Detroit -- Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield on Monday launched a new city office that will act as a hub for community-driven violence prevention programs, an initiative she and others described as a major shift in public safety policy.
The new Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety is designed "to advance a holistic public-health approach to violence prevention and community safety," Sheffield said at a press conference at the Detroit Public Safety Headquarters.
Sheffield, who pledged throughout her mayoral campaign to create Detroit's first Office of Gun Violence Prevention, signed an executive order establishing the new office, which goes into effect in April. She said she decided not to call the new agency the Office of Gun Violence Prevention to get away from using the word violence.
She was surrounded by more than a dozen community leaders and organizers who often deal directly with attempting to resolve gun violence, domestic abuse as well as work with crime survivors. The new initiative is being launched by a $200,000 grant from the Hudson-Webber Foundation and Sheffield said the office will have a "budget neutral" impact on the city's general fund.
"Safety is more than the absence of violence," Sheffield said Monday. "It's also the presence of community, of belonging, of trust."
Sheffield said the new office will focus on programs and strategies around community violence intervention, also known as our CVI work, along with conflict resolution and restorative practices, survivor advocacy and reentry citizen support, domestic violence and intimate partner violence prevention.
The new office will "serve as a centralized hub for Detroit's violence prevention and intervention strategies," Sheffield said.
Among those who applauded the new office was Lisa Glaspie, executive director of Seize the Smoke. The nonprofit works to combat gun violence through community education, youth outreach, and other advocacy efforts. At the Monday press conference, she held a small diary that had photo of her son Khalil Allen, who was killed by gunfire at the age of 18 in 2023.
"Survival groups give us a place to remember our children," Glaspie said. "If a mother has been given a space to heal...she becomes a mentor."
Longtime community advocate Teferi Brent was named the director of the new office. He is a founder of the CVI group Dignity4Detroit.
"I am qualified by 35 years of well-documented and highly successful urban peace and justice work," he said.
Brent said the office will "remove the silos" between existing programs, among other things.
"It is our priority to, No. 1, to better understand the safety needs of our community," he said. "To No. 2, identify gaps in current services. To No. 3, identify, vet and share pre-existing programming that has not been communicated and made accessible to the community."
"To be clear, the driving impetus behind the creation of this office is the pain, hurt, tears and courageous suffering of the countless victims and survivors of gun violence. And the fundamental belief that safe communities are peaceful communities, and peaceful communities are healthy communities."
Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison and others pointed out that existing CVI efforts have played a key role in the city's declining crime rate in major crimes. Detroit recorded 165 criminal homicides in 2025, the fewest since the city had 125 homicides in 1964 and a 19% decrease from 2024. There were 17 homicides that were deemed justified in 2025, Bettison said in January.
Detroit has experienced three consecutive years of declining homicides, falling from 252 in 2023 to 165 last year.
Nonfatal shootings also fell 26% from 607 in 2024 to 447 last year, while carjackings plunged 46% from 142 to 77, a record since the police department began counting in the early 1990s.
Sheffield said she expects to see even further drops in crime rates with the new Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety.
While the Trump administration has cut certain crime prevention funding, the state created a $75 million Public Safety and Violence Prevention Trust Fund at the urging of former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, an initiative that was backed by House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, and was intended in part to relieve the burden on Detroit's budget outlays for CVI groups.
Gun violence remains a plague, especially for Black males and young people. Firearms were the leading cause of death among children and teens ages 1-17 statewide in 2023. Black males ages 15-34 made up 2% of Michigan's population but accounted for 42% of all gun homicide deaths in 2023.