Chicago is the latest city rethinking disputed technology that listens for gunshots

An anti-gun violence sign is seen at a candlelight vigil in Highland Park, suburb of Chicago, Illinois, on July 5, 2022.

An anti-gun violence sign is seen at a candlelight vigil in Highland Park, suburb of Chicago, Illinois, on July 5, 2022. Joel Lerner/Xinhua via Getty Images

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

More than 150 U.S. cities use ShotSpotter, but a growing body of research shows that the tool has not succeeded in reducing gun violence, has slowed police response times to emergency calls and often did not lead to evidence recovery.

This story is republished from Stateline. Read the original article.

Chicago has joined a growing list of cities that have cut ties with a controversial company that tries to reduce urban gun violence with 24/7 technology that listens for the crack of gunshots and immediately notifies police.

This month, Chicago Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson announced the city would not renew its contract with SoundThinking, the California-based company behind ShotSpotter, software that uses a network of hidden neighborhood sensors to detect the sound of gunfire.

Chicago was spending around $9 million annually on one of the biggest installations in the country, covering around 100 square miles.

More than 150 cities nationwide use ShotSpotter in an effort to help police departments respond to more incidences of gunfire, which often go unreported by residents. Cities that have recently shown new or continued interest in the technology include Cleveland, Seattle and Little Rock, Arkansas.

Leaders say it can help save gunshot victims’ lives by enabling emergency responders to get to the scene of a shooting more quickly. As a result, they add, investigators can more quickly recover ballistic and bullet casing evidence used to solve crimes.

But over the past decade, cities around the country such as Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; New Orleans; and San Antonio, Texas, have decided to discontinue their use of ShotSpotter. Those decisions coincided with a growing body of research showing that ShotSpotter has not succeeded in reducing gun violence, has slowed police response times to emergency calls, and often did not lead to evidence recovery. SoundThinking has vigorously disputed criticism about ShotSpotter’s efficacy.

It’s troubling to have a powerful for-profit vendor pushing this strategy that has been widely adopted, but there’s not a lot of evidence that it’s particularly effective.

– Thomas Abt, University of Maryland associate research professor in criminology and criminal justice

As cities continue to reevaluate their strategies for bringing down gun assault numbers, which spiked during the pandemic and are slowly falling, they must focus on tools that are proven to keep their communities safe, especially with strained resources, said Thomas Abt, a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank, and an associate research professor in criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland.

“It’s troubling to have a powerful for-profit vendor pushing this strategy that has been widely adopted, but there’s not a lot of evidence that it’s particularly effective,” Abt said.

The Chicago mayor’s office reiterated that concern when it announced Johnson’s decision to stop using ShotSpotter, saying the city “will deploy its resources on the most effective strategies and tactics proven to accelerate the current downward trend in violent crime.” The city plans to decommission the software on Sept. 22.

Johnson’s decision makes good on a campaign promise he made during last year’s mayoral election, when he called the technology “unreliable.” An earlier investigation by Chicago’s inspector general found that ShotSpotter alerts “rarely produce documented evidence of a gun-related crime, investigatory stop, or recovery of a firearm.”

“The technology was not making residents safer and wasn’t a useful community safety tool. I think it will raise questions for other cities,” said Jonathan Manes, a Chicago-based attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center. The center released a report in 2021 that found the city’s use of ShotSpotter led to investigatory dead-ends and more police monitoring in communities of color.

SoundThinking did not agree to an interview with Stateline. In a statement, however, the company said that until September, it “will continue to provide the Chicago Police Department and the citizens of Chicago with the highest-quality gunshot detection services that the city has relied upon for the last seven years.”

City aldermen have been split on Johnson’s decision, with some agreeing the software did not use taxpayer dollars wisely on an academically disproven and expensive technology, and others saying it will make communities plagued by gun violence less safe and harder for police to do their jobs.

Around the country, ShotSpotter remains a popular tool in police departments, as more cities consider adopting or expanding their use, even as criticism slowly gains traction.

How Police Listen for Gunfire

In California, the suburban city of Richmond, just across the bay from San Francisco, has been using ShotSpotter for the past decade. When the microphones installed around the city of 114,000 detect gunfire, alerts are sent both to emergency dispatchers and to officers through an app on their phones.

The alert shows how many rounds of gunfire were detected, what sort of firearm was used and a pinpoint dot that gives a search radius for where the shots were fired. ShotSpotter uses 20 sensors per square mile.

Through the app, officers also can listen to an audio file of the shots. Using this information, dispatchers send officers to the scene to see whether there are victims and to collect evidence.

The details give officers a defined area in which to search instead of using “the old school way” of responding to a 911 call from a resident who heard but didn’t see gunfire, unable to say exactly where the shots were fired, said Lt. Donald Patchin of the Richmond Police Department.

He pointed to a December incident in which ShotSpotter was instrumental in leading to the arrest of two people and the confiscation of two firearms, using the location of the gunshot detection as a launching point to gathering evidence. The information isn’t used as the sole piece of evidence in prosecuting crimes, but it can help law enforcement, Patchin said.

“Unequivocally, it has resulted in us getting firearms out of the hands of felons and people that aren’t allowed to have guns, and we’ve got them off the street,” he said. “We’re fairly happy with the system.”

Last year, Richmond saw a record low number of homicides since the city started tracking data in 1971, which Patchin in part attributes to ShotSpotter.

In Seattle, the police department will test ShotSpotter this year, subject to public comment. The city council heeded calls from Democratic Mayor Bruce Harrell to inject $1.5 million into the budget for the pilot program after Seattle set a homicide record last year.

Seattle badly needs the technology alongside community-led public safety plans, said the Rev. Harriett Walden, co-founder of Mothers for Police Accountability, a local grassroots group. Too many children, especially in Black communities, are being traumatized by gunfire, she said.

“We have to see if this works for us,” Walden said, “if ShotSpotter can help us be able to get some arrests, be able to get people to the scene right away, and then be able to talk to young people about trauma and how this is not normal behavior.”

Growing Criticism

Even as cities continue to use ShotSpotter, though, many others are reconsidering their contracts.

Over the past year, leaders in Dayton, Ohio; Durham, North Carolina; and Portland, Oregon, have decided not to use ShotSpotter. Portland, for instance, found the software was not likely to reduce enough gun violence for the amount of money the city would need to spend. Leaders said they would concentrate on proven community outreach programs that targeted people most likely to commit gun violence at the micro level, instead of listening devices.

“It’s all bunk, but it’s a good sell for cities that are hard-strapped for a way to stop gun crime,” said Eleni Manis, research director for Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a New York City-based nonprofit that fights police surveillance of American communities. “It’s a technological boondoggle.”

Manis and her colleagues published a 2022 report showing that ShotSpotter had a difficult time weeding out noises that sounded like gunfire, such as fireworks or cars backfiring. The report also documented research showing that the program’s use doesn’t reduce gun crimes. And it doesn’t improve the medical outcomes of gunshot victims, police officers’ ability to clear homicide cases or communities’ cooperation with police.

“My primary beef goes beyond whether it works or not,” Manis said. “It doesn’t actually promote public safety. It really wastes officers’ time.”

A November working paper out of the University of California, Santa Barbara found that in Chicago, police officers spent so much time responding to ShotSpotter detections, some of which were false, that it took them significantly longer to respond to real emergencies. Also, because police arrived later to the scenes of actual shootings, they were less likely to make arrests.

For a police department such as Chicago’s, which is suffering from officer and funding shortages, ShotSpotter exacerbates institutional challenges by reallocating resources away from other 911 calls, said Michael Topper, a doctoral candidate in economics and co-author of the study.

“If you implement this technology that requires officers to do more work, then their other work is also going to suffer,” Topper said. “Police departments must evaluate what they have before starting to implement it.”

SoundThinking, the company behind ShotSpotter, vehemently disagrees with these studies, saying on its website that the gunshot detection technology has a high accuracy rate, while also helping police and emergency responders get to shooting scenes more quickly.

What is clear is that police who use the technology do find out about more gunshots than they did before using it, said Justin Nix, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha.

He wrote a study on Omaha’s use of ShotSpotter that found the police department would not have known about thousands of gunshots from 2014 to 2017 if not for the software. But while ShotSpotter led to more police reports, it did not produce more arrests than 911 calls did. If cities are going to use this tool, he said, they have to understand its limitations.

“Maybe it has a great deal of potential that hasn’t been realized yet,” Nix said. “But there’s no concrete evidence to date that would lead us to be confident that this is where we should put our dollars.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.