Herold, Tamara
Modern Crowd Science Theory and Application

Crowd science theories can help agencies effectively manage various large-scale public events, including concerts, parades, festivals, sporting events, conventions, celebratory activities, tourist crowds and protests. This presentation provides an overview of various crowd science theories that can help officers prevent or respond to harm stemming from civil unrest. Various frameworks are used to explain the outcomes of specific police-crowd dynamics and offer direction for preventing crowd violence and disorder through early and effective crowd management. This session will highlight a police-public interaction model and situational crime prevention techniques that can be used to assess current police tactics, guide officer training, and promote positive public order outcomes.

Tamara Herold - Bio
Dr. Tamara D. Herold is an American Crime Scientist. She uses the crime science perspective to study the criminological impact of the design and management of places, as well as crowd and neighborhood dynamics associated with violence. She is currently a Senior Advisor at the National Institute of Justice, the research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. She currently leads NIJ's National Evidence to Action Initiative to ensure research evidence informs justice policy and practice changes. She is also an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), where she serves as Associate Director of the Center for Crime and Justice Policy and Director of UNLV's Crowd Management Research Council. In late 2020, she partnered with the Government Training Institute to provide Public Order Management training to the U.S. Secret Service and Pentagon Police personnel, and she continues this training across the country. Her research informed the State of Ohio policy guidelines and PERF Recommendations for Policing Mass Demonstrations. Dr. Herold has published numerous academic articles and practitioner-focused research papers, including two Problem-Oriented Policing Guides funded by the COPS Office on Student Party Riots and Spectator Violence in Stadiums. She has also published two co-edited books, Preventing Crowd Violence and Public Order Policing - both translated for international police audiences.