America’s new policing tech isn’t cutting crime
ON MAY 31ST 2020 the life of Michael Williams, a 66-year-old from the south side of Chicago, fell apart. That evening Mr Williams picked up a young hitchhiker in his neighbourhood. A few blocks later, the young man was shot, apparently through the passenger window of the car. Mr Williams rushed him to hospital; two days later the man died, and a few weeks after that Mr Williams was arrested. He spent the next 11 months in the Cook County jail, accused of murder. But before the case could come to trial, it was thrown out, when the public prosecutor in the Chicago area decided to withdraw its main evidence. Since last year Mr Williams has been suing the City of Chicago, alleging that the city’s police department deliberately relied on a case it knew was flimsy.
That evidence was from Shotspotter, an “acoustic gunfire-detection” system supplied by SoundThinking, a firm based in California. Shotspotter automatically recognises and analyses the sound of gunshots from a network of microphones spread across cities—Chicago has by far the largest network in America. By triangulating the recordings it can, in theory, pinpoint where a gun has been fired. The idea is that this will help police officers respond more quickly to shootings, and find out about shootings that go unreported.
Chicago spends over $10m a year for the service. But it is controversial. Cases like that of Mr Williams are partly why. Before his election in May, Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s left-wing mayor, promised to end the city’s contract (as mayor he has extended it, seemingly by accident).
2023-12-27 10:10:47
Source from www.economist.com
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