Vital City: Learning about ShotSpotter — and Gun Violence — from Chicago

Research shows the technology doesn’t reduce shootings or increase clearance rates, but it may have other benefits.

On February 13, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announced that the city’s ShotSpotter gunshot detection system would be discontinued, with a phasing out of the technology set to begin this September. ShotSpotter is the global leader in gunshot detection technology — a network of acoustic sensors that pinpoints the location of gunfire and typically alerts the police quicker than 911 calls. SoundThinking, ShotSpotter’s vendor, reports that over 250 agencies worldwide (including the NYPD) have adopted their platform. Chicago initially installed ShotSpotter in September 2012 within an approximately three-square-mile area, with coverage expanding to 136 square miles by May 2018. Annual costs advertised on the SoundThinking website ranged from $8.8 to $12.3 million per year for maintaining this coverage…