Sound thinking
After a contentious meeting offering more than two hours of public testimony the Detroit City Council voted 5-4 to extend the Shotspotter contract for 9 months. The decision will cost the city and additional $2.1 million dollars and brings the total cost of Shotspotter to $10.56 million.
We have opposed Shotspotter from the very beginning. It is part of an ever-expanding network of community surveillance which has claimed $45.6 million of our budget and includes everything from Project Green Light cameras to License Plate Readers and drones. None of these technologies keep us safe. All of them enable the police to watch and monitor people, without their knowledge or consent. All of them are controlled by corporate interests. So much so that the Detroit Police don’t know where Shotspotter sound devices are located.
The City Council debate is worth thinking about. It revealed dangerous dynamics that push decisions toward filling the coffers of large corporations while manipulating the legitimate fears and concerns of the community.
First, the majority of the Council showed no understanding of how to evaluate whether or not money is being spent wisely. They rejected expert opinion and scientific research. The Public Health and Safety Committee had recommended NOT extending the contract. They did so after intensive hearings and exploration of the effectiveness of Shotspotter. Santiago-Romero, McCampbell and Waters raised concerns with the technology when they recommended the full council deny the extension.
According to information shared by SoundThinking Inc., the parent company of ShotSpotter, between 2024 and 2025, the Detroit Police Department responded to a total of 24,225 ShotSpotter-triggered gunfire incidents.
In just over 12% of those incidents, shell casings were recovered based on a ShotSpotter alert. Witnesses were located in just over 2% of incidents. And in less than 1% of the cases was aid rendered to a victim by a first responder.
Police respond more quickly to 911 calls than to Shotspotter alerts.
The committee considered testimony about the effectiveness of the program nationally, including the comprehensive report from the Inspector General in Chicago in 2021 which led that city to drop the contract. The report showed that the technology was failing to lead to an increase in investigative stops or evidence of gun crimes. Rather it was providing a pretext for police misconduct. Chicago settled a lawsuit for $90,000 that alleged the police department used ShotSpotter alerts for unlawful stops, especially in Black and brown communities.
In a confusion of logic, those in favor of Shotspotter said they believed it saved lives. The problem with this kind of thinking, based on examples, is that it does not consider the lives we have lost because we have not spent money on the things that make us safe. No one counts those losses.
For instance, what if 10. 6 million dollars were spent to support programs that engaged young people in productive and joy-filled activities? How many young people could have their lives saved? Their lives changed?
The second dynamic that emerged was the manipulation of the Community Violence Intervention groups. These groups received funding in 2023 as a direct result of the community opposition to ShotSpotter. In an effort to blunt criticism of his programs and create confusion, Mayor Duggan announced that the city would commit federal dollars for violence intervention and dubbed the program Shotstopper. The confusion was still evident in the testimonies offered to the council. What was clear, however, is that those getting city funds are happy to orchestrate testimony that will benefit corporate interests.
This is why it is so important we continue to reach out to each other and develop strong community ties. The amount of money to be made by the surveillance industry is staggering. The dangers to the community are clear. Too many members of the City Council are willing to go along with these corporate interests, at the expense of our lives and well-being.
We all want to live in safe, productive, loving communities. These will never be achieved by technologies of control. They emerge as we find ways of walking toward each other, enlarging our circles of care and concern.