Lately, when District 7 resident Tonya Wells looks at her phone, a barrage of bad news about violent crimes in Detroit is one of the first things waiting for her.
“When I look at my phone and I see the first thing, somebody got shot. Somebody got held up. Somebody was killed at a gas station. Somebody was this, that, and the third,” Wells said. “…We have a right to feel secure and safe in our environments. We don’t have that.”
She’s far from the only Detroiter feeling this way.
In the wake of a recent multitude of violent crimes hitting local headlines — like the killing of Jaquoya Wix, multiple juvenile-involved shootings on the east side, the attack of a postal worker on Eight Mile and a September mass shooting on the west side — some residents say they are skeptical of figures recently released by the city that show summertime reductions in violent crime.
Mayor Mary Sheffield and Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison joined with community leaders and unveiled the news this month, citing an overall reduction in crime over the summer compared with last year. City leaders credited prevention initiatives, including the mayor’s $1.5 million Occupy the Summer programming and the city’s Community Violence Intervention (CVI) program “ShotStoppers.” Bettison said the numbers suggest that what the city is doing is working.
“I would say the return on investment is worth it, and we need to double down and do more,” Bettison said during an Oct. 5 press conference.
But some Detroiters say the numbers don’t automatically translate to a sense of security. They say there isn’t enough transparency around the city’s data collection and that the crime reductions often aren’t felt equitably across neighborhoods.
“We (the public) can’t put forth our own numbers. We just have what you (the city) give us,” said Nancy A. Parker, a Detroit resident and executive director of the Detroit Justice Center, a nonprofit law firm and community advocacy organization.
“…When the (crime) stats are high, they (the city) can get whatever they want out of that. And then when the stats now are low, folks rightfully are skeptical. Because, is it low so that it can fit the narrative that you want to tout at this moment in time?”
Among the declines cited this month, Sheffield and Bettison noted homicides were down 25%, from 56 last summer to 42 this summer. Juvenile homicides plummeted even further, they said, dropping 89%, from nine last summer to one this year.
Sheffield spokesperson John Roach said while no single strategy can be credited for the declines, the “significant” reduction in youth violence this summer comes amid the rollout of the new Occupy the Summer strategy.
“So, we do think there is a clear connection between young people having structured, constructive activities to take part in and a reduction in summer youth violence, in particular,” he said in a statement.
Detroit’s latest statistics also showed declines in all serious crimes categories through September of this year. All categories and crimes where the victims were juveniles also saw decreases compared with the same time period in 2025.
Many of the numbers fall in line with yearslong downward trends of certain types of crimes in Detroit. For example, the city closed out last year with decreases in all serious crime categories, including “historic” lows of homicides, nonfatal shootings and carjackings, which had also been decreasing for years.
According to the city, public safety — which includes the police department, the fire department, the public lighting department and animal control — receives the second largest portion of Detroit’s $3.047 billion 2026-2027 budget. DPD receives more from that budget than any other single department in the city, specifically accounting for $465.5 million. The approximately 15% of the budget Detroit spends on DPD is around the national average, according to data from the Government Finance Officers Association.
Sheffield this spring released a six-point Community Safety Plan with priorities like gun safety education and resources, a new taskforce on conflict resolution and restorative practices, year-round youth engagement strategy and more. Since assuming office in January, she launched or supported several other related initiatives, including RxKids Detroit, creating the offices of Human, Homeless and Family Services as well as Youth Affairs and more.
Former police commissioner William Davis is a Second Precinct resident and member of the Barton McFarland Neighborhood Association. He said his connections with neighborhood police officers and neighborhood organizations lends to his sense of safety and staying informed, but he understands broader skepticism in the numbers.
“We keep getting reports the crime stats are down. But almost every day we keep getting reports about two or three people being shot, which makes it complex to say that crime stats are down,” Davis said.
Wells doesn’t believe that conditions are improving and in fact says that she has the perception that “crime rates have gone up in the city.”
Jasmin Barmore, a spokesperson for the Detroit Police Department, acknowledged the recent high-profile incidents, including 17 nonfatal shootings and seven fatal shootings, including one juvenile, within the last week.
“While crime remains down citywide compared to this time last year, we understand that these incidents – particularly those involving young people – may not reflect what Detroiters are seeing and feeling in their neighborhoods and we are committed to ensuring that Detroiters not only see a reduction in crime but also feel that impact,” she said in an emailed statement to BridgeDetroit. “…While these incidents do not reflect the overall downward trend in crime, we recognize that behind every statistic is a life impacted by violence.”
Roach, in a statement, said the mayor is “acutely aware” of the recent spike in violence incidents, particularly those involving juveniles, since her summer crime reduction announcement. Even so, he stressed that the violent crime numbers continue to be significantly lower than this time in 2025.
Barmore said DPD is examining the “circumstances surrounding these incidents,” and working with CVI groups, neighborhood leaders and the mayor’s office with the goal of identifying intervention methods to address root causes and help prevent future incidents.
Barmore added that the city is looking at where to increase “targeted enforcement efforts” where violence is still happening.
What strategies work against crime?
National research supports the idea that CVI programs and police strategy changes can be important to crime reduction, as it seems to have done in Detroit. This includes a recent University of Michigan Poverty Solutions report that examined the impact of community violence intervention in Detroit.
“It’s good to know that we are heading in the right direction and that our strategies are having an impact, but we’re still saddened by the lives that have been lost and the lives that have been impacted,” Teferi Brent, director of the mayor’s Office of Neighborhood and Community, said in an interview with BridgeDetroit.
“…I also feel hopeful, faithful, and encouraged by the data proving that our strategies are having an impact,” Brent said. “However, it’s never fast enough. It’s never impactful enough until we get to zero.”
Leaders from ShotStoppers, a city network of seven federally-funded CVI groups, are reverent about ongoing crime and victims, but said they still believe that their work and Occupy the Summer has been effective.
“…There’s less mothers crying. There’s less families grieving,” Maurice ‘Pastor Mo’ Hardwick, founder of Detroit’s Live in Peace Movement, said in an interview with BridgeDetroit. “These initiatives are making the city safer.”
Still, there are other factors, often related to the roots of crimes, that contribute — and may even be more important — to declines in crime, according to experts. Some include an aging population, citywide economic opportunity improvements, gun control measures and third space development and investment.
Dr. Kylil Martin, an assistant professor in the School of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Emergency Management at California State University Long Beach, has also found links between neighborhood crimes, third spaces and gentrification in his work.
Based on his research, Martin said the crime deterrent opportunities in existing physical community pillars like barbershops and recreation centers make investments in those areas more valuable to crime reduction than policing initiatives.
“Policing is only going to fix or is going to enforce the things that they (police) see as wrong and see as problemsome, and not necessarily take the community into account,” said Martin.
The gap between the public’s belief that crime is rising despite stats showing it’s not is a well-documented phenomenon. While Detroit’s CVI groups seem to contribute to crime reduction, the UM Poverty Solutions CVI report found that — except for the residents in the target area overseen by the CVI group Force Detroit on the west side — residents’ overall perception of public safety was “relatively unmoved” at the end of the program’s second year.
When residents told BridgeDetroit they felt safer, it was often because of existing neighborhood structures closer to home.
Third Precinct resident Rita Smith said she likes the idea of crime being down, but wonders if the city can maintain the numbers. Smith said she’s not concerned about her own safety because she and her neighbors in Piety Hill look out for each other.
“We don’t have a lot of serious crime in our precinct,” Smith said. “We have property crime, so we don’t worry so much about murders and guns and shootings. But we worry more about car break-ins, store break-ins and things like that. That costs you money and so forth. May not cost you life, but it might cost you a television.”
Downtown resident John L. Ricks uses an app to stay informed about crime around him. He said, especially given the recent cases downtown, he felt the conditions in the area related to mental health and unhoused populations makes the area “ripe” for issues with crime.
“(W)e are creating conditions where crime becomes more likely, and we’re not addressing those underlying issues,” he said.
According to Martin’s research, the experience is common in areas being gentrified, a process Detroiters have been feeling the impacts of acutely for years. He said gentrification’s impact on crime was generally just that it moved people and crimes into different neighborhoods, the way one would spot clean a living room for visitors.
“Gentrification maybe attends to crime in a way that we get rid of some of the things that may be more visible,” Martin said. “But we don’t necessarily help the people that we’re displacing, and also don’t take any solutions or problem solving for the things that may actually be the root cause of crime.”
Where is crime in Detroit?
Disproportionate decreases in crime throughout the city also contribute to some of Detroit’s perception gap.
Police Precincts 8 and 11, for example, were among the precincts that saw some marginal increases or stagnation in multiple serious crime categories.
District 3 Council Member Scott Benson — who represents residents in the 11th police precinct — noted that the count of incidents in his district remain low, though some percentages seem high.
Still, while he said he feels safe enough to live, bike and raise a family in his district — and that the neighbors and constituents he’s heard from feel safe — residents’ perception is just as important as the reality of crime declines, and that he remains committed to working with community leaders and improving messaging in his district.
“Perception is reality, and what we have to do is make sure that our bosses — the constituents — feel comfortable, safe in their own neighborhoods, “ Benson said. “And if they have a perception of increased crime, that’s their reality. And we have to change it, which means we have to work harder.”
District 7 Council Member Denzel Anton McCampbell, whose district contains at least one police precinct that also saw some marginal increases, agreed on the importance of community perception. He expressed his support for a number of initiatives, including CVIs, the building of a recreation center in Rouge Park and increasing green space in the city.
“We just can’t (just) depend on policing,” McCampbell said. “This is about changing the way we interact with each other, the way that we handle conflict, and really equipping our neighbors with those tools as well. Because it’s going to take all of us to ensure that we have a safe city, and that the numbers reflect that and also folks’ feelings and perception.”
