Since the creation of CompStat by Chief William J. Bratton and Jack Maple in 1994, when Bratton was commissioner of the New York Police Department, police and political leaders desiring to improve police performance and reduce crime have adopted it with enthusiasm. CompStat revolutionized policing in the mid-1990s by adding generally unheard-of levels of accountability to crime fighting and contributed to the national downward trends in crime during the last decade.