Greensboro youth town hall will focus on safety, violence prevention

Greensboro is putting young residents at the center of its public-safety conversation, with a youth town hall designed to test whether teen and young-adult ideas can shape how the city responds to violence. The gathering will bring Greensboro youth ages 14 to 22 into the Nussbaum Room at Central Library, where city leaders want to hear directly from the people most likely to live with the results of local safety policy.

The town hall is scheduled for Wednesday, June 24, from 4 to 6 p.m. at 219 N. Church St. and is being organized by the city’s Community Safety Department. City officials describe it as youth-led and say it will focus on open discussion, solutions for violence prevention, engagement with city leaders and community members, and opportunities for young people to get involved and lead. That makes the event more than a conversation about concerns. It is a check on whether Greensboro is willing to let youth voices influence the city’s approach before problems harden into crises.

Jeremiah Jett, the department’s youth engagement director for the Community Safety and Violence Intervention Program, will facilitate the session. Jett, a rising High Point University senior and contracted city employee, has spent his second year with the department connecting young people to city resources and opportunities. His role gives the town hall a direct link to the city’s broader safety work, which now blends prevention, crisis intervention and long-term case management.

That broader framework matters in Greensboro, where public-safety leaders have been trying to move beyond enforcement alone. The city launched its Comprehensive Community Safety Plan in June 2025, centered on violence prevention, intervention and interruption. The plan’s priorities include co-production, opportunity, access and connections, and holistic safety, while the Greensboro Collaborative Action Network, or GSO CAN, brings together community-based organizations, law enforcement, city departments, public health, educational partners, business owners, faith-community leaders and residents.

The numbers behind that strategy help explain the urgency. Greensboro recorded 74 homicides in 2023, an all-time high, followed by 43 in 2024. Six homicides were reported in the first two weeks of 2025. Against that backdrop, the youth town hall will serve as a test of whether the city can turn participation into policy, and whether younger residents will have a real say in the violence-prevention strategy that will shape Greensboro’s neighborhoods, schools and public spaces.