Q&A
Discussion on the effectiveness and impact of ShotSpotter technology
3:05:33
ยท
152 sec
Council Member Yusef Salaam inquires about the effectiveness of ShotSpotter and its impact on criminal convictions or plea bargaining. Panel members discuss various concerns and issues related to the technology.
- ShotSpotter often used to call police into an area, sometimes leading to arrests
- Concerns raised about the accuracy and reliability of ShotSpotter for probable cause
- Discussion of how ShotSpotter alerts can create tense situations in neighborhoods
- Broader point made about the inaccuracy of various surveillance technologies used by NYPD
Yusef Salaam
3:05:33
Gotcha.
3:05:34
Thank you.
3:05:36
And also there are several articles and reports questioning the effectiveness of ShotSpotter.
3:05:42
Could you explain how DAS uses ShotSpotter ShotSpotter and its impact on criminal convictions or plea bargaining?
Talia Kamran
3:05:53
I'm happy to answer in if you guys wanna if if you wanna share at all.
3:05:57
But shot spotter is often used, you know, to to call the police into an area in order to effectuate an arrest or to look for, suspects.
3:06:08
So it is being used at times to arrest people.
3:06:12
Whether that's accurate enough to be probable cause for that arrest is highly questionable.
3:06:19
ShotSpotter is often not used by prosecutors, by DAs when cases go forward.
3:06:27
It's interesting to think about why that is.
3:06:31
We know that from the data it's not actually very effective or reliable, which kind of speaks to why it's perhaps not used in prosecution, but it is definitely used for probable cause for arrest.
Jerome Greco
3:06:45
I think it's important to point out that, you know, when the officers get a a shot spot or alert, they're essentially being told that somebody has fired a gun, right, in this area.
3:06:57
And so they're going into that neighborhood expecting the worst, right, expecting themselves at risk and other people at risk, and they're on high alert, probably have their weapons drawn, and people in that that neighborhood are all become suspects immediately.
3:07:14
And it just causes such chaos and tension for people who just happen to be living there or happen to be working there or walking by.
3:07:23
And then to find out how often it is wrong is disturbing.
David Siffert
3:07:30
And just very briefly, picking up on that last point, a lot of the surveillance technologies that NYPD uses are just not very good.
3:07:39
ShotSpotter is a very good example of a technology that just makes mistakes all the time.
3:07:44
Facial recognition is another example.
3:07:46
The evolved metal detectors, the weapons detectors, quote unquote, which really just detect like metal tubes, like umbrellas.
3:07:54
And there's a reason that NYPD dropped the Evolve pilot, because it wasn't working and it was wasting a lot of their time.
3:08:01
But there's a lot of technology that they're still employing that also does not work.