Two years into its hot spot policing strategy, public safety officials say statistics show it has helped reduce violent crime in San Antonio.
The local trend follows a decrease in violent crime nationwide, the five-member public safety committee learned at its regular meeting on Monday.
Since its implementation in 2023, the Violent Crime Reduction Plan has designated officers and patrol vehicles in the most violence-prone street crime hot spots across the city, including a 252-unit mixed-income apartment complex called the Rosemont at Highland Park southeast of downtown.
Over the past two years, San Antonio has seen a 10% decrease in violent crime incidents citywide and a 22% decrease in violent crimes in the hot spot areas.
Based on crime reports for each substation, citywide trends show violent crime was mostly down across the city, but a closer look shows crime was down in the South and East sides of San Antonio and downtown. There was no change in crime statistics in North San Antonio.
But crime surged in some parts of the West Side, which leads officials to believe that crime is just being displaced on the West instead of decreasing.
Compared to the year before, weapon arrests across the city in 2024 were down slightly and in the targeted policing areas had dropped by 44%.
“What we hope and expect to see is a reduction in violent crime arrests, particularly in treated hot spots, and that’s in fact what we saw in 2024, about a 39% decrease in violent crime arrests in treated hot spots and down citywide as well,” said Michael Smith, a UTSA professor, former police officer and director of the university’s Center for Applied Community and Policy Research.
Smith said there’s a larger decrease in violent crime nationwide. “I would suspect whatever societal factors driving that larger decrease in violent crime nationwide are undoubtably at place here in San Antonio as well,” he said.
National data from the FBI confirms falling violent crime, possibly indicating the coronavirus pandemic has waned and that life has returned to normalcy, according to the National Criminal Justice Association.
This past year in San Antonio, murders were down 20%, robbery was down 9%, aggravated assaults were down 8%, and deadly conduct was down significantly at 19%. But there was no change in robberies at businesses.
The data also showed a 50% reduction in violent crime in areas identified as hot spots, including Rosemont, within the last 60 days of 2024.
Smith said year two of the data shows that “high visibility plus treatment,” meaning police getting out of the vehicle to patrol by foot in the hot spot and talking to residents, is even more effective.
Year two of the plan, which reported from January 2024 through the end of the year, focused on phase two, known as “problem-oriented, place-based policing,” a more holistic approach to address possible roots of crime at Rosemont.
Physical improvements like installed lighting and community events were some of the evidence-based recommendations made by UTSA to SAPD.
But despite the improvements, family violence is up at Rosemont, Smith said.
The third phase, called “focused deterrence,” is still under development, but will focus on family and domestic violence, in addition to individuals routinely involved in violent crime.
Right now, UTSA and SAPD are identifying a second site to focus its policing efforts on and are working to set a timeline for phase three of the plan.
“The data, by this time two years in the plan, are very clear that hot spot policing works to help reduce violent crime, it works in the places that are being treated,” Smith said. “You can theoretically lower the overall violent crime temperature count in the city. Increasingly, we have evidence that’s the case.”
Councilman Marc Whyte, who represents District 10 on the city’s North side, recommended the city consider funding more police officer positions sooner than planned in the next budget process.
“We need 200 more police officers. Why are we doing it over three years? It is clear from this data that when we get officers out in the community and onto the streets, we can decrease crime,” he said.
According to a recent poll by the UTSA Center for Public Opinion Research, voters picking the city’s next mayor are most concerned about public safety and crime.
