HOUSTON—You might say Jay Wall is a master of the Houston landscape.

Wall, a commercial real estate broker, knows the city like a bus driver knows his route.

“I see a great city with unlimited potential,” Wall said. “I know better things could happen in Houston, Texas.”

But Wall also says bad things are happening in Houston – things that often get swept under the rug.

“I would argue crime in Houston is tremendously underreported,” Wall said.

He is an outspoken critic of the Houston Police Department.

HPD has a police force of 5,000 – that’s 1,400 officers less than it should have.

The city admits retirement packages, slow recruiting and inferior pay are all factors for the deficit.

“And if we do not address it, we are going to go the way of Detroit, Philadelphia. This city has so much going for it,” Wall said.

In the city’s latest effort to fight crime, HPD rolled out a $3 million Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) last February.

The computers provide instant trends in crime, so officers can identify patterns throughout the city.

Wall commends those efforts, but he says they are not enough.

“Absolutely not. That is reactive. What I’m talking about is proactive,” Wall said.

Wall believes HPD needs more tools in its arsenal to be truly proactive.

That’s why he wants the city to consider a program called Compstat.

It’s a management tool used in other cities that helps officers map crime and holds them accountable for any fluctuations in their work zones.

“The Compstat, or crime control method of policing, were it adopted in Houston, could in very short order bring about dramatic reductions in crime,” Wall said.

Police in Los Angeles and New York use the Compstat system in combination with RTCCs

Statistics indicate crime dropped 25 percent in Los Angeles during a four-year period after the system was introduced.

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt would not comment for this story, but he’s criticized Compstat in the past.

And he’s not alone.

Police union president Gary Blankenship said HPD reviewed the system before buying the Real Time Crime Center. He said Compstat simply isn’t necessary.

“We are gathering all the same statistics Compstat gathers. We are doing it a little faster than Compstat does,” Blankenship said.

Blankenship said he wasn’t sure Houston needed the “duplicated effort” of both tools. He said the department currently has a lot of Compstat incorporated into the RTCC. 

Other experts say the two tools are separate.

One criminologist described them as “apples and oranges,” saying Compstat is a management took, while the RTCC is a tactical tool.

Still, Blankenship said HPD has no plans to install Compstat.

“I think HPD sees Compstat as a good program, but something in the past. We are moving way past Compstat,” he said.

That’s tough news for people like Jay Wall to hear.

“The hardest part for me is knowing the answer is so close,” he said.

Cops and their critics all agree crime needs to come down in Houston.

But the never-ending question remains: How?