The NYPD’s Fancy Gunshot Detector Is Almost Completely Useless

In the most damning report yet about the inefficiency of gunshot detection technology, a public defense organization on Wednesday released an analysis showing that less than 1 percent of the alerts New York City’s ShotSpotter system generated over a nine-year period led to the recovery of a gun or the identification of a suspect in a gun crime.

Of the more than 75,000 gunfire alerts the city’s ShotSpotter system has generated since 2015, the New York City Police Department was only able to confirm that 16.57 percent of them were actual gunfire, as opposed to fireworks, construction, or other loud sounds, according to the report from Brooklyn Defenders. The analysis is based on nine years of NYPD data including assessments made by department employees about whether alerts were true or false,  which Brooklyn Defenders obtained through a public record request.

“Like so many of NYPD’s other massively expensive and invasive technologies, ShotSpotter is an engine for over-policing that leads to an influx of police in Black and Latine neighborhoods based on false gunshot alerts,” Jackie Gosdigian, Brooklyn Defenders’ senior policy supervisor said in a statement. “Given the tool’s lack of reliability and high price tag, it is clear that NYC should not renew its contract for this technology. Instead, the city should use this investment on efforts that actually make our communities safer: education, health, poverty reduction, cure-violence and community-based programs, and other resources.”

New York City’s contract with SoundThinking, the company behind ShotSpotter, is set to expire this month. By that point, the city will have paid the company more than $54 million for the technology.

Gunshot detection sensors have been the target of fierce criticism from civil rights advocates and neighborhood groups who point out that the sensors are disproportionately installed in predominantly minority neighborhoods and that the alerts trigger emergency responses from officers who arrive expecting to find a shooter.

The Brooklyn Defender report is the largest of its kind and draws on the NYPD’s data but its findings are similar to other analyses of gunshot detection technology in New York and other cities.

Earlier this year, the New York City comptroller’s office published an audit of ShotSpotter alerts over an eight-month period in 2022 and 2023. It concluded that only 13 percent of the alerts could be conclusively tied to gunfire.

The comptroller’s office also called on the NYPD not to renew its ShotSpotter contract without first significantly increasing oversight and accountability mechanisms for the technology.

In 2021, the Chicago Office of Inspector General found that only 9 percent of ShotSpotter alerts over a 17-month period could be linked to a gun crime. This year, Chicago canceled its contract with SoundThinking.

SoundThinking and the NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company and department have previously criticized the city comptroller’s report, claiming that it is unfair to say a ShotSpotter alert couldn’t be confirmed as gunfire when the department could find no physical or witness evidence to suggest a shooting happened.