The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners recently approved spending $200,000 for another year of ShotSpotter, a surveillance technology, despite a new study that says it doesn’t achieve the city’s public safety goals.
An audio surveillance technology the Kansas City Police Department uses to detect the location of gunshots has failed to reduce violent crime, a new study says.
An academic research project funded by the National Institute of Justice found that the use of ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection technology, resulted in a few benefits but didn’t meet its original goal of increased prosecutions of gun-related crime.
ShotSpotter is an “acoustic surveillance technology,” according to its manufacturer, with audio sensors placed in strategic areas — typically on rooftops or utility poles — that detect gunfire, locate the area, then send the real-time data to police via 911, officers’ desktops, smart phones or smart watches.
Kansas City has used ShotSpotter since 2012, a decade when the city’s homicide rate repeatedly set records.
Still, the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners is sticking with ShotSpotter — for now. In September, the board approved nearly $200,000 for a one-year renewal of a contract with SoundThinking, Inc., the maker of the ShotSpotter system, which will run from October 2023 through September 2024.
But during a meeting in October, some commissioners waffled over continuing to use ShotSpotter. Commissioner Dawn Cramer suggested dropping the program so they could use the money to increase officers’ salaries.
The study, lead by Dr. Eric L. Piza, a professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, looked back to the start of the program in 2012 and analyzed three years of data…
Eric L. Piza, Ph.D. 