Gun violence headlines tend to populate our search engines and social media. Constantly developing news stories involving unresolved violent crimes are deteriorating police-community relations. Gunshot Detection Technology (GDT) addresses this problem by helping authorities respond to the scene in a shorter time span, prevent crime and find strategies to solve problems in insecure neighborhoods.
1. Rapid Response
A witness call might be a great way to encourage a faster dispatch and prevent crime, but some people might still be reluctant to call the officers or going through a lot of panic thus not providing the right demographics. Providing the police with accurate information during a gunfire situation is key to a rapid response.
GDT was designed to identify, authenticate and notify officers automatically within seconds of a gunshot detection. The information provided includes specific times and position of gunfire. Several acoustic sensors collect information and triangulate it to pinpoint the source of the sound, date and time. The audio is then transferred to law enforcement or the vendor (depending on the specific GDT product) and from this point the data can be verified as a gunshot or discarded as a false alarm.
Some vendors provide technicians specifically trained to provide more detailed information about the incident, like what type of firearm was used and whether it came from a moving vehicle. With this technology, the rate of response can be enhanced allowing officials to not only save lives but in other cases they are able to recover forensic evidence for investigation.
2. Problem Solving
When integrated with video surveillance, GDT allows researchers to review video feeds of street block attributes, run onsite observations and conduct interviews. Gunshot detection reports provided by citizens, demographics and physical features of a neighborhood can help identify hot spots. This information can then be used to review the effectiveness of an official’s response to crime scenes and analyze how these problems can be acknowledged and resolved.
3. Crime Prevention
GDT provide information that crime analysts use to spot trends, locate concentrations of gun violence and produce maps to help authorities make tactical decisions about where to deploy patrols and other resources. This analysis can also encourage social workers to recruit community members who want to participate in conducting a street outreach to address conflicts between social groups, crews and gangs before they escalate.
Though it is critical for residents to continue reporting gun fire incidents, GDT is an effective tool to help solve firearm violence by generating a comprehensive report resulting in faster response and reduced crime rates.