Designing Performance Systems in Anticipation of Unintended Consequences: Experiences and Lessons From the Compstat-Based Performance Regime in NYPD

• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Author: Yi Lu,M. Blair Thomas,Kaifeng Yang
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399720976532
• Date: 01 July 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720976532

Administration & Society

2021, Vol. 53(6) 907 –936

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0095399720976532

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Article

Designing Performance

Systems in Anticipation

of Unintended

Consequences:

Experiences and Lessons

From the Compstat-

Based Performance

Regime in NYPD

Yi Lu1, Kaifeng Yang2,3, and M. Blair Thomas4

Abstract

Scholars have long documented the unintended consequences of

performance systems, but insufficient attention is paid to the drivers of such

consequences and the ways of mitigating them. This article contributes to

this line of inquiry by analyzing New York Police Department’s (NYPD)

experience with its signature performance system and its affiliated policies.

With multiple data sources, it finds three main drivers of the unintended

consequences, including the excessive performance pressure, the

bureaucracy-public expectation mismatch, and the ambiguity concerning

government performance. The article makes six suggestions regarding

the design of performance management systems so that their potential

unintended consequences can be better identified and mitigated.

1John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA

2Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

3Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA

4Valdosta State University, GA, USA

Corresponding Authors:

Kaifeng Yang, School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China,

Haidian District, Beijing 100872, China.

Email: yangkaifeng@ruc.edu.cn

976532AASXXX10.1177/0095399720976532Administration & SocietyLu et al.

research-article2020

908 Administration & Society 53(6)

Keywords

unintended consequences, performance management, accountability,

ambiguity

“Computer statistics” or “comparative statistics,” commonly known as

Compstat, has been popular in the United States, notably within the policing

field. Since the New York Police Department (NYPD) adopted it in 1994,

Compstat, a system that “uses computer-mapping technology and timely

crime analysis to target emerging crime patterns and coordinate police

response” (Bratton & Malinowski, 2008, p. 259), has been arguably respon-

sible for modernizing the NYPD with a new model to fight crime. In the

earlier years of its implementation, Harvard University bestowed Compstat

with its “Innovations in American Government Award” in 1996. Moore

(2013) recognizes the NYPD performance practice as an exemplar in recog-

nizing and creating public value, and Behn (2014) praises it as an effective

leadership strategy for producing results.

In the meantime, reflections have been done on how Compstat is imple-

mented and how good policing should perform, by the police profession

(Willis et al., 2003), oversight bodies (Kelley & McCarthy, 2013), and schol-

ars (Eterno & Silverman, 2012; Weisburd & Braga, 2006). Growing concerns

of the unintended consequences of Compstat have surfaced, notably regard-

ing how NYPD commanders may have misused the tool to gain more control

over officers and exacerbated the mistrust between the police and the com-

munity (Eterno & Silverman, 2010a).

Looking broadly, what do we know about the unintended consequences of

performance systems in general? Indeed, public management literature has

identified various types of unintended consequences of performance systems:

cutting the corners, ratchet, threshold, magic tricks, among many others

(Bevan & Hood, 2006; Courty & Marschke, 2007; Hood, 2006, 2020; Hood

& Piotrowska, 2020; Kelman & Friedman, 2009; Pollitt, 2003; P. Smith,

1995; Taylor, 2020; Terman & Yang, 2016; Van Thiel & Leeuw, 2002). More

generally, Hood and Peters (2004) argued that the New Public Management

(NPM) movement, which includes performance measurement, has unin-

tended or paradoxical effects. They conclude that the value of identifying the

unintended effects is “challenging scholars to work out ways to account for

the surprises that attend apparently rationalistic reforms” (p. 279).

So far, it remains largely unclear how we might better deal with unin-

tended consequences. In this research, we aim to provide some preliminary

answers by analyzing NYPD’s experience with Compstat-based performance