First, it is unclear whether the introduction of Compstat coincided with the declines in criminal activity; that is, crime was already beginning to decline in the city before the city had rolled out these reforms. Andrew Karmen, in his book New York Murder Mystery: The true story behind the crime crash of the 1990s, explains it this way:

The violence problem did not “turn around” with the advent of Compstat; body conts were already drifting downward before their rate of decrease accelerated. Although the bulk of the drop in murders per month took place in the latter part of 1994 when new strategies were being introduced, the number of vehicle thefts, robberies, burglaries, and larcenies reported to the police tumbled too soon, before Compstat was developed.

Additionally, New York was not the only city in the US that experienced great reductions in crime during the same time period. And not all of the cities with declining crime rates instituted the same polices that New York put into place.

Whle the NYPD was dramatically racheting-up apprehensions for minor violations, San Diego’s police force was cutting back on misdemeanor arrests; yet this large California city enjoyed the same degree of relief from the oppressive burden of crime as did New York.

The introduction of Compstat was a positive development, it allowed decision makers in the NYPD to use up-to-date data to better allocate resources and take a proactive approach to identify emerging “hot spots” of criminal activity. The use of “zero tolerance” policies, however, is more problematic. Zero tolerance and stop-and-frisk policies harm relations between the police and the community and may also needlessly put individuals behind bars. These approaches are not just infringements on our basic civil liberties. There are social costs associated with locking up individuals for low-level and quality of life offenses, including the individual's future criminality (those who have served jail time are more likely to engage in violent criminal behavior) and in the impact of a criminal record on job prospects.

On a final note, MacDonald ends her piece like this:

The conservative platform for cities, then, is as follows: reducing crime through data-driven, accountable policing; a commitment to public order and cleanliness; safe, rigorous schools; efficient city services; and a welfare system geared toward self-improvement, not dependency.

That is not a conservative platform for cities, but everyone’s platform for cities. Progressives are every bit as committed to public order, good schools, public services, and the betterment of those that are worse off. However, progressives don’t support the random stopping and searching of individuals, individuals who are not found to be doing anything wrong 88 percent of the time, to achieve public order. Not just because of the infringement on civil liberties, but because it really doesn’t work. Rather, it often does more harm than good.