The information below is meant to be a brief overview of the hostage/crisis negotiation process. It should not be considered as an all-inclusive document or sufficient information to enable a reader to conduct negotiations. It is meant to serve as a small part of a comprehensive course of instruction.

History of Negotiation The first known social groups devised a response to hostage taking and kidnapping for ransom. They assembled an army of personnel and weapons larger than that of the hostage takers and assaulted their location, overpowered them, and rescued the hostages. This obviously became known as assault and rescue. It served well for a long time but occasionally resulted in a large number of casualties including hostage takers, hostages, rescuers, and nearby innocent parties. In addition, considerable property destruction was often a byproduct.

Later it was discovered that assault and rescue could be accomplished with more safety and effectiveness by a smaller force of expertly trained, well-equipped, dedicated professionals. This theory generated the special units known as SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), ERTs (Emergency Response Teams), STAR (Special Tactics and Response), HRT (Hostage Rescue Teams), etc. These teams were very successful, saved many lives, and became an irreplaceable arm of most military and civilian law enforcement agencies.

Occasionally crisis situations (hostage taking, barricaded felons, suicides, protesting prisoners) presented circumstances that delayed or prevented immediate tactical resolutions:

• • Not enough time to assemble, plan, or rehearse an assault
• • Not enough intelligence to safely approach the crisis site
• • Well-fortified site not vulnerable to a tactical option
• • Too many hostage takers who had too many weapons
• • Hostage taker was suicidal and welcomed armed conflict
• • Hostage taker was irrational, highly emotional, and unpredictable
• • No laws had been violated yet, but an extremely dangerous potential existed
• • Many innocent parties (like children) were in or near crisis site

Tactical teams always needed some time to gather information and perfect their plans, especially under the above conditions. A form of rough communications between law enforcement and those in the crisis site often bought this time. It was soon learned that time alleviated most of the problems on the above list and tilted the advantage toward law enforcement. Time also increased the options available to law enforcement for a safer resolution. Unexpectedly, these primitive communications, designed only to buy time, resolved many situations without the need for the aggressive tactical actions that were being prepared. Communication methods were evaluated and refined into the process that is practiced today as hostage/crisis negotiations.

Negotiation and the Crisis Response Team

Nearly all law enforcement training, equipment, and policies are designed to establish and maintain control over offenders and the situations they create. This is recognized and employed as a necessary element of law enforcement. When officers are confronted by extreme circumstances that they can not control by traditional means – like a hostage-taking or other crisis – the officers themselves may go into crisis. Negotiation principles include an early assessment of the situation and whether the usual assertive means/tools can be used to resolve it or if such methods would escalate the confrontation toward injury or death. If the latter is apparent, it is recommended the officer take a step back from a violent, chaotic confrontation. Then apply less aggressive techniques designed to reduce further conflict and gain time until reinforcements arrive.

Negotiation does not replace tactical units or their actions. It makes them safer and more effective – if they are deemed necessary to save lives. The tactical elements and the negotiators work closely under the same commander multiplying each other’s effectiveness and forming, with other elements, a Crisis Response group. The commander, however, must know the techniques and training of both tactical elements and negotiators or his/her decisions may be counter-productive and cause dissention within the response group.

The tactical team must maintain a close perimeter around the crisis site restricting the subjects’ mobility and preventing unwanted intrusion by outsiders. Often visible to the hostage takers, the tactical presence represents a threat to them that makes discussions with the negotiation team the more attractive alternative. The tactical perimeter and limiting the hostage takers’ means of communications forces them to address all demands/needs to the negotiators who now take on the role of spokespersons for the authorities. The negotiation team relays demands/needs to command for analysis and decisions. Both tactical and negotiation units make only recommendations, based on their specialized expertise. The commander ultimately makes all decisions.

Bartering vs. Intervention

A hostage is a person held against his/her will and threatened in order to force fulfillment of substantive demands on a third party. Substantive demandsthird party is the negotiator who is representing the authorities. The hostage takers’ goal is to trade one or more hostages, or their safety, for something they demand from authorities. Simply, the hostage is a trading token and probably a stranger chosen for his/her recognized value. Here the negotiation process involves trading or bartering in order to reach a mutual solution in this situation. Common sense deal making is the heart of the method, but this can only take place after time and conversation have reduced the elevated emotions usually generated by the initial confrontation. These demand-oriented hostage takers have a rational sense of their situation and law enforcement’s response. Therefore they expect a tactical presence. Absence of one might produce more aggressive actions by hostage takers or lead them to believe they were not being taken seriously.

In contrast, if the persons being held and threatened were specifically selected based on emotional ties with their captor, they are probably not being used as trading tokens (hostages). This existing relationship with the captives is usually the captors’ motivation. These captives are often targets for abuse or revenge and not subject to trades. The subjects’ demands/needs will usually involve their relationship with the persons being held and obviously out of the control of law enforcement. Behavior in this type of crisis is driven by elevated emotions and reflects a lack of rational thinking.

Since there are no logical (substantive) trades that can resolve the captors’ demands/needs, the negotiator must attempt to reduce dangerous emotions using only his/her communications skills. This process is more akin to the intervention technique used with suicidal persons. Active listening and expressions of empathy are at the heart of intervention.

These captives being held for emotional reasons are obviously in greater danger than hostages. In fact, in the truest sense, they are not hostages at all, but victims. Correspondingly, their captors are not really hostage takers, but persons in crisis. In these situations an ordinary tactical perimeter might be perceived as very threatening and may drive the persons in crisis to harm their captives or themselves. Having made this assessment, negotiators usually request a more discrete or non-threatening perimeter. Suicides, barricaded persons, and domestic disputes are typical examples.

The Negotiating Team

“Never negotiate alone” is a basic rule in negotiations. A team of negotiators consisting of three to 10 individuals is used. Each team should consist of at least the following persons or duties:

Primary – his/her full-time job is communicating with the subject. Only one person will be acting as primary at anytime. A change may be necessary in extraordinary circumstances or after 8-10 hours.

Coach/secondary – also listens to negotiations but does not speak. He/she serves as support, coach, advisor, “a second brain” for the primary. All input from the team is channeled through the coach who filters it and passes it to primary through cryptic notes – not by whispering in his/her ear.

To implement the process effectively, several other duties are needed: intelligence officers, advisors, log keepers, tape operators, analyst, consultants, liaisons with command, and liaison with tactical units. No one on the negotiation team will ever be idle or uninvolved.

Negotiation is totally a team effort, even though only one person speaks. When not directly communicating with the subject, the team is brainstorming ideas, reviewing intelligence data, analyzing all that happened during the last call and making plans for the next contact. They analyze intelligence data that comes from all other crisis response units and public sources. The key to a peaceful resolution often is found in an outside interview or record brought to the scene.

Principles of Negotiations

1. Introductions: An introduction is vital to any conversation. A negotiator should introduce himself/herself by name without reference to rank or normal duties. The fact that the negotiator is a member of law enforcement is expected, so do not try to deny it. A mention of negotiation training (avoiding the word hostage) may be helpful. Negotiators try to obtain names from the hostage takers (persons in crisis) or at least what they would like to be called. They do not forget to try to identify “those other people in there with you,” but do not call them hostages or victims. The goal is to personalize and humanize everyone. This increases rapport and reduces the possibility of violence. Informing the subjects how they can contact the negotiating team is recommended as they, or the hostages, may choose to initiate conversation. Early in the process the negotiator should try to determine what generally is happening and to inquire about the health of all those inside. The negotiator should also deliver the message that law enforcement’s goal is to resolve the situation peacefully.

2. Demands: We all have seen on television and in movies that hostage takers usually present demands, but often in real life, persons in crisis situations have not thought or planned that far ahead. The situation in which they find themselves is accidental or they are just seeking a way to bring attention to a personal problem. Law enforcement authorities may be viewed as that needed audience. If negotiators immediately ask for a list of demands, the subjects may feel obligated to make up some demands that have nothing to do with the problem. This will tend to make them feel more powerful and believe authorities will give them things. It is more fruitful to ask about the problem or what has happened. If they really have substantive demands, they will announce them soon enough. Negotiators also try to get something in return for every concession that is made by authorities.

Remember, negotiators do not make any decisions concerning demands, deals, or trades. All decisions are made by command. A negotiator should act so that he/she appears to the subject to be a neutral mediator trying to help resolve a conflict between two opposing powers, instead a negotiator for one of the powers against the other. Above all the negotiator should never say “no” directly to the subjects. “No” is frequently viewed as a challenge that leads to escalation.

3. Deadlines: Demands are often accompanied by deadlines for compliance. Negotiators try to avoid all types of deadlines. They do not dictate one to the subjects or place one on themselves. When agreed upon, deadlines are contracts…for disaster. They are an exercise in egotism and power and can seldom be met. Negotiators never ignore the subjects’ deadline in their thinking, but avoid over-emphasizing it or confirming it by repeating it verbally. They try to change the subject or divert attention to less dangerous topics. With training and effort deadlines are often safely passed.

4. Rapport with the Hostage Takers or Persons in Crisis: Ultimately the persons in crisis must have enough confidence in the negotiator to set aside fears, release hostages, lay down weapons, and surrender to the tactical team. Gaining this level of trust requires effort, patience, time, and communication skills. If negotiators try to bluff, lie, trick, and judge persons in crisis, this rapport will never form. The end does not justify the means. If trickery is used, negotiators risk losing the credibility of the team, the authorities, and the process. It is not uncommon that agencies must negotiate with the same person – or their family – more than once.

Rapport and trust can most easily be accomplished by listening to the subjects. The best negotiators are good listeners, not necessarily good talkers. Good communicators do not interrupt, correct, or judge perceptions. These behaviors only serve to make others more emotional. Negotiators do not provide offenders with information by talking too much. Discussion of offenders’ personal issues and concerns, unrelated to the immediate crisis, are very helpful in building rapport.

5. Relationships with Hostages or Victims: When an opportunity to communicate with the hostages occurs, negotiators attempt to calm them and reassure them. They explain that they and their organization are doing all they can and that, in time, things will turn out all right. Captives are urged to avoid actions that would excite or anger the person holding them. Beyond that hostages/victims are de-emphasized during discussions. They can be the source of intelligence information, but the subjects may be listening when inquiries are made. Hostages/victims, due to their elevated emotional levels, have been known to furnish false and misleading information, both during and after the incident. Communicating with the hostages has occasionally been more difficult than with their captor.

6. Communications Ideas: Since the subjects’ elevated emotions make them dangerous, the negotiator’s first task is to reduce them or, at least, do nothing that will make them more intense. The best way to do this is to let them verbally vent. Let them get it out of their systems without interruption, correction, or instruction. They will often provide intelligence information and clues to possible solutions in the venting process.

After dangerous emotions have been reduced, negotiators seek areas for positive discussions and avoid known sensitive issues that might ignite negative emotions again (triggers). Offenders are verbally rewarded when they make good decisions, but not punished for minor negative ones. Experienced negotiators try to speak slowly and more quietly than the subjects. This will set an example and tend to calm them. Profanity by negotiators has not helped solve a problem yet.

In the typical law enforcement interview, questions are asked that might appear on a department report form. The factual answers to these direct questions should fill in blanks. Normally emotions or extraneous detail from the responder would not be welcomed in this fact-finding process. Negotiations are just the opposite in that questions are asked that require explanations, detail, and hopefully elicit an emotional story from the subjects. If there are feelings or emotions attached to the story, good communicators listen to them and provide frequent feedback to those emotions to indicate attempts to understand the problem.

Search for Solutions

Many times people caught up in crisis situations want a way out as badly as negotiators want it. They simply do not know how to go about it without getting hurt or losing face. A good negotiator is constantly in search of a solution during conversations both while on-line and in brainstorming while off-line. This means a safe resolution to the immediate dangerous situation, not all the long-term problems the person in crisis perceives. A negotiator must never forget to tell the subjects that they can – and should – come out without being hurt. The negotiator can guarantee their safety from the threat of surrounding authorities. Negotiators frequently should ask, “What is keeping you from coming out now?” and then address the answer if it is reasonable. They may never come out unless they know it is an option and they are asked. Negotiation teams must thoroughly share and analyze all information received from all sources in an effort to identify possible options/solutions. Ideas should be discussed with the subjects and sometimes compromises can be made unless they put someone in danger.

Untrained Negotiators

Often civilians may appear at the scene and try to interject themselves as negotiators. Resolving a crisis situation (felony in progress) is a law enforcement duty and cannot be abdicated to citizens. Too often, individuals who know the persons in crisis and insist on talking with them are part of the problem. Their participation as negotiators – or even their presence – may escalate the emotions and dangers of the crisis. These people are used as sources of intelligence but not as negotiators, especially in the early stages of the crisis. Commanders and high-ranking officers should not act as negotiators. Lower and mid-level officers properly trained should make up the negotiation team.

Additional Negotiating Principles

During a negotiation many items may be demanded and discussed as parts of a potential trade. Law enforcement usually welcomes deals that involve providing subjects/hostages with food, drink (non-alcoholic), money, legal medicines, and reasonablephysical comfort. These trades build rapport and provide tactical teams closer access to the crisis site. Some items can be discussed, but they should never be provided to the hostage takers. These items include additional weapons, trading hostages (one for another), releasing felons from jail, and hard drugs. Transportation is often included in the latter category.

A log of all events of a negotiation is necessary as these matters will most likely be in court some day. All negotiation teams must maintain enough records to support future testimony – the same as with all other law enforcement actions.