SAN ANTONIO - Violent street crimes like murder, robbery, and aggravated assault are up 47% in San Antonio over the last three years. That's according to data from the San Antonio Police Department, analyzed by a team of researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Together, the groups are launching a Violent Crime Reduction Plan, outlined today in front of city leaders.

"This is a data driven, evidence-based plan that brings together the best science available to us for how to reduce violent crime in urban areas in a modern, professional way," said Dr. Michael Smith, who helped head the team at UTSA.

Research from Dr. Smith and his team showed most of the violent crime in San Antonio is happening in small pockets of the city by small groups of people. He says this is a trend we're seeing across the country right now.

So how can we bring this down? The violence reduction plan police plan to use is broken up into three parts: short-term, mid-term, and long-term actions. In the short-term, San Antonio police will use a tactic called "hot spot policing."

"We probably have more evidence about the efficiency of hot spots policing than anything else in the criminology literature," Smith said.

28 officers are assigned to do this right now.

Research has identified crime hotspots and what time of day they're most active, and the officers will go park in these areas with the lights on for 15 minutes before returning to their usual duties. This is meant to increase visibility in the community and prioritize street-level deterrence.

The mid-term strategy is focused on violent places in the city. It's called a Problem-Oriented, Place-Based, Policing approach. Smith says it aims to address "underlying conditions that give rise to the violence."

The final step is focused deterrence. Smith says this practice has been used in more than 20 cities and has proven to be successful.

"It's designed to break the cycle of violence among that small percentage of high risk offenders who are responsible for most of the violent crime in San Antonio," Smith said.

Offenders will be called in for quarterly meetings with criminal justice officials and service providers.

Doing all of these things could help lower the temperature when it comes to violent crime across the city.

Police began hot spot policing at the beginning of January. UTSA will assess changes in crime every 60-90 days to add and subtract hot spots. Twice a year, they will analyze violent crime over all to make sure the plan is working.

UTSA also employed this strategy in Dallas. Early reports show violent street crime decreased more than 50 percent in the targeted hot spots.

But some say this plan may not really tackle the root issues.

"I'm an advanced behavioral therapist, and what I specialize in is urban cycle therapy," said William Tutt.

Tutt says he'd like to see more effort put into psychological help and resources for people who offend over and over again.

"If you don’t eliminate the four barriers, which is housing, food, transportation, and financial stability, meaning a career or a job, then it's gonna be kind of hard to change the mindset of individuals in the community," Tutt said.

He says community programs exist to help with this, and he urges the city to use them.

UTSA is also evaluating public safety programs across the city to see if they need revamping. That research should be complete in May.