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ShotSpotter in Chicago looks to be a waste of money. And it also seems like a way that contributes to communities of color being overpoliced by being used to send cops to places where nothing is found, 85% of the time.
https://buff.ly/3doaIgP
https://buff.ly/3doaIgP
@SouthSideWeekly wrote about ShotSpotter, which has some important info about its history in Chicago:
it was trialed in 2007, and “was promptly discontinued.”
“...the CPD cited the technology’s ineffectiveness as its reason for abandoning it”. https://southsideweekly.com/shots-heard-round-city-shotspotter-chicago-police/
it was trialed in 2007, and “was promptly discontinued.”
“...the CPD cited the technology’s ineffectiveness as its reason for abandoning it”. https://southsideweekly.com/shots-heard-round-city-shotspotter-chicago-police/
(Written in 2017) “Once installation is complete [in mid 2018], almost 130 square miles of the city will be within earshot and eyeshot of the Chicago Police”
That’s 55% of the City’s area
That’s 55% of the City’s area
The ShotSpotter sensors are tied to the “POD” cameras, to swivel the cameras toward where the sensors believe a gunshot was heard.
In turn, they’re tied to “HunchLab” software, developed by Azavea, a mapping company, with funding from National Science Foundation in 2007, which sold it to ShotSpotter in 2019.
Funding info: https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=119285
Funding info: https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=119285
HunchLab’s creator wrote about the background of the software, which started in 1998 for the Philadelphia police department. https://www.azavea.com/blog/2019/01/23/why-we-sold-hunchlab/
Here’s what Cathy O’Neil, author of “Weapons of Math Destruction”, wrote about PredPol, a “predictive policing” software similar HunchLab: “the policing itself [software suggests to send officers to certain areas] spawns new data, which justifies more policing”...
![Here’s what Cathy O’Neil, author of “Weapons of Math Destruction”, wrote about PredPol, a “predictive policing” software similar HunchLab: “the policing itself [software suggests to send officers to certain areas] spawns new data, which justifies more policing”...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ezyz8qfWUAMxeOm.jpg "Here’s what Cathy O’Neil, author of “Weapons of Math Destruction”, wrote about PredPol, a “predictive policing” software similar HunchLab: “the policing itself [software suggests to send officers to certain areas] spawns new data, which justifies more policing”...")
“So even if a model [algorithm] is color blind, the result is anything but. In our largely segregated cities, geography is a highly effective proxy for race.”
Back to the South Side Weekly article!
“Because everything was kind of rolled out at once, and ShotSpotter was not even rolled out at the same time across districts, it’s hard for us to isolate the impacts.” (Kim Smith, University of Chicago Crime Lab)
“Because everything was kind of rolled out at once, and ShotSpotter was not even rolled out at the same time across districts, it’s hard for us to isolate the impacts.” (Kim Smith, University of Chicago Crime Lab)
Author: “It’s an important concern to address, given the ?? of efficacy that have surrounded ShotSpotter’s implementation in other cities, & the cost the police dept. will be paying each year for the technology—at least $6.5m per year in subscription fees for ShotSpotter alone”
“In Milwaukee, 10,285 ShotSpotter alerts translated into 172 arrests; in San Francisco, however, 4,385 ShotSpotter alerts translated into only two arrests.”
Read the article. https://southsideweekly.com/shots-heard-round-city-shotspotter-chicago-police/
Read the article. https://southsideweekly.com/shots-heard-round-city-shotspotter-chicago-police/
Bringing the discussion back to today: “The Chicago Police Department is ShotSpotter’s largest customer, having signed a three-year contract worth $33 million in August of 2018.” Via The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/549612-police-technology-under-scrutiny-following-chicago-shooting
“Now with the connection to the tragic killing of Adam Toledo, I think it’s really time to reconsider the use of this technology and whether it is delivering on what it promises to deliver or if it is in fact making our communities less safe,” 35th Ward Alder Ramirez-Rosa
ShotSpotter claims it detects gunshots w/97% accuracy. MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern is researching this...”but a preliminary report shared w/The Hill suggested that > 85% of ShotSpotter-initiated deployments do not lead to evidence of reportable incidents or crimes.”
That’s the same report Jamie Kalven referenced in his article at the beginning of this thread. https://twitter.com/stevevance/status/1383076980250308610
Also in The Hill article: “Xanat Sobrevilla, an organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportations, argued that ShotSpotter is part of a broader system in Chicago that assumes the criminality of Black and brown residents and uses that assumption...”
“... to justify more police presence while not addressing the root causes of the issues in those communities.”
Which is similar to what Cathy O’Neil wrote in “Weapons of Math Destruction”.
Which is similar to what Cathy O’Neil wrote in “Weapons of Math Destruction”.
“In Chicago, @CDRosa hopes to be able to pause the deployment of ShotSpotter and start shifting toward community control of policing.”
Via The Hill https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/549612-police-technology-under-scrutiny-following-chicago-shooting
Via The Hill https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/549612-police-technology-under-scrutiny-following-chicago-shooting
