Friend,
On June 20th, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander released a report confirming the NYPD’s ineffective deployment of ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology. ShotSpotter’s use in New York City is mainly successful at wasting money and officers’ time.
For us at S.T.O.P., this does not come as a surprise. Two years ago, we released a research report titled ShotSpotter And The Misfires Of Gun Detection Technology. The “misfires” we identified in that report were still evident to Lander, who found that ShotSpotter dispatched officers based on false alarms 87% of the time over a nine-month period, leaving officers to spend 427 hours a month investigating unconfirmed reports. In the same nine-month period, ShotSpotter also missed more than 200 actual gunshot incidents.
New York’s numbers are in no way an anomaly. After finding the same inadequacy, Chicago is set to stop using ShotSpotter in September. And Houston aims to cancel their contract after the mayor called ShotSpotter “a gimmick.”
The NYPD’s current ShotSpotter contract is worth $22 million and is set to expire in December. They plan to renew it, saying, “non-renewal of ShotSpotter services may endanger the public.”
This couldn’t be farther from the truth. The technology does not facilitate any improvement for patient outcomes in shooting victims. Rather, like most police surveillance tools, its skewed deployment in Black and Latinx neighborhoods perpetuates racist policing and endangers community members. When officers are dispatched to what they think is the scene a gunshot but is actually a false alarm, innocent New Yorkers are at risk of bearing the consequences. In response to a Chicago ShotSpotter alert, police chased, shot, and killed a 13-year-old whose hands were empty when he was killed.
ShotSpotter wouldn’t be worth using if it cost zero dollars. But it doesn’t. It costs millions. It’s time for the NYPD to say goodbye to ShotSpotter. To learn more about where ShotSpotter falls short, check out the Comptroller’s report and our 2022 report ShotSpotter And The Misfires Of Gun Detection Technology.
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With thanks,
Gabe Quagliata
Development and Communications AmeriCorps Fellow
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