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This story was published as part of Next City’s Detroit News Hub, a reporting project funded by the Kresge Foundation. The hub includes BridgeDetroit, Planet Detroit, and Chalkbeat Detroit.
Detroit youth say they generally feel safe in school, but they fear the unknown, both within the school building and in their communities. That fear, some say, affects their mental health.
“Sometimes I just overthink it,” Natalina Cawthon, a student at Detroit School of Arts, told Chalkbeat.
Violent crime may be on the decline in Detroit, but youth who must navigate the city and its schools say fears about their safety can often feel overwhelming. Interviews with more than a dozen youth and adults who advocate on their behalf illustrate the challenges young people face — and the ways they cope.
Here’s what Chalkbeat heard from them:
Malaya Ramsey, 15, the School at Marygrove
Malaya Ramsey gets tense in places where teenagers gather in large numbers. Fights tend to break out, and she can’t forget the times she’s heard gunshots at carnivals, or the acquaintance who was killed at one.
“I’m always on edge, basically, watching my surroundings,” said Malaya, 15, a student at the School at Marygrove.
She generally feels comfortable at school. Marygrove, located on the former Marygrove College campus in northwest Detroit, is the newest high school in the district and has a focus on social justice. But safety can be an issue — like the time some teens from another high school came onto the campus with weapons to try to fight a Marygrove student.
“Luckily, my school, they get on top of these things quickly, so they de-escalated the problem,” she said, adding that the police arrived within minutes.
Though she’s concerned about incidents like that, Malaya said she feels supported.
“I talk to my parents and stuff like that a lot, so I tell them what’s on my mind, even my principals and stuff — I’m close with them, so I’ll tell them if I don’t feel comfortable,” she said. “But other people — some people don’t know how to express that.”
Tristian Grant, 16, Cody High School
Tristian Grant sometimes worries about violence. He feels unsafe when people start fighting, or in large crowds, where “it’s really unpredictable — anything could happen at any moment.”
Grant said he has been in a few fights but wasn’t seriously injured. “Someone was trying to bully me, so I had to stand up to them,” he said. Over time, the situation resolved. “They stopped bothering me, and we went on with our lives,” he said.
Social media is another safety concern, Grant said. “A lot of people like to threaten others and also start drama through social media.”
Have concerns about safety and fights affected his mental health? “I’d say for a short amount of time, yes, but eventually it goes away.”
Dulce Bravo, 18, Western International High School graduate
One of Dulce Bravo’s biggest fears is the ever-present threat of gun violence at school. She said she feels safe at school only half of the time.
Bravo said she has missed school because of a reported threat every year except her senior year. There’s “always random posts saying that they’re gonna shoot up the school, and specific dates and times, so I would miss school on those specific days and even the next day.”
She’s happy that the schools perform drills, so everyone can prepare in case something happens, Bravo said. But it bothers her when people don’t take the drills seriously. In a recent drill, she said, “People just kind of brushed it off as, like, it’s not a big deal — why are we even doing this? And I don’t like to see that.”
Paola Negrete, 16, Cass Technical High School
Paola Negrete is involved in a few community organizations that address youth safety. She’s part of a coalition of organizations, including 482Forward, that has developed a school facilities bill to address unsafe conditions. She said students have reported ceiling tiles falling down, broken windows that make it too hot or too cold in classrooms, and dirty lunchrooms.
These community groups give youth a place to be with others their age who may be going through the same things, but Negrete and her peers also lean on the adults there, she said.
“The adult allies do a really good job with providing that mental health support when we come after school. They’re very understanding. They like to bond with us as well, so that’s where we get the time to just kind of relax, unfold,” and talk about the issues they’re dealing with, she said.
Safety for Negrete isn’t just about being free from violence. “Safety is more of a feeling, like a comfort. It doesn’t really involve police or metal detectors. . . . In community spaces, I feel very safe because I’m able to share my ideas and talk about how I feel, and not being judged or anything.”
Tiarra Hall, 18, WAY Academy West Campus graduate
Tiarra Hall uses public transportation to get to school. “I keep myself safe by not outwardly speaking to strangers and that sort of thing,” she said. “I don’t talk to anyone when I’m out unless I know them.”
When Hall was in elementary school, she walked to school. At the time, adults were volunteering to help students get to school safely. Knowing that someone was looking out for students going to and from school made her feel safer. Her mother was part of the program, helping to document things, she said.
When she sees fights, her thoughts go to how the fight could have been prevented, and how someone might intervene to talk the person down.
Natalina Cawthon, 14, Detroit School of Arts
Natalina Cawthon is concerned about gun violence at school and in her neighborhood.
She generally feels safe at her school, where the doors stay locked and there are metal detectors. Teachers often keep their classroom doors locked, too, she said.
But the potential of a school shooting sometimes affects Cawthon’s mental health. “Sometimes I just overthink it,” she said.
In her neighborhood, she would like to see more police officers. She added that it’s good for young people to be aware of their surroundings, including “setting boundaries with strangers and stuff because you never know. A lot of young people have gone missing.”
Ja’Nya Street, 16, the School at Marygrove
Ja’Nya Street feels the least safe at school.
She knows that incidents have happened when kids have been bullied, and schools don’t have enough mental health resources for the kids who need them.
“Anything can happen. Anybody can be feeling different. Anybody can be having a bad day. Some people just get on edge” and then may do something — from getting a gun and killing somebody to harming yourself, she said. “You never know who’s getting bullied,” she added.
Angelica Williams, 22, Detroit Board of Police Commissioners Youth Advisory Panel, Wayne State University student
The possibility of violence makes Angelica Williams feel unsafe, especially when she’s alone.
“Being a young Black girl, there are several different avenues where any situation or interaction could go wrong,” she said.
She feels anxious when stopping at a gas station at night, for example. “There will be men that come up and make comments, or they’ll try to pump your gas. … And there’s just this level of knowledge — like the wrong word or wrong move or just his bad mood could end up making that situation unsafe.”
Gun violence is a concern of the Youth Advisory Panel — and Williams. “I’ve never watched it happen in real time, but there’s been shootings in my neighborhood that I’ve been home during,” she said. In some areas of Detroit where she’s lived, she’s woken up to shootings. “I think that there’s a culture of nonchalance about guns and firearms.”
Williams sees violence as a perpetual cycle that’s often inherited from parents and authority figures.
“There’s a lack of intentionality ensuring that youth have a safe space to congregate, to exist freely, to entertain themselves,” she said. “I think that a lot of youth conflict in particular comes from a place of not having active spaces and outlets for expressing oneself, for addressing conflict in productive ways.”
Ayme Head, 18, treasurer, Detroit Heals Detroit, Eastern Michigan University student
Ayme Head feels the least safe when she’s surrounded by people she doesn’t know.
“A rivalry could happen in Family Dollar while I’m just trying to grab some tissue, or someone could decide to do a drive-by while I’m at the park with my younger cousins. You don’t know everyone’s intentions, and you don’t know what everyone’s going through or what they came to do,” she said.
Head is treasurer and financial advisor of Detroit Heals Detroit, a youth-led nonprofit that works to combat trauma and foster healing for Detroit youth. Through healing circles and in other ways, DHD has created “a place where people could come and share something that they won’t feel comfortable sharing with their family,” Head said. “If they don’t have that reliance or that safe space with their family, then we could be that second family for them.”
To improve safety, Head would like to see “community events with the police so they can try to better understand the community and the needs” and to build connections between the police and the community, she said.
If community members are connected to each other, they’ll protect each other, she said. “The bond’s so strong that when crime does happen, it’s going to be a real no-go.”
Camille Hollenquest, 24, executive director, Detroit Heals Detroit
To feel safe, youth need “third spaces” where they can be in community with other youth, said Camille Hollenquest. “Sometimes you just need to be in a space with other youth where it’s like, ‘I understand and I hear you, I feel you,’ as well as making sure that the youth who are in that space — they have the tools to further navigate situations when another young person is coming to them with the heaviness of their experiences,” they said.
Hollenquest has seen, from the high school students Detroit Heals Detroit works with, that these students are experiencing a critical point in their development, and “it becomes a point where everything feels like it’s on fire.” If that happens, by the time they’re in high school they may “become less open to talking about it, and they also begin to kind of normalize it. And I think that’s a major problem, because when situations and experiences like that, which are very negative, become kind of like a normal occurrence for folks, it’s hard for them to actually be able to identify when something is unsafe or something is not right,” they said. “It’s kind of like that light bulb isn’t turning on all the way.”
Another safety problem is that, through fear and propaganda, people are “conditioned and socialized” to believe that certain people — like Black boys and unhoused people — are unsafe, Hollenquest said. “When groups of people who are the most vulnerable become villains in the eyes of their community members, it creates this feeling of unsafety that’s not grounded in truth,” they said.
Alexis Escoto, 23, Detroit Board of Police Commissioners Youth Advisory Panel
Alexis Oscoto feels the least safe in his community park, where he goes to jog and ride his bike. “Sometimes I have to be super aware because there’s a big parking lot right next to the park, so sometimes people make donuts or drag racing,” and he’s afraid they might drive onto the park.
Another concern is that “there’s a lot of drug needles there. So I’m afraid, not just for me, but also for other people, that they can accidentally stumble upon those needles.”
With the Youth Advisory Panel, an issue that many youth and community members are concerned about is “the usage of facial recognition or AI technology within the police department,” Escoto said. People have experienced cases of mistaken identity, such as going to the gas station and then getting arrested a couple of weeks later because of mistaken facial recognition, he said.
In Escoto’s majority-Hispanic community, people feel unsafe because of ICE. “In today’s climate, they’re afraid of getting out,” he said. He carries “know your rights” cards in his car and gives them out to people. People’s fear of ICE extends to distrust of the police, he said.
“More and more people I noticed are starting to have the mentality of ‘F the police,’ and when something happens, they try not to call the police because they’re afraid the police might make the situation even worse,” Escoto said.
He’d like to see workshops or other events that provide education on policing.
Armani Arnold, 23, Detroit Phoenix Center Youth Action Board
When Armani Arnold was growing up, she was in and out of homelessness, and she went to Detroit Phoenix Center for support. It provides physical resources, like housing assistance, food, and hygiene necessities — but also emotional support. “I feel most emotionally, mentally, physically safe there. I feel like I’m able to speak my mind and not be judged,” she said. Now Arnold is on the organization’s Youth Action Board.
Some youth act out because they don’t understand their emotions, but they should be able to “feel safe, to share and be vulnerable, and to … understand your emotions and why you feel that way,” Arnold said. “I didn’t know any better growing up, because I didn’t have my parents … I didn’t know how to control my emotions or deal with my emotions, because it was all over the place, because nobody was there to actually try to help me.”
Sometimes, adults can make youth feel stupid because of something they just don’t know and never learned, Arnold said. This could be “making them feel bad for something that happened to them but they didn’t know, or they just made a simple mistake.” So providing safe spaces to help youth with “understanding your emotional intelligence, your emotional patterns, and how that can affect you — that’s a big thing,” she said.