NCJ Number
215650
Journal
Journal of Police Crisis Negotiations Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: 2006 Pages: 17-48
Date Published
2006
Length
32 pages
Annotation
This article reviews the hostage negotiation technique utilized by law enforcement and explores the three levels where negotiations fail: local, national, and international.
Abstract
This paper has analyzed police, military, and intelligence operations. In these three areas, the question is asked as to whether there is a nonviolent resolution to these problems. The answer is often no, because the three elements of hostage negotiation: negotiation, containment, and time are not all present. Research shares that hostage negotiation is one of the most spectacular talking cures ever invented and because of this, it has become law enforcement’s most effective non-lethal weapon. Negotiation offers or creates a more humane brand of law enforcement. However, negotiation only works when the hostages and the hostage-taker are contained and time is not an object. If any of these three elements (negotiation, containment, and time) are missing, this humane approach fails. In suicide-by-cop situations, negotiations are often irrelevant. The officer must kill the shooter to save the innocent. In the war on terror, (hostage) negotiations and nonviolent solutions may be irrelevant. This is because it is a war, and not a police action. The same applies to intelligence operations. Notes, references