Sunday, August 14, 2011

Shotspotter, Plainfield: Another Cargo Cult Rears its Ugly Head.

Unless Plainfield has become Afghanistan and you can immediately and indiscriminately launch a retaliatory attack into the location where the shots were fired, Shotspotter will not work. The science is not there. Yes, we should have cameras located in high crime areas and provide access to them in real time for all the police and citizens to view.

I don't know who is pelding this Kool Aide but I spent my entire career in technology and can tell you the devil is in the details, see my Sept.29, 2010, blog post. But then again, my advice is free, so it must not be worth anything. It is always interesting to note that those of us who know technology look at it with a jaundice eye and while those who don’t, like ‘Cargo Cultist,’ rush to embrace it as if it were manna from heaven.


The Council and the Administration would do well to read the article in the August edition of Scientific American, ‘How New York Beat Crime.’

Yeah I know  a $250,000 grant is a lot to let slip by, but  if only Shotspotter qualifies for the grant then you have to ask yourself who is being paid off and maybe for once Plainfield should take the high road and walk?