Data Crunchers Ask New Yorkers: How Are the Police Doing? [telecom]

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CompStat will send New Yorkers questions on their smartphones to see if they feel safe, if they trust the police and if they are confident in the department.

By Al Baker

It was a policing invention with a futuristic sounding name - CompStat - when the New York Police Department introduced it as a management system for fighting crime in an era of much higher violence in the 1990s. Police departments around the country, and the world, adapted its system of mapping muggings, robberies and other crimes; measuring police activity; and holding local commanders accountable.

Now, a quarter-century later, it is getting a broad reimagining and being brought into the mobile age. Moving away from simple stats and figures, CompStat is getting touchy-feely. It's going to ask New Yorkers - via thousands of questions on their phones - "How are you feeling?" and "How are we, the police, doing?"