ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood • Hacker News Board

Re: ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood

#211

Post by ryandrake » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 5:23 AM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #208

ryandrake wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What seems more obvious to me is that the more surveillance you do in any area (regardless of whether the lawns are manicured), the more crime you're going to find there. If you put 5 cops patrolling the wealthiest, nicest areas of your city, and 1 cop patrolling a less wealthy less nice area, the 5 cops will find more crime than the 1 cop. Even if you don't assume crime is uniformly distributed (which it probably is…

Yeah, that’s the original point I made which is currently being downvoted.

I think there's a lot of quiet classism going on in this thread, and it's easier for these guys to just drive by and hit the downvote button than to actually speak their mind and tell us why they think poor people -> criminals.

The causation more likely goes the other way: When an area gets the reputation of being higher crime (because of reality or because of bias from more police saturation), that area becomes cheaper to live in, and poorer people can then afford to live there.

Re: ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood

#212

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 5:25 AM UTC

torstenvl wrote: post #115

wonnage wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You accept the standards you walk past. A community's values must be held by the community. If you only allow a few overworked moderators to maintain those values, then they aren't community values anymore, and the quality of HN will plummet.

[deleted]

Re: ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood

#213

Post by Renaud » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 5:26 AM UTC

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #141

verteu wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't you mention that the only "conversation" recorded by ShotSpotter admitted in court was a guy saying "[shooter's name], why did you shoot me!" two seconds after the sound of gunfire? It seems an important piece of context if you are concerned about surveillance.

Are these things public microphones that pick up street conversations or are they specialized microphones without stored recordings? The capability of these things is the only important question, since if they can be used for mass surveillance we shouldn’t trust cops with them.

My guess would be that since they need to record a shot without knowing when it happens, and then forward the sound of the shot to an expert to confirm it was gunfire, they must have the capability to locally listen and record continuously, and we can hope that they only keep a few seconds of recording before/after the event.

Re: ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood

#214

Post by resolutebat » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 5:32 AM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #207

resolutebat wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Incredibly unclear"? Really? Not the OP, but let's spell it out: Manicuring a lawn is expensive and serves no useful purpose, so most practitioners have disposable income and/or spare time, and care about keeping up appearances. Putting a car up on blocks implies it's being used for spare parts, which is generally not something the well-off need to engage in (they buy new and use professionals for repairs as needed)…

The reason it’s unclear is that nothing either of you have said has anything to do with policing. Edit: you added the correlation bit after I replied, but why do you believe that to be the case? If you have more police in an area, of course they’ll hear more gunshots there. That doesn’t necessarily mean there actually are more gunshots. What you’re actually saying is “poor people need more policing”, which is A) offe…

Why?

Let's imagine a city divided in two halves of equal population. West City is poor and has a high crime rate, East City is rich and has a low crime rate. Should police resources be allocated equally to both? How about public health facilities or welfare payments?

Re: ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood

#215

Post by tjpnz » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 5:38 AM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #79

In Dallas I hear the pop-pop-pop of gunfire virtually every night in my oakcliff neighborhood. Even when the Cowboys score a touchdown you hear gunfire. The police have basically given up.

Sounds like a good place to install ShotSpotter.

Re: ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood

#216

Post by astrea » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 5:45 AM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #147

jacurtis wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there are false positives. This is an alert system and doesn't have to be perfect. This is the difference between a sensor in a self-driving car and a sensor for something like Shotspotter. If a self-driving car sensor has a 1% fail rate, then it is useless and would cause crashes and death. It couldn't be used. But if shotspotter is 1% inaccurate, then it just sends police to a street corner where there is actua…

> The consequences are pretty low to nil. Having American cops rush to your door thinking violence is happening is not inconsequential. Just a few days ago they shot at a kid who was playing with fireworks, due to a false positive. Also, see swatting and its fatal consequences.

As much as I hate to participate in political discussions, I have to agree here. No US cop would ever respond to gunshots in a casual manner. Think about Swatting.

Re: ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood

#217

Post by jakelazaroff » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 5:45 AM UTC

resolutebat wrote: post #214

jakelazaroff wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason it’s unclear is that nothing either of you have said has anything to do with policing. Edit: you added the correlation bit after I replied, but why do you believe that to be the case? If you have more police in an area, of course they’ll hear more gunshots there. That doesn’t necessarily mean there actually are more gunshots. What you’re actually saying is “poor people need more policing”, which is A) offe…

Why? Let's imagine a city divided in two halves of equal population. West City is poor and has a high crime rate, East City is rich and has a low crime rate. Should police resources be allocated equally to both? How about public health facilities or welfare payments?

In the real world, wealth is relatively easily measured and crime rate is not. The question no one seems to be willing to answer is: why do you believe poor people commit more crime?

Re: ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood

#218

Post by JoeyBananas » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 5:47 AM UTC

gffrd wrote: post #6

JoeyBananas wrote: post #3

I've experienced living in a neighborhood covered by shot spotter and hearing gun shots outside, and I think shot spotter is great. I want the cops to actually show up and arrest whoever is terrorizing everybody. Thank you very much

Has having ShotSpotter in your neighborhood increased the safety? Is there faster response? higher arrest rate? decrease in crime?

When there was shooting outside of my apartment, shot spotter called the cops instantly.

It isn't supposed to govern the city, it's only supposed to spot the gun shots.

Re: ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood

#219

Post by scheme271 » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 5:48 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #197

kstenerud wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Putting surveillance for gun crime in areas with the highest rates of gun crime is obviously what’s happening. This is in fact the crux of the problem. By significantly increasing monitoring of areas with higher crime rates, you inadvertently create a vicious cycle feedback loop: The more you monitor an area, the more samples you get, biasing the stats (because your sampling is no longer uniform). Then these stats…

> The more you monitor an area, the more samples you get, biasing the stats So by monitoring an area with high crime rate, you catch more crime, which results in more policing for the area with a confirmed high crime rate? And that's a bad thing?

It's biasing the sample. For example, drug usage among teens are roughly the same between white, hispanic and african americans but african americans are more likely to be arrested and charged for drug possession or usage. Here the difference is probably because african americans are stopped and searched more even though their usage is about the same as whites.

Re: ShotSpotter: listening in on the neighborhood

#220

Post by lanternfish » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 5:48 AM UTC

eBombzor wrote: post #183

fennecbutt wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The cops made a big mistake but why is there some juvenile sitting in the dark, middle of the night, lighting up fireworks the moment the police start getting close. That's what I don't understand. There is some weird stuff going on in this story and the article jumping to conclusions isn't helping.

If you were a juvenile, and wanted to light off fireworks, when else would you do it but at night?