San Antonio flattened the curve of violent crime in 2023 after four years of trending upward, according to police officials and researchers.
Monthly averages of the number of victims and combined totals of violent crimes including murder, aggravated assault and robbery leveled off last year when the city, in partnership with the University of Texas at San Antonio, launched the Violent Crime Reduction Plan, which involves placing officers and patrol vehicles in the most violence-prone hot spots across the city.
But Rob Tillyer, a professor of criminology and justice at UTSA, said his research did not show a “definitive” causal link between the hot spot policing initiative — part of the three-phased plan and a broader initiative to prevent violence — and the citywide reduction in crime.
Still, there’s a strong indication that the reduction of crime within the roughly 130 hot spots was due to the increased police presence, Tillyer said. During six different two-month periods, officers sat in parked police vehicles within various hot spots with their lights on for 15- to 20-minute intervals.
“We are putting officers in places that are highly violent, historically, [and] we’re substantially impacting the level of violence in those locations,” Tillyer told City Council’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday.
Those hot spots saw a nearly 37% decrease in average violent crime incidents compared to last year, according to the data.
Phase 2
After a year of promising results, the city and UTSA are nearly ready to start the second phase of the plan at one hot spot where violent crime is particularly pervasive: Rosemont at Highland Park, an apartment complex on the East Side owned by the local housing authority Opportunity Home San Antonio.
A spokesman for Opportunity Home said the agency was invited by SAPD command to participate in the study and is “optimistic about reducing violent crime at this hot spot.”
The second phase will use a “problem-oriented, place-based policing” approach to address the underlying conditions in the area that contribute to crime. Those changes could be physical, such as poor lighting, or service-based, like a lack of daycare or recreation opportunities.
“We’re layering these strategies on top of one another,” Tillyer told reporters after the meeting. The third phase, called “focused deterrence,” is still under development but will focus on individuals routinely involved in violent crime.
The Rosemont is likely just the first of several sites that will receive this additional treatment, he said. “We’re going to pick places that are problematic for a longer term … that require a more intensive focus.”
A team of staff from various city departments including Metro Health, Parks and Recreation, the City Attorney’s Office and Code Enforcement is slated to finalize its plan for Rosemont in early May, Tillyer said.
Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), who has been critical of the hot spot policing phase of the plan, said he would like his office to be involved in plans for the Rosemont, which is located in his district.
As of Tuesday, his office is not involved, the councilman said.
“My office and my team have proven time and time again, that community engagement is our strong point,” he told reporters after the meeting. “To not be engaged in something so significant as this is fairly disappointing, and I’m sure there’s going to have to be increased [community] feedback.”
UTSA developed a plan similar to San Antonio’s for the City of Dallas in 2021.
Through its process, the city identified a troublesome apartment complex and opened a public safety office there for police and other department employees. Since then, “it has subsequently fallen off our hot spot [list],” Tillyer said.
“It takes some time,” he added. “These are long-standing challenges. That can’t be solved overnight.”
Police presence
Councilman Marc Whyte (D10), the lone conservative on council, praised the success of San Antonio’s hot spot policing initiative and said its results justify hiring more police officers next year to address more hot spots.
“This is not to say that there’s not a wide variety of things that we can do more than just police presence, to help deter crime,” Whyte said during the meeting. “… But certainly I think police presence is extremely important — the numbers show it.”
This week, City Council will start outlining priorities for the fiscal year 2025 budget.
Last year, the city and SAPD laid out a plan to improve response times and reduce crime by hiring 360 new patrol officers over the next several years. The city added 117 new police officer positions for fiscal year 2024.
But the more officers are assigned to hot spots, the less time they can spend on patrol or responding to calls, SAPD Chief William McManus said.
Assigning too many officers to the hot spot initiative “disturbs the balance that we’re trying to create,” McManus said. “We do have capacity limitations.”
At first, officers within the department were skeptical of the program, he said.
“I think when this plan first rolled out, not a whole lot of people were happy with it, because it just seemed too simplistic — and … to put it candidly, kind of boring,” McManus told Council. “But the fact of the matter is, it’s working.”
