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Assistant Professor Nate Connealy and a team of researchers evaluated Gunshot Detection Technology (GDT) in Chicago and Kansas City through a $503,129 grant from the National Institute of Justice.

Connealy, who teaches in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and his team found that GDT increased gun recoveries by law enforcement by about 10%, but did not have a significant effect on preventing gun crime, as was previously thought.

“The notion is that GDT gets (cops) there faster and then helps them process the scene, whether that's arrive and respond to victims, arrive and initiate the investigation and collect evidence or maybe make an arrest,” said Connealy.

Gunshot detection technology is designed to only register high frequencies like gunfire and then assign a set of coordinates of occurrence within 100 feet of a triggering incident. Third-party companies verify gunfire instead of something like a car backfiring, in typically less than 30 seconds. They send an alert to the local precinct, allowing law enforcement to dispatch resources more immediately. The team collected a wealth of GDT-related data in Chicago for the evaluation, which covered up to almost 70% of their metro area with the GDT microphones.

However, despite the potential benefits in procedural responses to gun violence and contrary to assumptions held in Connealy’s field of criminal justice, he found GDT did not reduce gun violence or gunfire crimes.

People had previously thought GDT would help lower crime rates, so legislators budgeted for technology that costs millions to operate.

But GDT needs gun violence to occur before any resources are tripped, Connealy said.

“I think that assumption sort of was disconnected maybe from how the technology operates,” Connealy said, “so, we stepped in as the research team to execute a formal evaluation.”

The team evaluated if GDT affected gun recoveries, shots fired calls for service, part I gun crimes, and both non-fatal and fatal shootings.

“For our study, part I gun crimes included robbery, aggravated assault and battery offenses with a firearm that did not involve a shooting," Connealy said.

“Ultimately, it had no effect on changing the levels of gun violence in Chicago, and that became particularly of interest because the technology cost around eight to $12 million annually to maintain,” he said.

Chicago has canceled their contract with their GDT provider, and according to Connealy, they appear to be looking for new solutions and things amidst the discourse.

The results made people “a little bit spicy” in Chicago Connealy said, but he’s not disappointed.

“Certainly, there are things you hope will work when attempting to respond to a problem like gun violence, but at the same time, that's just not what we found in the data,” he said. “At least in Chicago, those dollars might be used towards other crime reduction objectives.”