Sourcing this for you, I see that there has indeed been a great deal of rigorous investigation, reporting, and lawsuits regarding the ways ShotSpotter leads to overpolicing, though I had misremembered one thing - the false detections come from the system itself, though this does also lead police to perceive areas as more dangerous and then patrol them more often, leading to measured increases in stop and frisk pat downs.
The ACLU has a thorough article breaking down reporting from the City of Chicago Inspector General, Northwestern School of Law’s MacArthur Justice Center, Vice news and the Associated Press.
ACLU article with links to the other reports here:
Key takeaways from the reporting linking ShotSpotter to over policing listed here:
1) ShotSpotter false alarms send police on numerous trips (in Chicago, more than 60 times a day) into communities for no reason and on high alert expecting to potentially confront a dangerous situation. Given the already tragic number of shootings of Black people by police, that is a recipe for trouble.
2) Indeed, the Chicago IG’s analysis of Chicago police data found that the “perceived aggregate frequency of ShotSpotter alerts” in some neighborhoods leads officers to engage in more stops and pat downs.
3) The placement of sensors in some neighborhoods but not others means that the police will detect more incidents (real or false) in places where the sensors are located. That can distort gunfire statistics and create a circular statistical justification for over-policing in communities of color.
The summary here seems to be that no, police do not regularly invent false positives for ShotSpotter.
Regarding:
1) How do you know you are dealing with a false alarm? Given the seriousness of gun violence, isn't it perfectly reasonable to send someone to investigate the situation rather than to ignore it?
2 and 3) Isn't it also the case that black neighbourhoods in Chicago have the highest gun violence and murder rate? What else would you expect from ShotSpotter other than for it to confirm that those neighbourhoods are indeed the ones with the most shots fired?
> The summary here seems to be that no, police do not regularly invent false positives for ShotSpotter.
Right. That was the part I referred to as misremembering in my above comment. The false alarms come from the system itself, not necessarily police lying about it. However the reports from multiple sources do say that false alarms occur at an alarming rate, and this leads to over policing.
I wanted to provide a citation for the article's claims of over policing, and I believe I have done so (the ACLU article has multiple high quality sources clearly linked in the first few paragraphs).
Your comment mentioned that shotspotter leading to a high police presence is "obviously a good thing" and that if you lived there, you would want this too. But if the residents were happy with what was happening, there would be no controversy. The problem with over policing is that it leads to unfair treatment of marginalized communities, and this is what people are unhappy about.
It seems like you are trying to reason away these concerns, or get me to answer your follow on questions, but I am not an expert here, just someone who remembered seeing articles about issues with the system. I would encourage you to review those sources and check their methodology regarding false positive detection rates, and seek additional information about over policing.
The ACLU has a thorough article breaking down reporting from the City of Chicago Inspector General, Northwestern School of Law’s MacArthur Justice Center, Vice news and the Associated Press.
ACLU article with links to the other reports here:
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/four-problems-w...
Key takeaways from the reporting linking ShotSpotter to over policing listed here:
1) ShotSpotter false alarms send police on numerous trips (in Chicago, more than 60 times a day) into communities for no reason and on high alert expecting to potentially confront a dangerous situation. Given the already tragic number of shootings of Black people by police, that is a recipe for trouble.
2) Indeed, the Chicago IG’s analysis of Chicago police data found that the “perceived aggregate frequency of ShotSpotter alerts” in some neighborhoods leads officers to engage in more stops and pat downs.
3) The placement of sensors in some neighborhoods but not others means that the police will detect more incidents (real or false) in places where the sensors are located. That can distort gunfire statistics and create a circular statistical justification for over-policing in communities of color.