A candidate for Manhattan district attorney unveiled a plan that could increase oversight analysis and accountability in the area of crime prevention.

Richard Aborn introduced a concept that sounded familiar to anyone that's lived in New York during the past 20 years.

"We are going to institute something in the Manhattan DA's office, if I'm privileged to get this office, called Prevent-Stat," said Aborn. "It will take our commitment to do what we can to prevent crime and deliver measurable results. We will have targeted interventions with measurable results and Prevent-Stat will be the way we will measure the results and improve the efficiency of what we will do."

Prevent-Stat, according to Aborn, is designed to be a centralized method of data collection that would involve any agency that maintains contact with the district attorney. The goal is to identify individuals and the type of crimes they commit in order to determine the best program for them and track their results. Aborn wants crime prevention to be effective, but he also wants to prevent the nonsensical locking up of non-violent offenders. Aborn feels this could save taxpayers a lot of money.

"In New York, the cost of one year of residential treatment, the most expensive form of treatment that we have for offenders, is $ 21,000 versus the , $44,000 that it costs for us to keep someone in prison," Aborn said. "So for non-violent drug offenders or non-violent offenders with mental health issues, it makes far more sense to put them in effective treatments than in prison. But we also have to measure how they do and report to the public how they do and we intend to do that with PreventStat."

Prevent-Stat would allow the district attorney's office to determine the mode of treatment for offenders. This, said Aborn, is better than throwing taxpayer money into a judicial black hole.

"Unfortunately, right now there's virtually nothing known about how effective these various prevention programs (that are available) are," said Aborn. "New York City wastes more than $80 million on these programs and approximately $75,000 to incarcerate every juvenile. So we intend to put the metrics where the finances are. We intend to support the programs that work and we seek to defund the programs that don't work."

But why go through the district attorney's office? "We are uniquely positioned to collect this data, measure this data and use this data in an effective way," said Aborn.

One man, whose strategy gave Aborn the idea for his plan, stood by the district attorney candidate's side in approval and support.

"I had the good fortune to work with Mr. Aborn on a wide variety of issues," said former New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton. "One thing that's always fascinated me about him is his creativity in looking at how to solve problems."

Bratton, who's now commissioner of the Los Angeles Police Department, introduced Comp-Stat in the early years of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration. With CompStat, the objectives were to permit the constant monitoring of crime data, allow police to quickly detect crime patterns and to allocate resources to spots in the city where they're most needed.

Bratton, who was in New York on vacation with his wife, praised the idea of treatment prevention for non-violent offenders and felt the city could benefit from Aborn and his program.

"How do we find a more cost effective way to prevent them from continually going into drug programs and not succeeding?" asked Bratton. "This would allow the district attorney's office to be a much more effective partner with the rest of city government.

"PreventStat is music to my ears," said Bratton.