The Columbus Model: Crowd Psychology, Dialogue Policing, and Protest Management in the U.S.A.

Protest policing in the United States remains contentious, with many law enforcement agencies continuing to rely on coercive tactics rooted in outdated classical models of crowd psychology. This article presents the first systematic empirical analysis of a theory-informed, facilitation-led, and communication-led protest policing model implemented by a U.S. police department. In the aftermath of the 2020 social justice unrest – and a federal court order restricting the use of force – the Columbus Division of Police (CPD) introduced a novel operational framework: Public Order and Public Safety (POPS), shaped by the Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM) and designed around principles of dialogue, de-escalation, and graded tactical deployment. Adopting a participatory action research framework and an embedded ethnographic methodology, the study constructs an interpretation of how this model was developed, applied, and adapted over time. The analysis offers a theoretically informed, empirically grounded, longitudinal account of the co-production of protest policing strategies across a series of real-world contexts involving more than sixty events. It explores how legitimacy-focused approaches contributed to the containment of conflict, the marginalisation of confrontational actors, and the emergence of self-regulation within protest crowds – particularly in complex, high-risk environments. The study also foregrounds the tensions and resistances inherent in organisational change, both within policing institutions and protest communities. By documenting this shift from force-led to dialogue-led practices, the article makes a significant and original contribution to policing scholarship and practice, illustrating how dialogue-led, rights-focused and psychologically informed models of protest policing can be successfully implemented in the U.S. context.