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It's hard to tell, as many of those cases may have been created anyways. That is, you may get an alert and 911 calls about the incident. You'd need to subtract

It's hard to tell, as many of those cases may have been created anyways. That is, you may get an alert and 911 calls about the incident. You'd need to subtract all those cases from the rate to see the improvement. This tends to be the issue with a lot of "AI" technology tied to police work. It does work to some extent, but it mostly tells you things you already know.

meowface 5y ago
That's very true. Though, while accounting for that, it's also shown that gunfire detectors result in faster response times as well. So even if police were to have received a 911 report, the gunfire alert still could've led to them getting there faster than they would have otherwise.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  > Though, while accounting for that, it's also shown that gunfire detectors result in faster response times as well. That seems incompatible with roughly nine out of ten shotspotter reports ultimately being false positives.
  - meowface 5y ago
    What do you mean? I was referring to faster response times to true positive shootings. I can see how it sometimes might indirectly lead to slower response times to other kinds of crime, but I imagine probably not violent crime, unless they have awful triaging.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      Two things: 1) False positives lead to under reaction. This is the "boy who cried wolf" issue. 2) Extra false positives put strains on resources, as they produce spurious false reports that must be dealt with in parallel with other requests. Combine these two, and I'm dubious that shotspotter would actually make the police more responsive to real shootings.
      - meowface 5y ago
        >1) False positives lead to under reaction. This is the "boy who cried wolf" issue. Alert fatigue is a big problem for any alerting system, but here the baseline is 911 reports. If they receive a 911 report for a shooting, they're going to arrive after the report. If they receive a ShotSpotter alert before a 911 report for the same incident, then they're probably going to arrive as soon or sooner than they would have otherwise. If they receive an alert but don't receive a 911 report, then any response time will be faster than no response. Not sure if these are backed by data, but there are many quotes of law enforcement saying response times are decreased. I could paste a bunch of quotes but I know it doesn't really mean much. This study used "gunshot victim prehospital time" as a proxy; arguably a more important proxy: >Use of ShotSpotter detection technology decreases prehospital time for patients sustaining gunshot wounds - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31425474/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31425474/ Some other studies indeed found it did not seem to decrease response time, though. Another factor is that it tries to precisely locate the source of the shot. It's hard for humans to infer the location and direction of a supersonic bullet's source if they're going just by hearing and didn't see the incident, while in theory an automated system could determine it more accurately. I don't know how helpful this is empirically, though. So you may be right. I think most of the value probably comes from cases where they otherwise wouldn't have received a 911 report, or only would have received one much later.
        ashtonkem 5y ago
        > If they receive a ShotSpotter alert before a 911 report for the same incident, then they're probably going to arrive as soon or sooner than they would have otherwise. This seems true, and if it happens a lot that would imply that the system is worthwhile. > If they receive an alert but don't receive a 911 report, then any response time will be faster than no response. Assuming it’s real, yes. If it’s not, it’s taken a cop on a wild goose chase when they could have been doing something else. > Not sure if these are backed by data, but there are many quotes of law enforcement saying response times are decreased. I could paste a bunch of quotes but I know it doesn't really mean much. Some of these are certainly true and in good faith, but as a general rule I don’t trust quotes from cops about whether or not they need new powers or tools since their answer is always “yes”. Sometimes they’re right, of course, but we need to evaluate more unbiased sources of data to correctly determine what tools are worth it. It’s a bit like asking me if I need an M1 to do my job better. I might be incidentally right, but I also have extra motivations too. And that’s before we talk about tools that are more ambiguous. Remember that this data will be used to prosecute people too, if it’s not accurate then the consequences might be worse than just sending out on pointless calls. > This study used "gunshot victim prehospital time" as a proxy; arguably a more important proxy: Yeah, that’s compelling. > Another factor is that it tries to precisely locate the source of the shot. It's hard for humans to infer the location and direction of a supersonic bullet's source if they're going just by hearing and didn't see the incident, while in theory an automated system could determine it more accurately. I don't know how helpful this is empirically, though. If it works, I agree. The article implies that it is not accurate in determining the location of a gun shot. The extremely high false positive rate also could be from the system accurately detecting a gunshot and inaccurately placing its location. At a cost of $33 mil a year for the city of Chicago, I personally can’t help but wonder if there’s something else that could be done with that money to reduce the crime rate.

meowface 5y ago

That's very true. Though, while accounting for that, it's also shown that gunfire detectors result in faster response times as well. So even if police were to have received a 911 report, the gunfire alert still could've led to them getting there faster than they would have otherwise.

ashtonkem 5y ago
> Though, while accounting for that, it's also shown that gunfire detectors result in faster response times as well. That seems incompatible with roughly nine out of ten shotspotter reports ultimately being false positives.
- meowface 5y ago
  What do you mean? I was referring to faster response times to true positive shootings. I can see how it sometimes might indirectly lead to slower response times to other kinds of crime, but I imagine probably not violent crime, unless they have awful triaging.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Two things: 1) False positives lead to under reaction. This is the "boy who cried wolf" issue. 2) Extra false positives put strains on resources, as they produce spurious false reports that must be dealt with in parallel with other requests. Combine these two, and I'm dubious that shotspotter would actually make the police more responsive to real shootings.
    - meowface 5y ago
      >1) False positives lead to under reaction. This is the "boy who cried wolf" issue. Alert fatigue is a big problem for any alerting system, but here the baseline is 911 reports. If they receive a 911 report for a shooting, they're going to arrive after the report. If they receive a ShotSpotter alert before a 911 report for the same incident, then they're probably going to arrive as soon or sooner than they would have otherwise. If they receive an alert but don't receive a 911 report, then any response time will be faster than no response. Not sure if these are backed by data, but there are many quotes of law enforcement saying response times are decreased. I could paste a bunch of quotes but I know it doesn't really mean much. This study used "gunshot victim prehospital time" as a proxy; arguably a more important proxy: >Use of ShotSpotter detection technology decreases prehospital time for patients sustaining gunshot wounds - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31425474/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31425474/ Some other studies indeed found it did not seem to decrease response time, though. Another factor is that it tries to precisely locate the source of the shot. It's hard for humans to infer the location and direction of a supersonic bullet's source if they're going just by hearing and didn't see the incident, while in theory an automated system could determine it more accurately. I don't know how helpful this is empirically, though. So you may be right. I think most of the value probably comes from cases where they otherwise wouldn't have received a 911 report, or only would have received one much later.
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        > If they receive a ShotSpotter alert before a 911 report for the same incident, then they're probably going to arrive as soon or sooner than they would have otherwise. This seems true, and if it happens a lot that would imply that the system is worthwhile. > If they receive an alert but don't receive a 911 report, then any response time will be faster than no response. Assuming it’s real, yes. If it’s not, it’s taken a cop on a wild goose chase when they could have been doing something else. > Not sure if these are backed by data, but there are many quotes of law enforcement saying response times are decreased. I could paste a bunch of quotes but I know it doesn't really mean much. Some of these are certainly true and in good faith, but as a general rule I don’t trust quotes from cops about whether or not they need new powers or tools since their answer is always “yes”. Sometimes they’re right, of course, but we need to evaluate more unbiased sources of data to correctly determine what tools are worth it. It’s a bit like asking me if I need an M1 to do my job better. I might be incidentally right, but I also have extra motivations too. And that’s before we talk about tools that are more ambiguous. Remember that this data will be used to prosecute people too, if it’s not accurate then the consequences might be worse than just sending out on pointless calls. > This study used "gunshot victim prehospital time" as a proxy; arguably a more important proxy: Yeah, that’s compelling. > Another factor is that it tries to precisely locate the source of the shot. It's hard for humans to infer the location and direction of a supersonic bullet's source if they're going just by hearing and didn't see the incident, while in theory an automated system could determine it more accurately. I don't know how helpful this is empirically, though. If it works, I agree. The article implies that it is not accurate in determining the location of a gun shot. The extremely high false positive rate also could be from the system accurately detecting a gunshot and inaccurately placing its location. At a cost of $33 mil a year for the city of Chicago, I personally can’t help but wonder if there’s something else that could be done with that money to reduce the crime rate.