New Orleans–with 76 murders per 100,000 citizens–has a murder rate eight times the national average and five times New York City’s. But New Orleans Police Chief Richard Pennington thinks he’s found a “magic bullet” to bring his city heavenly peace. He wants 400 more police officers (up from 1,300) and $14 million (on top of $94 million) added to the police budget. With those resources, he vows, he’ll cut the murder rate in half in three years. The irony is where Pennington found the bullet. At the chief’s invitation, experts from New York City–whose own murder rate has been cut almost in half largely because of changes in police tactics–have quietly begun trying to perform miracles in New Orleans. “If it works here, it’ll work anywhere,” says John Linder, a key engineer of New York’s reform now advising New Orleans. “And it’ll work here.”
Most Americans have trouble seeing New York as a place whose problems–let alone solutions–can inform the American experience. But that’s the premise behind New Orleans’s efforts. A revolutionary idea inspires both cities’ reforms: police can reduce crime, not just react to it.
The linchpin of the system, Pennington’s magic bullet, is called Comstat–meetings that blend state-of-the-art computer analysis of the latest crime patterns with an unrelenting emphasis on police accountability. It’s the brainchild of Linder and former New York deputy chief Jack Maple, who arrived in New Orleans last summer as partners in a new consulting firm. Comstat’s approach ignores decades of expert research that has shown that crime levels are determined by vast social forces beyond police control–poverty, racism, demographics. Working under the new system since 1994, New York scored nation-beating reductions in categories from vandalism to murder–and many in between. One success might be a miracle. Two would be a national formula. So academics are watching New Orleans closely. “If it works,” says Princeton University crime expert John DiIulio Jr., “a lot of criminologists would have to jump out the window.”
Weekly Comstat meetings have made a few New Orleans police captains want to do the same. On the top floor of NOPD’s musty headquarters last week, Deputy Chief R. W. Serpas kept getting in the face of Capt. Michael Ellington, 6th District commander. “I know,” said Serpas as Ellington recited the details of a double murder in the 6th last week, “but how did you solve the case?.. . And what about simple robberies?” The staccato flurry was more intimidating thanks to an audience–fellow captains, subordinates and Chief Pennington. But Ellington gave as good as he got. Since Comstat began, two months ago, crime in the 6th is down in every category except simple robbery. It’s premature to report firm figures citywide. But the early data look encouraging for all but one line item–murder.
The Big Easy faces problems the Big Apple didn’t. One: the New Orleans City Council has so far come up with only $4 million of the $14 million Chief Pennington needs to hike pay and improve recruiting. Another: New Yorkers Linder (“spin doctor”) and Maple (“witch doctor”) struck some NOPD veterans as carpetbaggers at first. As the system produces arrests, that resentment is fading. “When you know your captain’s getting his ass chewed,” one patrolman says, “the results work their way down.” The intriguing trick will be to make the murder rate do the same–and quickly.
