The City of San Antonio and the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) are employing a new problem-oriented approach to violence reduction at one of the city’s most violence-prone apartment complexes. After six months, this approach has reduced violent street crime by 50% compared to the year before. Overall, calls for service were down 24%, and violence-related calls by 30%. This problem-oriented, place-based policing (POPBP) approach aims to reduce crime in some of the city’s persistently violent places by building on a foundation of problem-oriented policing and incorporating a multi-disciplinary team of stakeholders from across city government and the identified place.

Although this approach had positive findings, understanding its overall impact is still being considered. Family violence offenses and calls increased compared to the previous year, suggesting that more work remains to be done at the site to change patterns of violent behavior within intimate partner and family settings. It’s also possible that increased trust by residents in the responses they have seen from the city in their community has increased their willingness to report. San Antonio’s efforts at the site will continue as it pivots to its next POPBP site in 2025.

How the Approach Works

The POPBP approach employs a multi-disciplinary team to diagnose the proximate causes of recurring violence at the location of interest and implement creative solutions. POPBP expands upon the Goldstein (2015) data-driven SARA approach (i.e., scanning, analysis, response, assessment) to include multiple government agencies and local stakeholders that have a potential role in using data analysis findings to identify long-standing problems that help contribute to crime at a location. Local stakeholders, such as apartment complex owners and managers, are vital to the strategy's success.

How POPBP is Carried Out

An operations plan was created for the first POPBP site, outlining the identified problems, solutions, responsible parties, timeline, and action steps, and metrics for success – both implementation and effectiveness. This plan was developed under the leadership of the deputy city manager and director of the city’s Integrated Community Safety Office, agency directors representing the SAPD, City Attorney’s office, Metro Health, Human Services, Animal Care, Parks and Recreation, Solid Waste, Neighborhood Housing Services, and Public Works & Planning. The group initially came together in spring 2024 to choose the first POPBP site from a short list of persistently violent places identified by research partners at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Once the initial site was chosen – a San Antonio Opportunity Home property – directors from this diverse set of agencies assigned managers to serve on a working group to analyze data, make site visits, survey residents of the identified apartment complex, identify problems, and develop solutions. The working group created the framework for the plan.

The plan was put into action in June 2024, starting with a resident survey and including a range of efforts to address resident access to city services, problems with stray animals, homelessness in the area, trespassing on the property, improvements to lighting, truancy reduction, violence reduction workshops, trash removal, and repair to physical infrastructure, including sidewalks and fence gates, to help control unauthorized access to the property.

How Success is Measured

Implementation and impact data are captured and reported monthly to the UTSA research partners through an easy-to-use electronic form. The UTSA team conducted an independent implementation and impact evaluation of the city’s POPBP efforts and detailed its findings in a public report and presentation to the Public Safety Committee of the San Antonio City Council.

Where POPBP in San Antonio Stands Now

Noting the reduction in reported violent crime, violence-related calls, and overall calls for service, the City of San Antonio and SAPD continue the POPBP model and plan to add a second site in spring 2025. The work in San Antonio reinforces the continued evidence that data-driven strategies, including POPBP, work to reduce violent crime and highlight the innovative approaches that research partners can bring to the crime fight. A crucial finding of this work is the need to layer evidence-based practices to address the problem at its root. For more information about this work, please see the second year of the San Antonio Violent Crime Reduction Plan's evaluation, or contact the Knowledge Lab.

References

¹ Goldstein, H. (2015). Problem-oriented policing. New York: McGraw-Hill.

² Smith, M., Tillyer, R., Tregle, B., Cardwell, S.M., Fahmy, C. (2024). San Antonio Violent Crime Reduction Plan: Year 1 Evaluation. University of Texas at San Antonio. https://hcap.utsa.edu/documents/criminal-justice/sapd-plan-y1-report.pdf

³ Smith, M., Tillyer, R., Tregle, B., Cardwell, S.M. (2025). San Antonio Violent Crime Reduction Plan: Year 2 Evaluation. University of Texas at San Antonio. https://hcap.utsa.edu/documents/criminal-justice/final-sapd-y2-report-2.19.25.pdf

Author

Michael Smith, J.D., Ph.D., Professor, The Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of Texas at San Antonio.