Little Rock, Arkansas, Drops Intrusive, Ineffective ShotSpotter System
The city government of Little Rock, Arkansas, recently dumped ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection tool that’s been adopted by some crime-troubled cities, but which has long been controversial. While billed as a means of speeding response to violent crime the technology has a history of unreliability, generating large numbers of bogus reports. Also, being based on the use of microphones, ShotSpotter can capture sounds other than gunshots, including private conversations. Altogether, even acknowledging the city’s struggles with crime, it made the right choice in putting its resources elsewhere.
Last week’s vote by the Little Rock Board of Directors (essentially the city council) apparently came as something of a surprise when the decision to extend the contract with SoundThinking Inc., the company behind ShotSpotter, failed by one vote. One important factor in dropping the contract was that the city has relied since 2018 on federal funding to pay for what the Arkansas Times describes as “dozens of ShotSpotter sensors in a 2-square-mile area south of Interstate 630,” but would have needed to tap tax revenues to continue the project. But disappointing results also played a role.
“I cannot support this continuation of this contract because I do not think the technology is there,” Director Kathy Webb commented.
That’s a fair concern considering not just the expense of the contract—the original deal cost $290,000 for two years—but also of the resources tied up in responding to false ShotSpotter reports. Other cities have run into the same problem, finding that relatively few incidents reported by the technology result in the discovery of criminal activity.
ShotSpotter “Rarely Produces Evidence” of a Crime
“Of the 50,176 confirmed and dispatched ShotSpotter alerts, 41,830 report a disposition—the outcome of the police response to an incident,” a 2021 report from Chicago’s Inspector General noted of the technology’s record in that city from 2020 to 2021. “A total of 4,556 of those 41,830 dispositions indicate that evidence of a gun-related criminal offense was found, representing 9.1% of CPD responses to ShotSpotter alerts.” Even fewer alerts, 2.1 percent, led to an investigation.
The Chicago Inspector General concluded that “ShotSpotter alerts rarely produce documented evidence of a gun-related crime, investigatory stop, or recovery of a firearm.”
Worse, then-65-year-old Michael Williams spent a year in jail after Chicago police tried to massage a ShotSpotter report into a homicide case again
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