Is ShotSpotter Technology Worth The $33 Million The City Is Paying?

Our Take

Credit to CBS Chicago and investigator Megan Hickey for doing what too few local outlets bother with anymore: following the money on a surveillance contract instead of just repeating the vendor's press release. A $33 million price tag for gunshot detection technology deserves the kind of scrutiny this piece gives it — not just "does it work," but "is this how a city in a budget crunch should be spending public safety dollars."

ShotSpotter and Flock Safety aren't the same product, but they're cut from the same cloth: both are pitched to city councils as a quick technological fix for crime, both come with vendor-supplied statistics that are hard to independently verify, and both quietly expand the footprint of always-on monitoring in the neighborhoods that already get the most policing attention. When a city signs a multi-year contract for a black-box system, taxpayers are on the hook whether or not it actually reduces gun violence — and residents rarely get a vote on whether they want that infrastructure in their neighborhood at all.

That's the pattern we track across the country: opaque contracts, thin evidence, and surveillance tools that expand faster than the oversight meant to check them. If your city is quietly signing similar deals for license plate readers, check our camera map to see what's already installed near you, and visit take action for ways to push your local council for real transparency before the next contract gets renewed.