Detroit violence interruption program has new evidence behind it. Now comes a push for permanence.

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Detroit’s city-backed violence intervention program is showing significant promise in targeted areas as the city continues to experience record-level declines in gun violence, a University of Michigan evaluation has found. 

The ShotStopper community violence intervention (CVI) program operates in six zones across the city, where community groups create their own strategies to reduce gun violence. The program was launched in Detroit in 2023 and is unrelated to the ShotSpotter gun detection system.

The evaluation found that areas with ShotStopper saw a 33 percent decrease in homicides in the three years since the program launched, versus 12 percent throughout the rest of the city. Nonfatal shootings declined by 38 percent in the six zones, compared to 28 percent outside of them.

While researchers can’t definitively say the program directly caused the sharper declines, it’s a positive sign of the work done in the neighborhoods. “It looks like the teams did have significant influence on decreases in homicides and nonfatal shootings in their areas,” said Sam Stragand, a senior program manager at Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan and co-author of the report. 

Detroit invested more than $11 million in ShotStopper over the last three years, giving community groups unusual autonomy to combat gun violence in their neighborhoods. With early evidence of success, the city now wants to make that experiment a permanent public safety strategy. 

What distinguishes ShotStoppers from other city-supported CVI programs across the country is the independence the organizations have in deciding how to prevent gun violence. The groups are rewarded for outperforming the citywide trends, meaning they can earn additional funding if shootings decline more sharply in their zones. 

“There’s a level of ‘Hey, you know your blocks and your neighborhoods better than anyone in the Mayor’s Office or any officer,’ so you do what you think is necessary,” said Mike Peterson, the director of ShotStoppers. “What fills in that work should be up to the groups, and their autonomy and their relationships and their capabilities.” 

For example, Force Detroit, a CVI group that works on the West Side, focuses more directly on those actively involved in shootings. New Era, which is located in the Northwest, takes a more community-wide approach and focuses more on engagement, local events, and providing resources for the community. 

The two groups have different approaches but they’re both part of ShotStoppers, and both have experienced success. “I think it’s safe to say that Force Detroit by far is the best performer out of the groups,” Stragand said. “New Era took a completely different approach and still had significant decreases in their area, as well.” 

The east side of Detroit has historically been one of the city’s hardest-hit areas for gun violence. Quincy Smith, who runs Team Pursuit, another ShotStoppers organization, said his team had to understand the history of the neighborhood to effectively interrupt cycles of violence. 

Smith points to a conflict between Bloods and Crips that escalated in the late 2000s, fueling an increase in shootings and heightened law enforcement presence. “I would say around 2010, you start to see the uptick in violence and then it gets to the point where if you’re caught on the wrong side of town, it was on sight,” Smith said, referring to a shoot-on-sight mentality among gang rivals. “From then, it was just ongoing.” 

That’s why Team Pursuit uses credible messengers with direct knowledge and experience in the longstanding conflicts to intervene at a street level before disputes turn violent. In the zone Team Pursuit now serves, nonfatal shootings dropped from 65 in the program’s first year to 19 in its second. “It’s remarkable the transition not only the community has gone through, but these guys have gone through,” Smith said, referring to the credible messengers working on the ground. 

Long-term funding for the program remains a question. ShotStoppers was initially funded by pandemic relief dollars. The city now supports it through its general fund, with some help from the state. For the 2025-2026 fiscal year, Detroit City Council approved an additional $3 million for ShotStopper. The city’s adopted 2026-2027 budget includes $10.8 million for community violence intervention, which is a $3.4 million increase from the previous year. Roughly $2.6 million in state public safety funding has also been earmarked to expand CVI efforts.

While there’s no clear indication that the funding is in jeopardy, Peterson says it’s not yet considered a guaranteed part of the city’s budget. “We do want to get to a point where we can standardize this work and move it from a pilot program to a standing function within public safety in the city,” Peterson said. “ That’s something that comes with time.” 

Even if Detroit commits to ShotStoppers for the foreseeable future, the groups will still be working in neighborhoods struggling with disinvestment, limited economic opportunities, and social issues they cannot solve alone. “You can only hold the peace for so long when the underlying factors don’t change,” Stragand said. “As much as [the CVI groups] put into their work, there are also larger forces at play that also need to be addressed.”