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Imagine I made a magic "crime detection" box that called the police each time a crime was "detected". Now imagine all it did was randomly pick a number from 1

Imagine I made a magic "crime detection" box that called the police each time a crime was "detected". Now imagine all it did was randomly pick a number from 1 to 100 each day and if it were a 1 or a 2, it "detected" a crime, giving probable cause to police to search people near the box. Now imagine I almost exclusively put the boxes in areas where black people without a lot of money lived. You could see this would be something of a problem, right?

pxmpxm 4y ago
I would think the system will have difficult time materializing high rates of people that have been shot, which tends to be the chief metric for where it's deployed.
gitfan86 4y ago
Imagine if there were 100 gun murders in a city in one year and you had a magic box that was 100% accurate at detection of location of gun shots within 1 mile and the city could only afford to buy 10 magic boxes. Would you put those magic boxes near where previous gun crimes have been committed or would you put those boxes in places based on the race and sexual orientation and disability status and gender of the people living in the city?
- SicSemperUranus 4y ago
  To me this is obviously unethical, but wouldn't this also be obviously unconstitutional in the US? At least if done deliberately? 14th amendment and all that.
  - throwaway17_17 4y ago
    Assuming the question were to reach the Supreme Court, and not considering the possibilities in the various Circuits, there is a substantial chance all of the Supreme Court’s various composition over the last 50 years would uphold the use. First consideration would be applicable legal standard, which practically always errs on the side of the State, second is the reasonableness of statistical methodology presenting the locations based on crime statistics. I would not personally argue for its constitutionality, but given the precedents stemming from pretextual patrolling cases, it isn’t as clear cut as one might hope.
    - SicSemperUranus 4y ago
      That was very informative, thank you
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Well how useful is that anyway? Probably not useful for evidence or crime prevention. I imagine most murders are known about fairly quickly due to a corpse (except say by “professionals”) or people hear the gunshot and call in. Logically I would say spending the money on gun control would be better, but politically that seems like a no no. Make carrying in the street illegal with jail time, and use the money in a gun amnesty.
- etchalon 4y ago
  There's no evidence the system is 100% accurate within 1 mile.
nickysielicki 4y ago
I would have a problem with that, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. My gut feeling is that shotspotter mostly works and is mostly accurate, regardless of what Vice reported. I can imagine how I’d build such a system and I don’t think it would be very complicated. You don’t need any powerful signal processing or AI, this entire idea was feasible 20 years ago. And secondly, I think that if any technology is rolled out by a city in a way that’s discriminatory, that falls squarely on the city and their police department, not on the technology company that sold it to them.
- xenadu02 4y ago
  The problem is not that no one could build a system to detect and triangulate gunshot sounds. The problem is that this specific company seems to be strong on marketing claims and light on engineering legwork. There have also been some implications that point to (in my opinion) post-indictment editing of records to gin up post-hoc probable cause in some cases. No smoking gun (ugh) to prove it but concerning. What is known is that ShotSpotter reports seem to rarely create useful leads for police. It would hardly be the first (or second, third, fourth, et al) time someone promised to revolutionize policing only to hand over snake oil. Then when the money faucet begins to dry up some companies just can't help fabricating proof of their technology or even falsifying evidence to make sure police "see the value" in continuing to pay for it. Most police departments are being taken for a ride. Some fully understand the wink-wink-nod-nod going on and appreciate the company's "flexibility".
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Your "gut feeling" does not comport with any evidence presented so far. Until SpotShotter is compelled to reveal their techniques and present them to the defense, as the defense is entitled under law, it's just a magic box that conveniently agrees with the police when they want it to.
- kelnos 4y ago
  > My gut feeling is that shotspotter mostly works and is mostly accurate I don't want to base our legal system on your gut feelings. If ShotSpotter is mostly accurate, then they should have no problem releasing the requested material and proving that's the case. Otherwise I will have to assume it's just the magic crime detection box as described above.
esoterica 4y ago
The magic box already exists, it's called people who call the cops to report gunshots every time they hear fireworks are a car backfiring. If you think it's wrong for police to investigate a shotspotter alert because it might be a false positive then the logical conclusion of that line of thinking is that it should be illegal for the cops to show up to investigate when someone calls in to report gunshots, since those are mostly false positives too.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  I don’t see the logical connection between what the parent comment said and your reply. He is saying they could be selling pure snake oil, and worse using it for discrimination (but not sure what the basis was for that, if any).
  - esoterica 4y ago
    Shotspotter stores the raw audio so you can just ask for the audio and evaluate for yourself whether a reasonable person would identify that as a gunshot. Either hearing a gunshot is not probable cause to pull someone over (in which case Shotspotter's accuracy and methodology is irrelevant), or hearing a noise that sounds sufficiently like a gunshot is indeed probable cause, in which case you can just listen to the audio yourself and make a determination about whether or not there was a true gunshot-like noise or the company invented a fake alert out of thin air. I don't see any scenario in which the methodology or accuracy of Shotspotter's devices is at all relevant to this case. The relevant fact here is whether this particular bit of audio can be reasonably classified as a gunshot, not the broader accuracy of the system over the whole data set.
    - etchalon 4y ago
      "Someone hearing a gunshot" is not probable cause to pull someone over, just as someone calling in a gunshot to the police is not probable cause to pull someone over.
      - 4y ago

pxmpxm 4y ago

I would think the system will have difficult time materializing high rates of people that have been shot, which tends to be the chief metric for where it's deployed.

gitfan86 4y ago

Imagine if there were 100 gun murders in a city in one year and you had a magic box that was 100% accurate at detection of location of gun shots within 1 mile and the city could only afford to buy 10 magic boxes. Would you put those magic boxes near where previous gun crimes have been committed or would you put those boxes in places based on the race and sexual orientation and disability status and gender of the people living in the city?

SicSemperUranus 4y ago
To me this is obviously unethical, but wouldn't this also be obviously unconstitutional in the US? At least if done deliberately? 14th amendment and all that.
- throwaway17_17 4y ago
  Assuming the question were to reach the Supreme Court, and not considering the possibilities in the various Circuits, there is a substantial chance all of the Supreme Court’s various composition over the last 50 years would uphold the use. First consideration would be applicable legal standard, which practically always errs on the side of the State, second is the reasonableness of statistical methodology presenting the locations based on crime statistics. I would not personally argue for its constitutionality, but given the precedents stemming from pretextual patrolling cases, it isn’t as clear cut as one might hope.
  - SicSemperUranus 4y ago
    That was very informative, thank you
quickthrower2 4y ago
Well how useful is that anyway? Probably not useful for evidence or crime prevention. I imagine most murders are known about fairly quickly due to a corpse (except say by “professionals”) or people hear the gunshot and call in. Logically I would say spending the money on gun control would be better, but politically that seems like a no no. Make carrying in the street illegal with jail time, and use the money in a gun amnesty.
etchalon 4y ago
There's no evidence the system is 100% accurate within 1 mile.

nickysielicki 4y ago

I would have a problem with that, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. My gut feeling is that shotspotter mostly works and is mostly accurate, regardless of what Vice reported. I can imagine how I’d build such a system and I don’t think it would be very complicated. You don’t need any powerful signal processing or AI, this entire idea was feasible 20 years ago. And secondly, I think that if any technology is rolled out by a city in a way that’s discriminatory, that falls squarely on the city and their police department, not on the technology company that sold it to them.

xenadu02 4y ago
The problem is not that no one could build a system to detect and triangulate gunshot sounds. The problem is that this specific company seems to be strong on marketing claims and light on engineering legwork. There have also been some implications that point to (in my opinion) post-indictment editing of records to gin up post-hoc probable cause in some cases. No smoking gun (ugh) to prove it but concerning. What is known is that ShotSpotter reports seem to rarely create useful leads for police. It would hardly be the first (or second, third, fourth, et al) time someone promised to revolutionize policing only to hand over snake oil. Then when the money faucet begins to dry up some companies just can't help fabricating proof of their technology or even falsifying evidence to make sure police "see the value" in continuing to pay for it. Most police departments are being taken for a ride. Some fully understand the wink-wink-nod-nod going on and appreciate the company's "flexibility".
woodruffw 4y ago
Your "gut feeling" does not comport with any evidence presented so far. Until SpotShotter is compelled to reveal their techniques and present them to the defense, as the defense is entitled under law, it's just a magic box that conveniently agrees with the police when they want it to.
kelnos 4y ago
> My gut feeling is that shotspotter mostly works and is mostly accurate I don't want to base our legal system on your gut feelings. If ShotSpotter is mostly accurate, then they should have no problem releasing the requested material and proving that's the case. Otherwise I will have to assume it's just the magic crime detection box as described above.

esoterica 4y ago

The magic box already exists, it's called people who call the cops to report gunshots every time they hear fireworks are a car backfiring. If you think it's wrong for police to investigate a shotspotter alert because it might be a false positive then the logical conclusion of that line of thinking is that it should be illegal for the cops to show up to investigate when someone calls in to report gunshots, since those are mostly false positives too.

quickthrower2 4y ago
I don’t see the logical connection between what the parent comment said and your reply. He is saying they could be selling pure snake oil, and worse using it for discrimination (but not sure what the basis was for that, if any).
- esoterica 4y ago
  Shotspotter stores the raw audio so you can just ask for the audio and evaluate for yourself whether a reasonable person would identify that as a gunshot. Either hearing a gunshot is not probable cause to pull someone over (in which case Shotspotter's accuracy and methodology is irrelevant), or hearing a noise that sounds sufficiently like a gunshot is indeed probable cause, in which case you can just listen to the audio yourself and make a determination about whether or not there was a true gunshot-like noise or the company invented a fake alert out of thin air. I don't see any scenario in which the methodology or accuracy of Shotspotter's devices is at all relevant to this case. The relevant fact here is whether this particular bit of audio can be reasonably classified as a gunshot, not the broader accuracy of the system over the whole data set.
  - etchalon 4y ago
    "Someone hearing a gunshot" is not probable cause to pull someone over, just as someone calling in a gunshot to the police is not probable cause to pull someone over.
    - 4y ago