Friday, November 08, 2013

Do the Math

Let's see, 39,000 shots (what, in gun-free DC?) detected... [More]

OK, so if we're going to evaluate its effectiveness as a crime fighting tool, which is ostensibly the whole justification behind this boondoggle, shouldn't we then be able to factor in the costs of procuring, maintaining and staffing the system, plus the costs of investigating and reporting shots fired, and then take the number of resulting arrests ... wait, no, convictions ... and be able to come up with some sort of feel for how cost effective this is?

What? That's not the point?

It reminds me of the anonymous outrage I stirred up some years back when I dared ask how many hostages FBI's Hostage Rescue Team has rescued, and then tried to cost that out.
Posted by David Codrea at 11/08/2013 03:39:00 PM

2 comments:

Archer said...

They can't give a cost-per-conviction estimate. They can't even calculate the cost-per-arrest: "[D.C. police] said they do not track arrests made as a result of ShotSpotter’s alerts."

Other money quotes:
"Nationwide, criminologists say they are not aware of recent academic research on the effectiveness of such systems."
and
"ShotSpotter information is 'not frequently used at trials' but has helped prosecutors establish the number or sequence of shots, the time of gunfire and whether more than one gun was fired," which I'd think is something that would come up, y'know, at trial.

The gist of what I'm reading here is that all evidence to its efficacy is anecdotal.

11/08/2013 6:01 PM
Ed said...

It is interesting in that you can zoom into the map and it will give the number of gunshots reported within 100 meters for the past several years. Areas not reporting much gunshot activity include areas patrolled by Federal law enforcement personnel like NPS, Secret Service and Capitol Police, military facilities, golf courses, universities, the National Zoo, etc. and certain residential areas including Georgetown. Contributing to the non-detection are factors like shot sound energy absorbed by an automobile, close range executions to the back of a head and suppressor use. There is no map giving areas where gunshots were detected by human observers but not by equipment. Large explosives used for New Year's and Fourth of July celebrations are attributed to celebratory gunfire, which may not entirely be correct.

11/11/2013 12:48 AM

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