Op-Ed: Durham’s Council Can Support Local Communities by Rejecting ShotSpotter
Re-contracting with ShotSpotter would suggest the city council’s focus is on surveilling Black and brown neighborhoods over public safety; it would be a commitment to increasing incarceration over increasing community supports.
Morning Glory Avenue in East Durham Credit: Photo by Alex Boerner
What could the City of Durham do with $658,500 over three years? The cost for ShotSpotter surveillance technology is $65-90,000 per square mile per year, with a $10,000-per-square-mile onetime service initiation fee. If you had that much money to spend per square mile in your neighborhood, how would you spend it?
I’m sure every Durhamite has a response that is valid, authentic, community-oriented, and personal. The most recent participatory budgeting cycle created initiatives that strive to fund sidewalks in busy neighborhoods, lighting in public parks, and equipment for teens at recreational centers. We recognize what is unsafe about our neighborhoods: having to walk on roadways without sidewalks, unlit parks, a lack of equipment for young folks to use in recreational spaces rendering the spaces ineffective at providing them with entertainment, which, in turn, leaves teens to find methods of entertaining themselves.
But the City of Durham and the people of Durham have different ideas of what safety is.
In late 2022, the City of Durham entered into a nearly $200,000 pilot contract with ShotSpotter and left initiatives such as safety measures in DHA housing and lighting in public parks to be funded by participatory budgeting. Research from across the country shows that ShotSpotter acoustic sensors that target communities of color have no impact in decreasing instances of gun violence.ShotSpotter funds extensive PR campaigns to restore its reputation, but its administrators rarely ask for input from the community. Why is that? In Durham, residents are excited and hopeful about the HEART program, pushing for the expansion of skilled, compassionate crisis care. The sentiment around ShotSpotter is skeptical, critical, and understandably suspicious.
It is 1:06 a.m. and I’ve just heard two bursts of rapid-fire gunshots. I live in East Durham and this is a regular occurrence. I don’t feel any safer knowing that many streetlights in this area are equipped with ShotSpotter. In fact, I—and many of my neighbors—feel significantly less safe, because Durham police spend a lot of time idling on the streets in front of our homes long before the moments when we hear gunshots. Durham police are regularly in my neighborhood, four to six squad cars deep, arresting folks who express frustration. “I live here, look at my license, I live in this house”— whether or not that is true, should that small woman have been cuffed and forcibly detained?
We watch undercover Durham police officers pulling over and ransacking cars while Black and brown folks sit protesting from the grass. We are told we can “put our phones away and keep moving” from chuckling officers who seem to hold our mistrust as a general public attitude that has nothing to do with their behavior. There is no wonder why extensive distrust exists between the community and the police, creating a rift in public safety filled with unreported thefts and violence. Children don’t feel safe or comfortable walking to the park or the corner store and parents certainly don’t feel safe sending their children out to play, to enjoy the day, to be in community, to live.
Regardless of the lack of evidence supporting ShotSpotter’s ability to decrease gun violence and widespread understanding that overpoliced Durham neighborhoods do not benefit from further surveillance, members of Durham’s city council plan to revisit our city’s contract with SoundThinking, the surveillance company that owns ShotSpotter. Re-contracting with ShotSpotter would suggest the city council’s focus is on surveilling Black and brown neighborhoods over public safety; it would be a commitment to increasing incarceration over increasing community supports.
Durhamites know that the police prioritize policing when what we are interested in is safety. So here we sit in a place of wondering whether Durham’s city council knows the difference between those concepts and whether they will vote to invest in programs that demonstrate that they do.
taari felice is an artivist looking to find truth through the way love expresses itself on Earth, creating whatever they can to tell the stories that seek them, find them, trust them. They live in East Durham and advocate for a Free Palestine, Haiti, Congo, Sudan, Tigray, and an end to the violence imperialism perpetrates worldwide.
Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.
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Join the INDY Press Club to help us keep fearless watchdog reporting and essential arts and culture coverage viable in the Triangle.
Op-Ed: Durham’s Council Can Support Local Communities by Rejecting ShotSpotter
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What could the City of Durham do with $658,500 over three years? The cost for ShotSpotter surveillance technology is $65-90,000 per square mile per year, with a $10,000-per-square-mile onetime service initiation fee. If you had that much money to spend per square mile in your neighborhood, how would you spend it?
I’m sure every Durhamite has a response that is valid, authentic, community-oriented, and personal. The most recent participatory budgeting cycle created initiatives that strive to fund sidewalks in busy neighborhoods, lighting in public parks, and equipment for teens at recreational centers. We recognize what is unsafe about our neighborhoods: having to walk on roadways without sidewalks, unlit parks, a lack of equipment for young folks to use in recreational spaces rendering the spaces ineffective at providing them with entertainment, which, in turn, leaves teens to find methods of entertaining themselves.
But the City of Durham and the people of Durham have different ideas of what safety is.
In late 2022, the City of Durham entered into a nearly $200,000 pilot contract with ShotSpotter and left initiatives such as safety measures in DHA housing and lighting in public parks to be funded by participatory budgeting. Research from across the country shows that ShotSpotter acoustic sensors that target communities of color have no impact in decreasing instances of gun violence. ShotSpotter funds extensive PR campaigns to restore its reputation, but its administrators rarely ask for input from the community. Why is that? In Durham, residents are excited and hopeful about the HEART program, pushing for the expansion of skilled, compassionate crisis care. The sentiment around ShotSpotter is skeptical, critical, and understandably suspicious.
It is 1:06 a.m. and I’ve just heard two bursts of rapid-fire gunshots. I live in East Durham and this is a regular occurrence. I don’t feel any safer knowing that many streetlights in this area are equipped with ShotSpotter. In fact, I—and many of my neighbors—feel significantly less safe, because Durham police spend a lot of time idling on the streets in front of our homes long before the moments when we hear gunshots. Durham police are regularly in my neighborhood, four to six squad cars deep, arresting folks who express frustration. “I live here, look at my license, I live in this house”— whether or not that is true, should that small woman have been cuffed and forcibly detained?
We watch undercover Durham police officers pulling over and ransacking cars while Black and brown folks sit protesting from the grass. We are told we can “put our phones away and keep moving” from chuckling officers who seem to hold our mistrust as a general public attitude that has nothing to do with their behavior. There is no wonder why extensive distrust exists between the community and the police, creating a rift in public safety filled with unreported thefts and violence. Children don’t feel safe or comfortable walking to the park or the corner store and parents certainly don’t feel safe sending their children out to play, to enjoy the day, to be in community, to live.
Regardless of the lack of evidence supporting ShotSpotter’s ability to decrease gun violence and widespread understanding that overpoliced Durham neighborhoods do not benefit from further surveillance, members of Durham’s city council plan to revisit our city’s contract with SoundThinking, the surveillance company that owns ShotSpotter. Re-contracting with ShotSpotter would suggest the city council’s focus is on surveilling Black and brown neighborhoods over public safety; it would be a commitment to increasing incarceration over increasing community supports.
Durhamites know that the police prioritize policing when what we are interested in is safety. So here we sit in a place of wondering whether Durham’s city council knows the difference between those concepts and whether they will vote to invest in programs that demonstrate that they do.
taari felice is an artivist looking to find truth through the way love expresses itself on Earth, creating whatever they can to tell the stories that seek them, find them, trust them. They live in East Durham and advocate for a Free Palestine, Haiti, Congo, Sudan, Tigray, and an end to the violence imperialism perpetrates worldwide.
Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.
Support independent local journalism.
Join the INDY Press Club to help us keep fearless watchdog reporting and essential arts and culture coverage viable in the Triangle.