Apparently the city council today heard from the sales diretor of a new "Shotspotter" technology that is designed to aid in deterring crime. The technology is a sensor that is mounted, usually to the top of a building, and will help pinpoint where a gunshot came from and who fired the gun.
The cost for the technology is about $225-250,000 per square mile.
To put that in perspective, the now infamous zip code 64130 is a little over 7 square miles by itself. So implementing the technology in just one zip code would cost roughly $2 million.
This comes at a time when the police department in KCMO is looking at a 5.8% budget shortfall in the proposed 2009 budget.
I'm all for looking at what other cities are doing to curb crime, and looking at and studying all the available options -- so I guess I should applaud the city council for that. But call me skeptical if they think using the technology, that only helps AFTER shots have been fired, is a good replacement for cops out on the streets, improving schools, public transit to get people to jobs, increasing the number of jobs in the urban core, improving codes enforcement on abandoned buildings or any other thing that actually would help prevent crime.
It also doesn't decrease my skepticism to note that 2 of the 3 cities that use the technology made the top 7 list for most dangerous cities in the US last year. When I say we should look at what other cities are doing, I mean we should look at what SUCCESSFUL cities are doing. Just sayin'.
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