Date of Conferral

5-23-2025

Date of Award

May 2025

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

James Herndon

Abstract

While there is no single solution to responding to active threats and targeted acts of violence, strategies such as awareness, preparedness through threat assessment practices, and education are the keys to prevention. Threat assessment practices and mandates are widely used in university and K-12 educational environments and have successfully prevented these acts. However, research up until this point seemed to indicate that local municipal police departments were slow to adopt these practices. As a result, communities suffer through targeted acts of violence, senseless tragedies, and untimely deaths of innocent victims. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how threat assessment practices have been beneficial in preventing acts of targeted violence and how police chiefs perceive these practices in municipal settings in Florida. In this study, 15 municipal police chiefs in the State of Florida were asked about their perceptions of threat assessment practices and the adoption of daily police practices to prevent targeted acts of violence in municipal settings in Florida. Semistructured interviews were conducted, followed by a thematic analysis, which resulted in ten themes. Overall, municipal police chiefs perceived threat assessment practices as critically important to prevent targeted acts of violence, offering creative strategies in mitigation. The findings supported current research that threat management is an effective means of identifying persons of concern and deterring targeted acts of violence, furthering the opportunity for social change through interjurisdictional communication, creative resource sharing, and promoting further trust in municipal police departments.

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