Situating Police Use of Gunshot Detection Technology

• In Event: 50462 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Masculinities in Science and Technology

Abstract

A small body of literature has developed that evaluates the technical abilities and crime-reducing potential of the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system, but little research considers how police officers and other police employees perceive and utilize the technology. This exploratory article draws upon a series of in-depth interviews with police officers and analysts from a large, Midwestern police department (n=11) to fill this gap. Findings indicate that police officers and analysts’ uses of the system can be divided into two major typologies: micro uses and macro uses. The former kind is directed towards responding to discrete incidents; the latter kind is focused upon rates of gun crime. Officers in the present sample tend to emphasize micro uses of ShotSpotter over macro uses, a finding which, if generalizable beyond the sample, may be problematic for two reasons. First, there is little evidence of ShotSpotter’s effectiveness as a tool for responding to gun crime incidents. Second, ShotSpotter may reify and exacerbate the traditional, reactive paradigm within policing, an approach which may be less efficacious than proactive alternatives. Proactive alternatives come with their own problems, however, and the money spent on gunshot detection technology may be better spent on non-police initiatives.

Author

• Alex Joseph Niner, University of California, Irvine