Walking the streets of San Antonio is statistically safer than it used to be. The city saw a 21.1% drop in violent street crime incidents in 2025 compared to 2024. Average monthly counts for specific violent offenses also dropped: murders by 18.5%, robberies by 17%, aggravated assaults by 19.8% and deadly conduct by 32%.
Data-driven policing strategies developed by criminologists at UT San Antonio likely drive this shift. Now in its fourth year, the San Antonio Violent Crime Reduction Plan brings together experts from the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice in the College for Health, Community and Policy, the San Antonio Police Department, city officials and community leaders with the aim to transform the city through an array of data-driven policing and public safety strategies.
Science-backed approach to public safety
The initiative is built upon three evidence-based policing strategies: an immediate emphasis on policing in the city’s “hot spots,” a mid-term focus on more holistic improvements to high-crime properties, and a longer-term approach called focused deterrence, which applies enhanced support and surveillance to high-risk individuals. Together, these pillars aim to disrupt crime by focusing intensive resources on the few specific locations and individuals responsible for the majority of violence in the area.
The philosophy underpinning the plan relies on “routine activities theory,” a foundational criminological concept stating that for a predatory crime to occur, three components must intersect simultaneously in space and time: a motivated offender, a suitable victim and the absence of a guardian. By shifting law enforcement personnel into targeted zones, the strategy introduces a capable guardian to deter criminal behavior.
“We cherry-picked the best strategies that we believed, based on decades of research evidence, were most likely to be effective, and we packaged them together in a single strategic plan,” said Michael R. Smith, JD, PhD, principal investigator of the research team. “They were designed to work synergistically together. No single strategy by itself, we believed, would be sufficient to deal with crime writ large in a major urban area.”
The team also includes criminologists Rob Tillyer, PhD, professor of criminology and criminal justice in the College for Health, Community and Policy, and Brandon Tregle, PhD, from University of South Carlina.
Dramatic drops in targeted hot spots
To execute the hot spots policing strategy, researchers map violent crime down to small, 100-meter by 100-meter grid squares. Officers are then deployed to these zones during peak crime hours and days for brief, 15-minute intervals to maintain high visibility and engage with local business owners and residents.
The targeted approach has yielded dramatic results. In the treated hot spot grids, violent crime plunged by 63.2% during Year 3 of the plan. The benefits extend to nearby areas as well, with crime in the “catchment areas” — the zones extending roughly 1,000 feet in all directions around the hot spots — declining by 23.8%.
To evaluate the true impact of the hot spots strategy, the research team used a rigorous statistical method called a “difference-in-differences” analysis. By comparing crime shifts in treated grids against untreated control grids, the analysis confirmed that hot-spots policing reduced the average monthly expected violent crime count by 44.1%.
The suppressive effect also lingered.
“The crime reduction benefits remain robust in the first month after treatment is withdrawn,” Smith said, noting a 30.1% reduction that persists for 30 days after police resources move to other grids. “This one-month post-treatment effect constitutes a valuable ‘free’ benefit of the hot spots strategy as police resources are directed elsewhere.”
Healing chronic spaces through holistic interventions
While hot spots policing provides immediate relief, some chronically crime-prone locations require deeper structural fixes. That is where Phase 2, Problem-Oriented Place-Based Policing, takes over. This approach unites a multidisciplinary team of city departments — including code enforcement, public works, health department, human services department, and parks and libraries officials — to fix the environmental and social vulnerabilities of a specific property.
The overarching goal is to improve the quality of life at the locations and connect residents to services they need, including training, youth activity engagement or emergency needs.
The team selected the Reserve at Pecan Valley Apartments on East Southcross Boulevard as its second place-based site after a historical data analysis ranked the complex first in violent crime incidents across San Antonio addresses that received hot spots policing treatment.
Between June and December 2025, city stakeholders worked together on an extensive plan to overhaul the location. Code enforcement officials issued notices for 41 structural life and safety violations, which property management repaired. Meanwhile, police deployed undercover units to halt open-air drug activity, installed mobile camera trailers and connected high-frequency mental health consumers living on-site with mobile integrated healthcare services.
The Integrated Community Safety Office (ICSO) coordinates these holistic efforts, utilizing an institutional framework that UT San Antonio researchers helped establish.
“This framework synergized well with the development of the ICSO, which aims to promote more comprehensive solutions to public safety and quality of life issues,” said ICSO Director Maria Vargas-Yates. “The Violent Crime Reduction Plan brought another formal framework that engages city departments that may not typically take part in ‘crime fighting’ efforts.”
The collective impact at the Southcross property has been dramatic. In a six-month window, violent crime and violent victimization at the complex dropped by 50%, violent calls for service fell by 23.1%, and mental health-related police calls dropped by 47.6% compared to the year before.
Expanding the model for future safety
As the initiative continues, Smith’s research team will continue to monitor the implementation fidelity of the plan, which saw officers arrive at their assigned locations on schedule 92.2% of the time in 2025.
City leaders and researchers are working to secure future funding to launch Phase 3: focused deterrence. This final strategy will identify the small network of repeat, high-risk individuals responsible for a majority of local gun violence and deliver a two-pronged approach of enhanced support or prosecution for those who do not desist from violence.
“Focused deterrence presents them with a choice,” Smith explained, highlighting the carrot-and-stick nature of the upcoming phase. “On one hand, the city will offer bolstered social services, job training and rehabilitation support. On the other hand, the city or federal partners will be poised to take swift and enhanced legal action if they choose to reoffend.”
