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Changing the Cops

Like just about every police chief, you are attempting to launch your own version of Compstat, the much lauded crime-fighting program created by William Bratton when he was police commissioner in New York City. But for some reason, you can’t get people in the Zenith City Public Safety Agency to take you seriously.

While each of Bob Behn’s Manager’s Choice dilemmas is set in a particular public agency and deals with a particular problem, each is intended to provide a specific context for a common management challenge — one that might just as easily come up in a different kind of agency facing a different kind of problem. All Governing readers and Governing.com visitors are invited to draw on their experience and submit suggestions.

Sure, you hold Compstat meetings every Friday morning. Sure, you have the computer software that can analyze and display crime statistics and generate maps that reveal concentrations of burglaries or gang fights. Sure, you try to be tough on your precinct commanders who fail to develop effective strategies for such clusters.

Still, the police in Zenith City don’t seem to be changing.

Bratton gave visibility to Compstat, helping it spread across the country (and around the world). Conceptually, the idea is quite simple: Collect data on who commits what crimes, where and when. Analyze the data for patterns. Then make commanders responsible for developing specific strategies to attack specific crimes in their own precincts.

The most visible feature of Compstat is the weekly meeting. Here, the department’s top brass grill each precinct commander about why particular crimes have broken out in particular neighborhoods or at particular times of the day or week, and about how the commander plans to attack this pattern of crime.

Unfortunately, you aren’t the first Zenith City police chief to try to institute Compstat. Your predecessor, Donna Bailer, tried; so did her predecessor, Johnny Davidson. Neither was successful.

But then, neither stuck around very long. After just nine months of Compstat controversy, the mayor fired Davidson. Bailer’s version created less disruption and dissension, and after 12 months she had established some credibility for her initiative. But then came the siren song from a bigger city with a bigger budget, and Bailer was gone.

Deputy Chief Vince Francis served as interim chief while, once again, a national search firm went looking for someone to fill the job “permanently.” The headhunters found you, a precinct commander in a city with its own version of Compstat that had attracted a number of talented police professionals to its headquarters staff. So, with limited opportunities for quick advancement, you opted to accept the offer from Zenith City.

You knew what you were getting: a city with a crime rate that, when compared with cities of similar size and demographics, is slightly below average, and a police force that is very professional but not very creative. From top to bottom in the Zenith City Public Safety Agency, people know what police are supposed to do. But they are also a little parochial. Most of the precinct commanders came up through the ranks. They aren’t good at conceptualizing what they might do differently.

Of course, turnover in top leadership hasn’t helped. And it hasn’t just been Bailer and Davidson. Over the past decade, the agency has had six chiefs. Some, like Bailer, left to head bigger police departments. Others bent their swords trying to change the agency and left for less rigid departments. None had much of an impact on the police department’s well-established formal procedures and informal practices.

You knew all this when you took the job. Indeed, in the back of your head, you knew that Zenith City might only be a stepping stone to bigger things. But since your arrival, you’ve come to appreciate the city and your agency. Your spouse likes the recreational opportunities, and your kids love their schools. You want to stay.

But only if you can have an impact. And this appears to be much more difficult than you had anticipated.

Still, civic leaders have been very welcoming — both to you and to your ideas. From industry power brokers to community activists, people perceive your agency as a little too stodgy. They would like you to shake it up — not too much, but some. They don’t really know what that means, but they do think it ought to be possible to improve public safety.

Within the agency, no one is nasty. Francis, for example, doesn’t seem to resent that, once again, he has been passed over for the top job. He has helped you learn your way around the agency while subtly, but clearly, cautioning that change is difficult. He just wants you to avoid making unnecessary or disruptive changes.

Indeed, everyone you meet has been cordial, although one precinct commander, Eve Carlette, has a strange habit. She always calls you “Chief.” Carlette, you learned, has concluded that “it’s not worth my time to learn the new boss’s name.” But you want her to learn your name. You want to stay in Zenith City and bring about real changes in the way police fight crime.

What should you do?

For Bob Behn’s approach to this month’s public management dilemma — or to post your own ideas — click here.

Robert D. Behn conducts executive-education programs for public officials at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and is the author of Rethinking Democratic Accountability (Brookings). To read a chapter from the book, click here.