Police departments are created to provide public safety for a defined governmental jurisdiction which is accomplished through crime control, emergency aid, nonemergency services, and justice. However, police executives are confronted with a variety of challenges, such as citizens expecting greater accountability and effective performance, as well as varied crime-prevention services from police departments. Compstat is a goal-oriented, strategic management process that uses information technology, operational strategy, and managerial accountability to guide police operations. Compstat has been acclaimed as a new police-management paradigm that is revolutionizing law enforcement management practice. It has been identified as an effective and efficient method of delivering police services. Under Compstat, operational managers are empowered to focus, manage, and direct their unit’s problem-solving process. Compstat has also been critiqued and criticized by research scholars as a police reform. It is criticized for being more of an institutional regression that reaffirms the old and discredits management concepts of command and control. However, Compstat is an attempt to synthesize the elements of the rational-legal bureaucratic and community problem-solving paradigms with strategic management concepts taken from the business world. It empowers managers to be flexible and focus on the forces affecting the communities’ public-safety needs. It is changing police organizations into strategically managed, open-system learning organizations. References