The Springfield City Council is slated to vote Sept. 1 on extending the Springfield Police Department’s use of ShotSpotter, a surveillance technology used to detect gunshots.
At the Aug. 25 committee of the whole meeting, Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory moved to place the ordinance on the debate agenda, calling for further discussion before a vote takes place on the proposal to approve a $1.1 million, three-year renewal contract.
The system, run by California-based company SoundThinking, covers 5.25 square miles of Springfield, primarily on the east side and in the central neighborhoods where gun violence tends to occur more frequently. It uses sensors to detect the sound of potential gunshots and alert police to the location.
The city first approved the technology in 2020 with a 7-3 vote for a three-year contract totaling $643,750. Ward 10 Ald. Ralph Hanauer was among the “no” votes.
Today, Hanauer said he’s a big supporter of the technology. “I’m a big believer in getting the police the technology they need to help them solve crimes,” he said.
When IT asked if he’s seen evidence demonstrating the technology has assisted in solving crimes, he said, “I think the police have shown evidence, and I have to take the police at their word that this technology is helping them.”
In 2023, the council signed on for another three years for a total of $870,188.
However, some research has found the technology doesn’t help to reduce crime.
A 2021 MacArthur Justice Center study of ShotSpotter’s use in Chicago found the “vast majority of alerts generated by the system turn up no evidence of gunfire or any gun-related crime.”
The MacArthur Justice Center, a national civil rights organization, noted, “CPD publicly promotes ShotSpotter as an essential tool for crime prevention, but there is no evidence that it reduces crime.”
In 2025, the city of Chicago settled a lawsuit backed by the organization which was filed by people claiming they were harmed by police’s use of the surveillance system.
“The lawsuit focused on the tens of thousands of ShotSpotter alerts every year that led police to find no evidence of gunfire or gun crime, but often resulted in unwarranted police stops that violated the Fourth Amendment,” stated the MacArthur Justice Center.
The Chicago Police Department discontinued its contract with ShotSpotter in 2024.
A study that same year by Northeastern University examining the use of ShotSpotter in Kansas City and Chicago found the technology helped improve police response times in locating victims and evidence from a crime scene, but “does not lead to more arrests and convictions for gun crimes and does not reduce these crimes in the areas where it is deployed.”
SPD won’t share the exact locations of the detection devices, but the majority of the sensors are located in Ward 2. According to U.S. Census data, Ward 2 includes the poorest neighborhoods in the city, and a high percentage of residents are Black.
Gregory said he’s noncommittal on supporting a renewal of the technology.
“It just depends on how me and the chief’s conversation goes, and how we can put something together as a city to make sure that we’re going to use that data to address those areas,” he said.
Gregory thinks positively of the technology. “There are pluses to ShotSpotter,” he said, such as helping police locate victims.
Even so, he said the city has to move past just collecting data on troubled areas.
“I’m against the tool, if it’s just the tool itself,” he said.
He added, “The areas that get the highest amount of gunshots, those areas, of course, are policed,” Gregory said. “We have to take it a step further. Put real concentration on the homes, put real concentration on the weeds, the grass and things of that nature.”
He described a 2022 community event, Project Southtown Cleanup, as an initiative he’d like to see reintroduced to the east side. Gregory said community organizations and Public Works focused on cleaning up the blocks surrounding Feitshans Elementary School on 15th Street between Stuart and Kansas streets.
“Not only did they go out that weekend, but they also, prior to the event, cleaned alleys, cut trees and did a lot of work in those areas,” he said.
He said the area needs “more than just handing out pamphlets and feeding people.” Most importantly, he said, “people want their neighborhoods looking well, roads done.”
Gregory said he plans on talking with the police chief and the mayor’s office to come up with a comprehensive plan.
“We have to really put a priority on those areas or we’ll always be paying for ShotSpottter,” he said, noting that he doesn’t want to pay for the technology indefinitely.
Ward 6 Ald. Jennifer Notariano, whose district shares some of Ward 2’s western border, said she’s keeping an open mind on ShotSpotter.
“I think the main issue with it is making sure that it actually does what it says it does,” she said. “I think it’s really going to be up to the command staff and the chief of police to make the case that ShotSpotter is a valuable tool and a necessary tool for the department to accomplish their goals of keeping residents safe and solving crime.”
Notariano said she’s most interested in the city funding programs that support the mental health and well-being of officers by tracking their work stressors and intervening when they need extra support.
“A program like that would go a long way to making the department as healthy as possible and potentially putting the officers in a position where they would be better able to engage with constituents,” she said.
