IN DEFENSE OF CRIME STATS DURING BRATTON'S TENURE

John Yohe, who originated the CompStat program, took strong exception to what I have written on the manipulation of crime stats during William Bratton’s tenure as police chief in New York and Los Angeles. While I am sticking to my guns, I do want to be fair to all parties concerned. That’s why I’m posting what Yohe personally wrote to me.

Here is John Yohe’s rebuttal:

Regarding the accusations that the numbers were fudged during Bratton's tenure, hopefully for the last time:

Bratton repeatedly and clearly communicated to all precinct commanders and command staff that there would be no "sharp pencils." He didn't say this with a wink in his eye, he meant it.

Misdemeanor complaints increased for several reasons, among them was that we required a complaint report for every misdemeanor arrest and because there was a department wide increase in attention to crime and accurate reporting. If someone had a complaint, felony or misdemeanor, we wanted it documented.

We conducted numerous reviews of the reports and the classifications. This was done both independently and in conjunction with the then Crime Analysis Unit under Phil McGuire. Quite a few complaints were "downgraded" and quite a few were also "upgraded." If a crime was incorrectly coded according to UCR classification standards, it was re-coded correctly - whichever way that caused the incident to change.

As Chief Anemone has also pointed out to me, during Bratton's tenure, almost 2/3 of the precinct commanders were rotated out at relatively short intervals. This negated the incentive to downgrade crimes on a wholesale level because a new commander would be in place most likely within two years and notice the problem. The commanders didn't stay for extended periods of time like they do now.

Again, I point out Jack Maple's statement regarding the "secret police cemetery." We weren't hiding the bodies somewhere, homicides actually decreased. If someone's car was stolen, they had to have a report for insurance purposes. They couldn't turn in a report that said they "lost" the car.

The Chief's office routinely reviewed any precipitous drop in crime, by precinct, by crime type. If a command showed a 12% drop in assaults for example, every assault report (both felony and misdemeanor) for the affected time frame was pulled and reviewed. We even pulled the "scratch" reports (preliminary copies prepared by the reporting officer) to check for downgrading and miscoding.

On a personal note (I find it almost impossible to separate myself from this and write purely objectively):

I wrote the original Compstat program. I am one of the four members of the NYPD who directly created the program. In conjunction with Commissioner Bratton, Deputy Commissioner Maple and Chief Louis Anemone, I developed, deployed, modified and administered almost every facet of Compstat from inception through my retirement in 1999.

I personally checked thousands of reports, personally checked every formula, query and result on the printed reports. I personally called precinct and borough commanders at the first sign of any anomaly, whether in report content, classification or tabulation. I personally reported any suspicions or discoveries to both Deputy Commissioner Maple and Chief Anemone, and personally observed them advise, correct and even replace precinct commanders who attempted to creatively reduce their numbers.

What happened after I left in 1999, I can't say. But anyone who implies or states that there was anything even remotely resembling institutionalized manipulation of statistics prior to that is either ill-advised, mistaken or a liar.

I was in LA only for the first six months of Bratton's tenure. I can't speak to anything that may or may not have subsequently happened, because I wasn't there. Likewise, I can't speak about NYPD after I left, nor, for the same reason, would I venture to comment on the validity of crime stats in Chicago, Houston, Miami or Ypsilanti. I can only say that during the time I was in the NYPD, there was no institutionalized manipulation of the numbers.

John P. Yohe
Sergeant, Special Assignment
NYPD (ret.)