ShotSpotter software might help police get to shootings faster and collect more evidence, but a new study suggests that it doesn’t help reduce crime or shootings, although very few jurisdictions even try to measure its success.
Many cities looking for a solution to the problem of the proliferation of guns and shootings opt to acquire ShotSpotter, software that detects gunshots and alerts authorities.
For the most part, ShotSpotter does just that, but a 911 call study published in January found that if cities were expecting it to reduce shootings or affect the crime rate, they won’t be satisfied with the software.
“What our research found, and other research as well, is that ShotSpotter achieves those intermediate means. So police tend to respond quicker to ShotSpotter alerts than 911 calls on average, police collect more evidence from ShotSpotter calls than 911 calls; however, ShotSpotter does not show any association with reduced crime or increased likelihood that crimes will be solved,” said Eric Piza, a criminal justice and criminology professor at Northeastern University and the principal investigator of the study, titled The Impact of Gunshot Detection Technology on Gun Violence in Kansas City and Chicago: A Multi-Pronged Evaluation, published with a U.S. Justice Department grant.
There has been recent controversy surrounding ShotSpotter, which means at least some people in some of the cities that have deployed ShotSpotter believe it may not be worth it…
Eric L. Piza, Ph.D. 