While law enforcement rightfully plays a central role in ensuring public safety, including responding to incidents of crime, they should not be expected to address the root causes of violence. Ultimately, violence prevention requires a truly comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach, like the one implemented in Mobile, Alabama, where local leaders...
In collaboration with local police, non-law enforcement organizations such as offices of violence prevention, schools, and city and county public health departments could receive gunfire data and analytics about where and when gun violence occurs, ensuring that appropriate community resources can be deployed to offer immediate and lasting support while...
Gun violence is a highly-complex problem without a single solution. In cities across the country where gun crime has risen exponentially since 2020, properly addressing this crisis means creating a comprehensive gun crime response strategy focused on reducing gunfire and utilizing the right tools. ShotSpotter’s acoustic gunshot detection technology, for...
In the policing domain, these data points are usually people, locations, vehicles, property, organizations, and firearms. When visualizing this information, each individual entity becomes a “node” on the chart tied to other nodes by way of their relationships or “links” to each other. By leveraging link analysis, investigators are better...
What is CompStat? At its time, Compstat policing was a notable shift from a more reactive type of policing (that is, primarily responding to crimes already committed), to a more proactive type of policing focused on identifying trends and crime prevention. With a focus on information-sharing, accountability, and improving effectiveness,...
Data for Good is a community-based program that shares precision data about where and when gun violence occurs so non-law enforcement organizations can provide prompt interventions to residents in need of services and support. According to the Annals of Internal Medicine, survivors of firearm injury have a 51% increase in...
ShotSpotter’s Director Community Engagement Dr. Gerard Tate was joined by Reverend Damita Davis-Howard from Ceasefire Oakland, John Bush from the City of Savannah’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE), and Wayne Rawlins, President of Ummah Futures International. During the ninety-minute conversation, they discussed the importance of data-driven, community interventions...
There’s no substitute for the fresh opportunity to collect evidence, interview witnesses, and provide community support. What you do in the first 48 hours informs everything that happens after. But, of course, most investigations don’t end after two days. Those first 48 hours following a gun crime are reactive, responding...
I was one of the panelists along with former ATF Associate Deputy Director and ShotSpotter’s VP of Analytics & Forensic Services Tom Chittum, and the President of Ummah Futures International Wayne Rawlins. In just thirty minutes, and with an overarching focus on the importance of law enforcement collaboration, our conversation...
This is largely due to the increase in using data to identify problems and direct preventative efforts. Introducing science in the form of evidence-based policing has proven more effective at reducing crime and improving community safety than traditional methods. While significant progress has been made, we still have a ways...