Everyone Deserves to Feel Safe in their Own Community
SoundThinking™ Provides Over 150 U.S. Cities with the Resources They Need to Stay Safe
Join the CommunityOn average less than 12% of shootings are reported to 9-1-1. As a result, eight out of ten times when someone fires a gun in your neighborhood, the police never show up, simply because they don’t know about it.
Our mission is to reduce gun violence and improve the police-community relationship. Communities like yours are proactively addressing gun violence with our SafetySmart Platform.
3.6 min
reduction in GSW victims transport time
101
victims found and aided by police in Oakland when no one called 911
There was a man shot on our streets and no one had alerted police. [Because of ShotSpotter], police showed up and administered CPR and saved him. He’s alive today because of ShotSpotter.
ShotSpotter is…preventing harm to our citizens. There are frequent shootings…in this end of town and the law abiding residents are tired of it. The black residents…do not think ShotSpotter is targeting the black community, but targeting crime.
Sixty percent of U.S. adults back the use of gunshot detection technology in general, and that support increases to 66 percent for its use by law enforcement and 65 percent for national security agencies, according to a new Morning Consult poll.
If you don’t experience it, you don’t know what it is like. but if you experience it you know you value [ShotSpotter] technology, because I’ve seen it firsthand where somebody gets shot in my block and you know before I get there the cops are already there
A lot of people have to be worried on the streets at night. ShotSpotter takes care of many people in our community, so we’re really grateful and thankful it’s here.
I feel reassured having a system in place that can detect exactly where gun fire is, so the authorities can respond quickly.
If somebody's about to do something and he knows ShotSpotter is there, he's going to think twice before he pulls that gun and shoots it.
We understand that there are many key stakeholders involved in upholding community safety. With SoundThinking’s Data for Good initiative, we partner closely with critical institutions in a given community to provide them with data on where shootings occur, so they can focus on areas and individuals that are most in need.
Addressing Youth Gun Violence
At the African American Mayors Association (AAMA) 2022 Annual Conference, SoundThinking’s Community Impact and Engagement Directors Gerard Tate and Paul John sat down with the Mayor of Baltimore and other thought leaders from across the country to talk about how to curb youth gun violence. Here were some major takeaways.
We need to make sure that those who are most impacted by gun violence (young people and their families) are at the table to make decisions about what their future looks like.
To learn more about our Community Safety initiatives, visit our Data for Good page.
Dr. Gerard Tate (DSW, LMSW)
Gerard is a Community Impact and Engagement Director at SoundThinking, where he ensures that community stakeholders’ input is integrated into ShotSpotter policies, procedures, and product development. As a Licensed Master Social Worker, he has used his knowledge of the root causes of crime, human behavior, and social policy to advise organizations in creating, implementing, and evaluating violence prevention programs.
Gerard is an adjunct professor at Howard University in the graduate School of Social Work. He holds a B.S. in criminology from Webster University, an MSW with a concentration in social and economic development from Washington University in St. Louis, and a Doctor of Social Work degree from the University of Southern California.
“SoundThinking has provided me the opportunity to bring a social worker lens into a leading public safety technology company. In my role, I am responsible for implementing evidence-based victim services, trauma response, and community engagement practices into policy, programs, and services both within our company and for our customers. Additionally, I help community groups and city agencies use our data to enable them to know where to direct their second responders (e.g. violence prevention groups, social workers, and mental health professionals).
At SoundThinking, we are at the tip of the spear with regards to improving relationships between police and historically marginalized communities who have suffered from the epidemic of gun violence since before I was born. I believe I have the best macro social work job on the planet, and I cannot be more blessed to be a part of such a fantastic organization.”
Paul John
Paul serves as Community Engagement Director at SoundThinking where he engages and informs communities across the country on the efficacy and potential of the company’s suite of technologies to not only address crime, but to have a broader positive impact on their neighborhoods. Paul comes to SoundThinking from Everytown for Gun Safety where he oversaw their Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition to facilitate the exchange of gun violence prevention strategies and best practices between mayors.
Paul studied Political Science at Penn State University. Born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the West Indies, he grew up in Brooklyn, and now lives in Long Island, New York.
As Community Engagement Director, I work externally to help communities better understand the efficacy of our solutions, and internally to better position SoundThinking as a greater part of the solution to this public health crisis, especially for Black and Brown communities who are disproportionately impacted.
We take the community’s privacy seriously and are proud to share that we received unanimous approval from the privacy commissions in San Francisco and Oakland. The city of Oakland has the “strongest surveillance oversight law in the country.” We also enlisted the NYU School of Law Policing Project to conduct a thorough privacy assessment and ensure we are meeting best practices. After completing the assessment, the Policing Project reported:
Our talented, diverse, and dedicated employees are passionate about improving community safety. Hear what some of our team members have to say about why they love working at SoundThinking.
I love being a manager at ShotSpotter Incident Review Center (IRC). It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly. Every person working here goes through rigorous training to be able to detect gunfire accurately using several specialized tools we have access to. We are a dedicated, hardworking team, and every day I finish work knowing my team and I helped make communities healthier and safer.
Being a part of the SoundThinking team is truly a blessing. I grew up in one of the cities that we support. It’s amazing to work for a company that cared enough about my community to do something about gun violence we were experiencing. I’m thankful for being a part of this effort. Thank you SoundThinking!
SoundThinking is a company performing work that is invaluable in the fight toward reducing gun violence. As a frontline support engineer, the work can be demanding and challenging, but it is also incredibly rewarding. Every day I feel empowered and encouraged to journey on and make a difference.
SoundThinking gives me the ability to work hand in hand with our law enforcement partners in addressing gun violence in their communities. It fills me with pride knowing we provide a vital service that helps these agencies positively engage the community and save lives.
SoundThinking has a great workplace atmosphere and excellent leadership, which makes me proud to work here. Being a part of this workplace culture that values its people is very important to me.
I love working at SoundThinking. It is one of the few companies I've worked for that actually walks the walk when it comes to balancing not only making our customers successful, but also the communities they serve as well its employees. Helping to save lives as well as bringing criminal justice to those who deserve it inspires one to do their best day in and day out.
I’m here for the mission, the work we do, and my teammates.
FAQs
The SafetySmart Platform is a suite of five data-driven tools that enable law enforcement and civic stakeholders to be more efficient, effective, and equitable in driving positive public safety outcomes. SoundThinking’s new SafetySmart Platform goes well beyond ShotSpotter®, the leading acoustic gunshot detection service. It includes the leading law enforcement search engine CrimeTracer™, the comprehensive investigation management system CaseBuilder™, the first of-its-kind gun crime tracking and patrol management and case management tool CaseBuilder ™ Crime Gun, and the resource and patrol management software ResourceRouter™.
SoundThinking offers a suite of data-driven tools that bring together specialized software and objective data, in order to help law enforcement and civic leadership better protect their communities by ensuring the right resources are provided when and where they’re needed most.
Absolutely. SoundThinking provides intelligence that allows police to coordinate safe and efficient responses that require fewer resources in a way that increases community trust.
SoundThinking has taken all the necessary steps to ensure citizen privacy. In the case of ShotSpotter, the risk of sensors picking up human voices is extremely low, as independently verified by the New York University Policing Project. Also, in 2019 the Privacy Advisory Commission of the City of Oakland unanimously approved the Oakland Police Department’s continued use of ShotSpotter despite one of the strongest surveillance ordinances in the country. Sound snippets only include the recording of potential gunfire and one second before and after to establish an ambient noise level. Recorded sounds are only stored by ShotSpotter for 30 hours, and then overwritten.
SoundThinking’s suite of products protect a wide range of city types and sizes ranging from urban metropolitan cities such as Chicago and New York City; medium-sized cities such as Mobile, Tampa, and Oakland; and small cities with populations less than 80,000 such as Forrest City, AR and Perris, CA.
SoundThinking technology is in use in over 150 cities across the country. Learn more about how it’s being used in certain cities to address crime and protect community safety.
As a company focused intently on public safety and the well-being of our communities, we also understand both the importance and the urgency around protecting our physical environment. That’s why our commitment to community safety extends into the realm of protecting marine life, wildlife, and precious ecosystems. Learn more about how our technology is making a significant impact in preventing rhino poaching and fish blasting.