas and look forward to see how police can continue to innovate and expand upon existing police performance measures.