Dear New Yorkers,

Yesterday my office released an audit of the New York Police Department (NYPD)’s use of ShotSpotter—an auditory gunfire location and detection technology that the NYPD adopted in 2014. Overall, the evidence shows that NYPD is wasting precious time and money on ShotSpotter and needs to do a better job managing its resources. 

ShotSpotter claims to be “a proven detection system” that is “faster and more accurate.” But our audit found that 87% of the time, ShotSpotter is sending NYPD officers in response to other loud noises – like car backfires and construction noise.

Our audit team studied eight months of ShotSpotter data between 2022 and 2023. NYPD records show that officers spent an average of 20 minutes investigating alerts deemed unfounded and 32 minutes investigating alerts that went unconfirmed.

This translates to thousands of hours of officer time responding to ShotSpotter alerts that aren’t confirmed shootings.

The NYPD has already spent over $45 million on ShotSpotter and is committed to spending a further $9 million before the end of its current contract term.

As a result of our findings, I now call on the NYPD to critically assess ShotSpotter’s performance and determine whether it’s in the City’s best interest before renewing this multi-million-dollar contract.

As part of our audit, my office made five recommendations to the NYPD, which rejected three of them and accepted just two. This response was disappointing and reflects a disinterest in using data, effective performance metrics, and transparency to improve public safety.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the NYPD and whether they’re implementing our recommendations on our tracker here.

Thanks,

Brad

The Office of New York City Comptroller

Our mailing address is:
Office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander
1 Centre Street
New York, NY 10007
United States

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