Tech changes to finding criminals

A shift in some urban crime will come via three technologies: gunfire locator, ubiquitous video, facial recognition.

Several Latin American cities have already invested in acoustic and other gunfire locator technology, which allows police to instantly identify the location of a gunshot to within a block or less of the shooting. This technology was intended for high crime areas so that police could be dispatched immediately.

However, the increasing presence of video cameras, both government and private run, means that the time of gunshots can be matched up to videos of the location. Add in facial recognition technology, and there should be a movement towards identifying all urban shooters.

Criminals can adapt by using silencers, wearing masks and moving their crimes indoors. However, that requires a level of planning that does not go into the indiscriminate or street violence that is a cause of a significant number of murders in many neighborhoods.

Legal systems will need to adapt to collect evidence and use it in court. Politicians will need some levels of control to avoid the big brother implications that will bother citizens about these technologies being used in combination. In spite of civil liberty concerns, citizens in many countries affected by high violence will likely be happy to have a new deterrent in place.

This technology doesn't solve all the violence nor does it attack the problem at its root causes. Still, most of it is possible today and Latin American countries are going to increasingly invest in these technologies as part of the anti-crime efforts.