Wow! eBook
The Crime Numbers Game: Management by Manipulation
Author(s): John A. Eterno (Author)
- Publisher: Routledge
- Publication Date: 30 Jun. 2017
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 316 pages
- ISBN-10: 1138458651
- ISBN-13: 9781138458659
Book Description
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. The Crime Numbers Game: Management by Manipulation 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 statistics manipulation in the NYPD and the repercussions suffered by crime victims and those who blew the whistle on this corrupt practice.Providing insider insight into a system shrouded in secrecy, this volume:Documents and analyzes a wide array of data that definitively demonstrates the range of manipulation reflected in official New York City crime statisticsExplores how the consequences of unreliable crime statistics ripple throughout police organizations, affecting police, citizens, and victimsDocuments the widening spell of police performance management throughout the worldReviews current NYPD leadership approaches and offers alternativesAnalyzes the synchronicity of the medias and the NYPDs responses to the authors findingsExplores the implications of various theoretical approaches to CompstatOffers a new approach based on organizational transparencyPresenting a story of police reform gone astray, this book stunningly demonstrates how integrity succumbed to a short-term numbers game, casting a cloud on the department from which we can only hope it will emerge.For more information, check out the authors’ blog, Unveiling Compstat, at blogspot.com and their website.
Editorial Reviews
Review
” … 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
About the Author
John A. Eterno, Eli B. Silverman
