Homicides dropped 33 percent in the six Detroit CVI zones covered by the city's ShotStopper community violence intervention program during its first three years, compared with a 12 percent decline across the rest of the city. Now, with new evaluation data in hand, the program's director is pushing to turn what started as a pilot into a permanent fixture of Detroit's public safety strategy.
What ShotStopper Actually Does
ShotStopper launched in Detroit in 2023 and is unrelated to the ShotSpotter gun-detection technology used in other cities, according to Michigan Advance. The program operates in six zones across Detroit, where community groups develop and run their own strategies to reduce gun violence rather than following a citywide playbook. The City of Detroit partnered with Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan to evaluate the program's first two years, drawing on public-safety data, administrative records, interviews, focus groups and surveys.
That evaluation found CVI teams generally relied on two approaches: individual interventions with people considered at high risk of involvement with gun violence, and broader community engagement paired with resource provision, per the university's findings. From 2023 to 2025, the zones assigned to each team saw decreases in both homicides and nonfatal shootings, with some areas outpacing the parts of the city not covered by the program.
The Numbers Behind the Push
Nonfatal shootings declined 38 percent in the six ShotStopper zones, compared with 28 percent outside of them, according to the same Michigan Advance report. A separate study covering August 2024 through August 2025, reported by Michigan Public, found CVI zones saw a 33 percent decrease in homicide victims versus a 12 percent decrease in the rest of the city, and a 38 percent decrease in nonfatal shooting victims compared with a 26 percent decrease outside the zones over that same window. Researchers, however, said they could not definitively say the program directly caused the sharper declines.
In the zone served by Team Pursuit, an organization working Detroit's east side, nonfatal shootings dropped from 65 in the program's first year to 19 in its second, Michigan Advance reported. Team Pursuit relies on credible messengers with knowledge of longstanding conflicts to intervene before disputes turn violent.
Different Neighborhoods, Different Playbooks
The program's structure leans heavily on letting local groups decide what works for their own blocks. Force Detroit, which works the city's west side, focuses more directly on people actively involved in shootings, while New Era, located in the northwest, takes a more community-wide approach built around engagement, local events and providing resources. University of Michigan researchers described Detroit's model as combining city financial and administrative support with a high degree of autonomy for teams to adapt their programming to local conditions.
Money on the Table, But No Guarantee
Detroit has invested more than $11 million in ShotStopper over the past three years, and groups can earn additional funding if shootings decline more sharply in their assigned zones. Detroit City Council approved an additional $3 million for ShotStopper for the 2025-2026 fiscal year, and the city's adopted 2026-2027 budget includes $10.8 million for community violence intervention overall, a $3.4 million increase from the previous year.
Despite the rising budget lines, ShotStopper director Mike Peterson said the city hopes to move the program from a pilot into a standing function within public safety. The dossier's account of that push does not confirm that permanent funding has been secured, and the scale of the investment underscores why advocates are pressing for a more durable commitment rather than year-to-year appropriations.
Counting the Organizations
Exactly how many groups receive ShotStopper funding depends on who is asked. Michigan Public reported six community organizations participate, each responsible for a different three- to five-square-mile zone. FORCE Detroit, however, said seven organizations currently receive funding through the city's program, including itself. The discrepancy between the two counts remains unexplained in the available reporting.
What is consistent across the reporting is the underlying design: city dollars and administrative backing paired with wide latitude for each organization to build its own approach, drawing on the University of Michigan Poverty Solutions evaluation of the program's first two years. That flexibility, researchers noted, is central to how teams have adapted their work to the specific conflicts and conditions in their zones.
