Detection, not Prevention

In Birmingham, the police are installing microphones/sensors to detect the sound of gunshots. It’s being marketed as a way of reducing/preventing gun crime. And I don’t quite get that.

As an overview in the BBC story says,

West Midlands Police seem sure this initiative will help cut gun crime and give officers more confidence heading into unpredictable situations.

Despite this being a pilot there is a belief that if successful this will be rolled out to other UK cities.

But it’s not going to cut gun crime.

These sensors work on the sound of a gunshot. So they’re maybe – maybe – going to detect that a gun’s been fired, and roughly where. (A 25m (80-odd feet) radius in a city is a pretty big location) But the gun’s got to be fired before it can be detected.   It has issues (obviously) detecting gunshots from inside a building, or where a silencer is used.

And the detection method? Again from the BBC story,

The £150,000 system records an audio clip and sends police a GPS location.

A police officer trained to listen to the clips then makes a judgement on what they have heard before deploying officers.

So the sound has to be detected/recorded, then sent to the control room, then listened to by a trained officer, then the police get deployed.

Not really preventative at all then, is it?