Audit Report on the New York City Police Department's Oversight of Its Agreement with ShotSpotter Inc. for the Gunshot Detection and Location System (June 20, 2024)

Published on July 9, 2024

The audit found that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) ensures that the billing, invoices, and payments to the ShotSpotter are accurate, and that ShotSpotter generally meets its currently specified contractual obligations. The auditors found that sensor coverage areas were initally set up in Brooklyn and the Bronx because the two boroughs had the highest number of confirmed shootings, and, withing the two boroughs, they were generally placed in precints with the highest number of confirmed shootings. The audit also found that ShotSpotter met its contractual performance targets, which focus on avoiding "missed incidents," most of the time.

However, the audit found that the contractual performance standard does not measure whether alerts sent to NYPD result in confirmed shootings. When measured against the contractual performance standards set by NYPD, ShotSpotter met its 90% target for avoiding missed incidents in almost all boroughs except Manhattan, but when measured against the number of confirmed shootings, performance is far lower. During the sampled months of review in 2022 and 2023, ShotSpotter alerts only resulted in confirmed shootings betwee 8% and 20% of the time.

Read the online version of the Audit Report on NYPD and ShotSpotter or download the PDF below

Audit_NYPD_s_Shotspotter_June_2024.pdf
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