At the Houston Politics blog, Carolyn Feibel notes a budget item for HPD:
$1.06 million for additional software for HPD’s crime analysis center.
That’s the Real Time Crime Center MayorWhiteChiefHurtt touted as better than CompStat. In fact, Chief Hurtt called it “CompStat on steroids”:
Hurtt says that specialized software will link together databases kept by federal, state and county agencies. It will help identify whether local crimes are part of a trend or cluster, even “forecasting” where crimes might occur, so the 60-member “crime reduction” unit can be dispatched quickly to that “hot spot.”
The steroids metaphor may have been ill-timed considering the current baseball scandal. That said, however, Hurtt said that HPD visited NYC, Chicago and L.A. and adopted the “best practices” of each of those departments. And all for about $2.9 million, whereas New York’s crime center cost $11 million.
Seems almost too good to be true.
Another million dollars? Was the program incomplete when the city bought it? Is this an upgrade? What is the extra million for?
And has anyone cornered Chief Hurtt for a definition of “CompStat on steroids”?
Regarding “best practices” of NYC, Chicago and L.A., do those police departments also undercount homicides?
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Maybe that should be, CompStat on $teroids?
