Compstat was a 1996 winner of the Innovation in Government and has been listed as one of the major contributing factors to the "turn around" of police productivity in the New York Police Department in the mid-1990s.

Compstat has been the subject of several rumors, half truths and outright distortions. In a book whose audience is primarily college level students of policing and police management, Henry methodically explains the organizational context in which Compstat developed, actual implementation tactics and strategies used and assesses the future utility of the Compstat process in a variety of private and public settings.

Henry clearly establishes that Compstat is more than a "dog and pony show" or a staff meeting supplemented with computer graphics and statistical analysis. Rather it is one of several tools necessary to produce effective results in modern policing, " Compstat must be seen as one facet of a comprehensive and carefully orchestrated array of management strategies and practices".

This book is handicapped to an extent by the several audiences it serves simultaneously. First, nine of the ten chapters close with "Questions for Debate and Discussion", which serves the academic audience well but is bothersome to the general readers. Second, the use of sidebars tends to dilute the impact of the author's primary discussion at several points. However, the tenth chapter "The Compstat Paradigm: Summary of Basic Principles and Precepts" is one of the best short summaries of Compstat to be found anywhere in print. Those seven pages make the cost of the book worth very cent.

It was not simply hiring thousands of cops and putting them on the street, it was a matter of changing the way those cops worked. This involved not only technological change, such as the use of computer pin mapping, but also managerial and cultural change within the NYPD. The result was a more analytical and focused NYPD, a more responsive and flexible department, better able to serve the people of New York. Compstat was driving force behind those changes.

Vincent Henry is a friend and coworker of mine for ten years, since I was a student in his class at CW Post College. While he has academic credentials, he also has the experience and perspective of a street cop. He was well placed to observe significant developments in the NYPD and its strategies over the years. He has an in-depth knowledge of the history of the agency and the personalities involved in the development of Compstat. This background provides insight into the subtleties and nuances of Compstat (and the NYPD as a whole) that an outsider may miss. The Compstat Paradigm is not only a description of the development of Compstat, but also a history of the NYPD over the last two decades. This historical context increases understanding of the political and personal forces that influenced the development of Compstat.

I have attended dozens of Compstat sessions as both an observer and a participant. I have read other books on Compstat, including NYPD Battles Crime by Eli Silverman and Managing Police Operations: Implementing the NYPD Crime Control Model Using Compstat by Phyllis Parshall McDonald. The Compstat Paradigm is the most comprehensive and thorough description of Compstat available, and provides the best overview of what the Compstat process is, how it developed, and how it works in the New York City Police Department.