Looking Forward to the End of Chicago’s Contract with ShotSpotter
The City of Chicago’s contract with ShotSpotter, which was set to expire in August, was recently quietly extended by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to February of next year—while Chicago’s new Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson was campaigning in the fall. This maneuver is disappointing in terms of exhibiting the city’s lack of transparency. The contract had been previously extended without any public input or notice in 2021 (because it is a “reference contract,” which gives the city’s Chief Procurement Officer the authority to enter into a new contract from the existing one under the Reference Contract Policy). At the time, and now again, local officials and community members have condemned the lack of transparency in extending the contract.
Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts is a proud supporter of the #StopShotSpotter Coalition, which has been urging the Chicago City Council to cancel the city’s contract with ShotSpotter. ShotSpotter (which recently changes its name to SoundThinking) is an acoustic surveillance technology, made up of microphones installed across the city that trigger review by people stationed at Strategic Decision Support Centers (SDSCs), who then alert the Chicago Police Department (CPD) of gunshot sounds. The company has installed their devices in at least 18 of Chicago’s 25 police districts blanketing the city.
ShotSpotter acquired predictive policing company HunchLab in 2018, and is now using sound to deploy police to areas where it is suspected someone has just fired a weapon. The police are sent out into the community to conduct investigatory stops; these high-intensity situations have led to fatal interactions for residents with CPD, while almost never turning up evidence of a gun being fired (including casings, victims, or a weapon (physical evidence of a gun being fired is present less than 10% of the time). This wastes time and resources while also putting people in grave danger. The Shotspotter system triggered police to go to the scene where they killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo in March 2021, further increasing community resistance to the technology.
Mayor-Elect Johnson has promised to “end the ShotSpotter contract” that costs the city roughly $8 million each year (totalling $33 million from 2018 through 2021). Chicago is ShotSpotter’s second biggest customer, having made up 10% of the company’s revenue last year. Mayor-Elect Johnson rightly points out that ShotSpotter is unreliable, expensive, susceptible to the same racial biases as other police technologies falsely touted as “objective,” and results in invasive and dangerous stopping -and-frisking of thousands of Chicago residents.
ShotSpotter’s stock dropped over 30% since the election of Brandon Johnson in anticipation of his administration as Chicago Mayor. His team has yet to make any comments about plans concerning the disclosure of the contract extension, but we look forward to Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson ending the ShotSpotter contract as soon as possible.
See our past policy stance and Mayor-Elect Johnson’s candidate survey response about ShotSpotter.
Maya Simkin (they/them) is a Collaboration for Justice/Appleseed Network Fellow and a recent graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law. They have a background in farming and permaculture, and love studying Jewish liturgy and other radical texts. Maya is committed to abolition and is interested in learning how efforts in public interest law can contribute to liberation.