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Communication strategies in barricade-hostage confrontations: Theory, research, and police experience

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Communication strategies in barricade-hostage confrontations: Theory, research, and police experience

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Content COMMUNICATION STRATEGI.ES IN BARRICADE-HQSTAGE CONFRONTATIONS THEORY, RESEARCH, AND POLICE EXPERIENCE by Larry Kirk Richardson A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Communication Arts and Sciences) May 1983 UMI Number: DP22377 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI DP22377 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA T H E G R A D U A TE S C H O O L U N IV E R S IT Y PARK LOS A N G E LE S . C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7 Pk-D C(A T h is dissertation, w ritte n by .......Larry, Kirk Richard son under the dire ctio n o f h..is.. D issertation C o m m ittee, and a p p ro ve d by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by T h e G raduate School, in p a rtia l fu lfillm e n t o f requirem ents of the degree o f D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y '/ Dean D a te April..za^..iaai. DISSERTATION COMMITTEE DEDICATION To my wife Becky, who would not let me quit when I wanted to. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Several people should be mentioned by name for their helpful contributions. Special Agent James Botting of the Los Angeles FBI was instrumental in assisting me in the collection of resource material from FBI training files. Mike Wellins, Director of the Crisis Intervention Team for the City of Orange Police Department was particularly cooperative in providing insights to the workings of the "talk-out" approach to solving hostage crises. Michael Hecht and Frederick Knirk, the two members of my disserta tion committee, ■ offered very useful comments and sugges tions that sharpened the final product greatly. Finally, my dissertation committee chairman, Kenneth Sereno, deserves my heart-felt thanks for. his patience and pro fessional expertise as he helped see this whole project through with me to its completion. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION .............................. ......... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS......... iv LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATION . ..................... vi CHAPTER ONE............................................. 1 Communication As Police Strategy.................. 2 The Barricade-Hostage Situation: What is It? ..... 7 Why Study the Barricaded Hostage-Taker? .......... 18 Hostage-Taking: Frequency of Occurence ........... 20 The Barricade Hostage-Taker: Who is He? .......... 31 The Importance of Communication as a Response Strategy .............. 54 Overview of Remaining Chapters ................. 65 CHAPTER TWO.......... 67 Threat Communication.............................. 69 How to Make a Threat Work ............ 78 Determinents of Threat Compliance ............. 87 Averting the Fulfillment of a Threat ......... 96 Deception Detection ........................ . 99 _____________________________________________________________________iv Content Analysis .............. 108 Compliance-Gaining Strategies ................... 116 Recent Refinements ............................. 130 Miscellaneous Paradigms* . . ........ 140 Removal of Threat ......... 141 Conflict Resolution Strategies . ............... 144 Power Bargaining .............. 149 Summary............................................ 153 CHAPTER THREE................................ 154 Method of Data Collection .................... 157 Overall Strategies .................. 163 Calming Strategies ................. . 177 Rapport-Building Strategies ..... 187 Information-Gathering Strategies ................. 197 Persuasive Strategies ............................. 207 Which Strategy is Most Successful ................ 221 CHAPTER FOUR................ 223 Short-Term Solutions: Where to From Here? ........ 226 , Communication Research .................... 226 Police Training .......... 243 Long-Term Solutions: Shaping the Future ....... 249 A Final Word ....................................... 261 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................... 263 APPENDIX A.................. 272 ____________________________ v LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS Page Figure 1; Hostage-Taking; Frequency of Occurrence,,,, 21 Table 1; Typology of Hostage-Takers ..... 37 Table 2: Compliance-Gaining S t r a t e g i e s 131 Table 3; Strategy Preference,,.,.,,,,, 222 Table 4: Determinants of Attraction,................... 228 vi CHAPTER ONE In many cases the story is the same though the cast of characters changes: October 6, 1975. Ray Olsen, 23, held ten hostages in a Manhattan branch of New York's Banker's Trust Company for eight hours, demanding that authorities release Patty Hearst and imprisoned members of the Symbionese Liberation Army and pay him ten million"dollars in gold. Result: through negotiation, Olsen was persuaded to give up and free all hostages. January 7, 1976. Miklos Petrovics, 40, seized two employees of a Culver City, California, branch of Bank of America, demanding that the bank's air be filtered through bird seed, that the manager "cleanse himself in the ocean," and that "everyone join hands, walk to the ocean, and meditate." Result: an FBI agent managed to talk him into surrendering. May 6, 1978. Robert Gibson, 33, took seven hostages with a submachine gun in a computer complex because of "little things that are driving me up•the wall." He expressed frustration about "the guys who park in two park ing, places, beer bottles tossed in the parking lot, and kids revving their motorcycles while I'm sleeping." He also complained that he had not been promoted at Univac, a company which runs computers for the local Army finance center. Result: he was talked into freeing all his hos tages and surrendering to authorities. September 27, 1979. Louis Posey, 26, burst into a classroom at a Knoxville, Tennessee, business college, threatening to kill himself. He held thirty pupils at gun point for three hours. Result: negotiators convinced him to give up and let the hostages go. August 28, 19 80. A man took five people hostage in a New Haven, Connecticut, bank and threatened to explode a can he said contained dynamite. Result: a police officer got on the phone and started talking to him. In less than two hours the suspect was persuaded to surrender. No shots were fired. No one was injured. Commuriication As Police Strategy Although all such events do not end so peacefully,.the fact that so many of them do can be attributed largely to one very critical police strategy: communication with the hostage-taker. In the last ten years hundreds of helpless victims and their captors have been saved from death by resolving the confrontation through negotiation. This ap proach to hostage-taking situations has become standard procedure in almost all such crises, coordinated by police professionals trained in the art of communication. In the last several years hostage negotiation teams have sprung up across the country in many police departments. Selected San Francisco officers began taking hostage negotiation courses as early as 197 4. In that ■ same year, Frank Bolz of the New York City Police Department created a sixty- eight-person hostage team, including blacks, hispanics, and women who spoke a total of nine foreign languages, from Lithuanian to Greek. By 1977 the Associated Press reported that thirteen countries maintained highly skilled commando units trained to rescue hijacked hostages. .In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation noted that it had trained over nine hundred agents to deal with domestic terrorist incidents."^ Today, the FBI continues to provide special negotiation training to agents in all of its fifty- nine field divisions at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. In all cases, members of these special teams are 1 Edward F. Mickolus, Transnational Terrorism; A Chronology of Events, 1968-1979 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), p. 686. 3 taught to do one thing: save lives by talking. They are : shown how to establish rapport quickly, how to listen and speak empathically, how to diffuse tension, how to gener ate trust, induce cooperation, and, most importantly, negotiate the release of hostages and the surrender of the perpetrator. This "soft" approach may seem out of character with an agency expected to "get tough" and "get results fast," but hostage-taking poses special problems that call for a spe cial kind of police response. Perhaps in no other human event are "all the available means of persuasion" so thor oughly tested and cautiously employed. For in few human .events are communication skills so critical and their application such an immediate matter of life or death, than in the hostage situation. A wrong word, a hasty demand;' a. hostile tone of voice, a fumbling, stumbling hesitation are all irreversible, as are the death such negotiator mis takes can cause to the helpless victims of these frightened and/or mentally unstable captors. Therefore,, the purposes 'of ^this^disserta.tion are two fold. First, it is designed to help the reader better understand the complex nature of the hostage situation. I will outline what is known about the perpetrators of this type of crime, who they are, and what motivates them to behave as they do. I will detail the characteristic 4 features of the typical barricade-hostage crisis, what makes it a unique challenge for the professional negotia tor, and what distinguishes it from other related crises, such as most kidnappings, airline hijackings, and suicide threats. These differences are critical, for they place the criminals and victims in far different circumstances, and call for very different responses from police and other law enforcement agencies. The second goal of this dissertation is to examine the utility of communication as a distinct police strategy in resolving the hostage crisis. I will review the contri butions that theoretic scholars have made in helping us to better understand the dynamics of persuasion and negotia tion relevant to the hostage situation. I will explain how communication differs from other police strategies, how communication functions in coordination with these other strategies, why and when negotiation is attempted, and when it should be avoided. Finally, I will present many of the actual communication strategies used by police negotiators. I will lay out the nuts and bolts of how criminals are actually persuaded to surrender rather than press their demands to the point of bloodshed. In this manuscript I hope to serve the needs of two groups. First, I intend this study to be helpful to the academic community. The field of communication has made 5 important contributions in meeting the needs of society. Many communication theorists have helped to shape our understanding of persuasion and the processes of social influence over the past thirty years, ideas that are of practical value to such diverse areas as advertising, public relations, public speaking, organizational develop ment, and international negotiation, to name only a few. This dissertation will underscore the contributions of the field of communication to one important aspect of police work: hostage negotiation. In so doing, I will remind the academic community that the "real world" feeds off and is nourished by its ideas and research findings. Addition ally, the findings and suggestions presented are designed to stimulate new thinking and research ideas for those who study persuasion and human behavior. These new perspec tives may help to reshape our notions of compliance-gaining techniques, threat appeals, and persuasion theory. Finally, research may be generated to provide answers on how to induce resistance to threats. I shall discuss in more detail the implications for future research in the final chapter. Secondly, I intend this dissertation to be helpful to law enforcement agencies. By sharing the collective experience of many police departments, I hope to provide new insights for officers who may someday face the 6 responsibility of talking a criminal out of a violent act. Experience is a dear school, so goes the adage, and the field officer cannot risk the lives of captives for his on- the-job training. In the hostage crisis, total prepared ness is the only safe approach. Through proper training and reading, officers can be spared the pain of learning by their own mistakes, but rather benefit by the successes and failures of others. The Barricade-Hostage Situation: What Is It? Hostage-taking is a particular class of terrorism, which includes such activities as bombings, assassination, sniping, theft or break-in, exotic pollution, arms smug gling, missile attacks, and sabotage, all aimed at manip ulating behavior through violence and intimidation. The hostage situation occurs when a person is held against his or her own will to be used as collateral in securing certain desired goals. Typically, the captor threatens to kill the hostage for noncompliance to his demand. Re searchers have classified hostage-taking into four cate-, gories: 1) kidnapping, in which the captor and captive remain at large, their whereabouts unknown to the police, 2) aerial hijacking, in which an aircraft is commandeered in flight, with crew, passengers, and aircraft offered in exchange for the perpetrator's demands, 3) nonaerial take- 7 over, referring to the commandeering of moving vehicles other than airplanes, such as buses, trains, and boats, and 4) the barricade-hostage situation, in which the perpetra tor and hostage find themselves cornered in a building where they remain to negotiate demands with responding po- 2 lice. In distinguishing the features of the barricade- hostage crisis, I must detail elements true of all hostage- taking. Every hostage event has at least two features in common. First is the element of what I will call the 3 . "conditional threat." A conditional threat is the assur ance of some negative consequence if certain demands are not met. Such threats are distinguished by their "either- or" structure: "Either you give me $500,000 and a fast plane to Cuba, or I will kill all of my hostages." I call this type of threat conditional because it is instrumental in nature, that is, issued in order to activate preventive behaviors by a third party. If, for example, the police department received a phone call, stating "At 5:00 p.m. I am going to blow up City Hall if one million dollars is ^Mickolus, p. xxi. 3 Thomas Schelling refers to them as "conditional commitments." Anatol Rapoport, Fights, Games and Debates (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1960), p . 2 2 8 . 8 not delivered to me," officials wpuld understand that the bombing could be prevented by certain complying, behaviors. We assume that the threatener's primary desire is not to demolish a public building, but rather to acquire some fast money. The threat is merely designed to provide the ne^ ce_gs.ary . leverage . to 'torce complying behaviors!,. . . :. Not all threats are conditional, since they do not specify methods to avoid their fulfillment. Going back to the bomb threat, the unconditional threat might be stated thus: '"Hello. At 5:00 p.m. I am going to blow up City Hall. Good bye." Many bomb threats are of this nature. The threat is not uttered to illicit obedience to a demand, but rather to taunt, humiliate, and terrorize. In such cases, the criminal does not want anything in return for the safety of the building. He simply wants the building blown up and has chosen to announce the event. Similarly, I recall a scene from a classic James Bond film, "Gold- finger," in which the hero was.strapped to a table, while his enemy, Auric Goldfinger, turned on a laser gun which slowly melted the table in half. As it moved toward Bond, it threatened to slice him in half as well. Desperate, yet full of bravado, Bond called out, "If you expect me to talk, this won't work." Goldfinger smiled and replied, "I don't want you to talk. I want you to die." The conditional threat is present!in virtually all 9 hostage-taking events. In such cases, the death of the hostage is not the preferred goal of the.captor, but only the ■ bargaining chip to expedite’ lii's' primary objective: compliance to his demands. In fact, one of the first ques tions asked by police when victims have been abducted is "What do the captors want?" The essential presence of the conditional threat in hostage situations may appear self-evident, but without it," police strategies alter greatly from those of the standard hostage event. For example, some "hostages" are not ' - abducted as pawns for some larger scheme. Some people are kidnapped with no ransom demanded, no threat issued. In some cases people are seized expressly to be killed. And so the Jimmy Hoffas of this world simply disappear, never to be seen alive again. The point is, the act of abducting a person is ne- cessary but not sufficient to sati,sfay' the conditions of .the barricade-hostage scenario. Until the element of barter exists, the perpetrator might be more appropriately labeled an assassin rather than a hostage-taker. In February of 1978, twelve year old Kimberly Diane Leach was abducted in Lake City, Florida. For days her parents and police waited for a ransom demand. The captor never called, never wrote. Kimberly's body was found six weeks later in an adjoining county. 10 The second feature of the typical hostage crisis cen ters around the nature of what.is being threatened. Criminals may threaten to harm many things: bridges, build ings, priceless paintings, a Sequoia redwood tree, whatever they perceive others might value. But we typically do not think of these objects as hostages. People, not things, become hostages. In addition, these people are generally abducted and held against their will. Suppose, for exam ple, a phone call threatened the following: "Either deliver a ransom of one million dollars to me.or I will begin randomly shooting citizens at the rate of one an hour." Would we then consider the population at large to be held hostage by the gunman? Although the new headline "City Held Hostage" might sell papers, the concept Of an unab ducted hostage is not very useful, principally because of its lack of clarity. The typical hostage is physically restricted in his ability to move and is directly cont trolled by the captor. The unabducted hostage,, on the other hand, is quite free to move and possesses a much greater capacity to resist the threatener (i.e.', leave town, hide, etc.). Some researchers classify the suicide threatener as a type of hostage situation, in that he takes himself as a hostage and warns others to comply with certain demands or he will kill himself. In fact, many police respond to this 11 situation similarly to the typical hostage crisis, in treating him as both captor and captive. Yet, since he can hurt no one but himself, the threat condition is limited, and police sometimes show less restraint than they would if other lives were at stake. On November 26, 1981, Philip Gordon Ardizone, armed with guns and a homemade bomb, held his wife and five other people hostage in a house trailer in Hazel Green, Alabama. Police negotiators succeeded in talking Ardizone into releasing all of his hostage, yet Ardizone refused to come out. Embplciened by their success, the police threatened to storm the building if Ardizone did not come out (a threat they would not likely have made if other hostages had still been present). One shot rang out . 4 from within the trailer. Ardizone had killed himself. The one distinguishing feature of the .barricade-hos tage event from the other three hostage-taking categories is the element of containment, that is to say, both the captor and captives must be located and surrounded by re sponding police to prevent their free and unrestrained movement. The kidnapper who abducts his victim and leaves a ransom note remains free to move about. Since the police do not know his whereabouts, he is able to act with much greater impunity. So long as police lack this element of 4 New York Times, 27 Nov. 19.81, Sec. 1, p. 16, col.- 6. 12 control/ they are forced to respond more cautiously, more cooperatively than were the criminal contained within a building. Once the criminal is contained, police may em ploy a series of frustration, distraction, and exhaustion techniques that would be quite impossible were the criminal free and loose. What makes containment so essential to police strategy is the element of control. Once trapped in a building, the criminal and his victims are virtually helpless to manip ulate their environment. Police can control the lights, heat, phone service, food and water supply, and many other needs and comforts. Such items all become matters for negotiation: "You send out a bank employee and we'll send in a pack of cigarettes." Also, by containing the criminal police can readily employ psychological strategies designed to frustrate and exhaust, hopefully to discourage the criminal into surrendering. Such strategies are only.pos sible through containment, making the perpetrator actually helpless, despite his show of bravado. Often criminals anticipate containment and even plan for it. In 1972 a band of Arab terrorists stormed the Israeli dormitory at the Munich Olympics, capturing eleven Israeli athletes and holding them until the German police arrived to hear their demands. Rather than try to escape in the darkness of the early morning, they tied their 13 captives to each other and to several beds in anticipation of the long seige. Many hostage situations occur in America's prisons, where inmates capture guards and hold them in a seized wing of the prison, knowing full well that containment is a given condition. However, in most barricade-hostage occurrences,.con tainment generally results from the. criminal's poor plan ning rather than by his design. The case of Costica Studineanu is typical. On June 10, 1980, he walked into a Queens, New York, savings and loan bank armed with a gun and demanded that all bank personnel move away from the counter and line up on the back wall. As one teller moved from her cage, she quietly tripped the bank's silent alarm. Within minutes the bank was surrounded by police cars. At that point, his ten victims became hostages to be used as bargaining chips for his escape. The three non-barricade hostage categories (kidnap ping, aerial hijacking, and nonaerial takeover) all have the potential of becoming barricade in nature once the police can achieve containment. For the kidnapper, con tainment may occur when "the best laid plans" go afoul. At that point, kidnapped victims become hostages. For exam ple, on June 24, 1980, at 1:30 a.m., two men and a woman, all armed, broke into the apartment of Irving and Miriam Shapiro. They first ransacked the house for jewelry and 14 valuables. One of the armed men left with the valuables, and soon phoned back, instructing that Mr. Shapiro go to c bank in the morning and withdraw ten thousand dollars from his savings account and deliver it to the woman at a nearby doughnut shop, or else his wife would be killed. When the bank opened at 10:00 a.m., Mr. Shapiro was at the teller's window. But his nervous behavior, combined with the size fo the withdrawal, raised the suspicion of the teller, who called the police and detained Shapiro. When the police arrived, Shapiro told the whole story. Soon the police department's hostage negotiating team arrived at the apart ment while three detectives went to the doughnut shop. The detectives spoke at the counter, idly sipping on soft drinks and munching doughnuts. Soon a young woman came in and ordered a container of coffee, waited a few minutes, then left. Detectives followed her and, after a struggle, they subdued and handcuffed her. Back at the apartment, the hostage team established contact with the lone gunman by phone. After more than an hour of persuasion, he was convinced to surrender and 5 release Mrs. Shapiro unharmed. Aerial hijackings lack the element of containment only 5 "Couple Held 11 Hours in a Ransom Plot," New York Times, 25 June 1980, Sec. 2, p. 3, col. 3. 15 as long as the plane is in the air. Once on the ground for refueling, the aircraft can be rendered incapable of take off, effectively creating the conditions of the barricade- hostage scenario. On May 8, 1972, Sabena Airlines flight 517, flying the Vienna-Athens-Tel Aviv route with eighty- seven. passengers and ten crew aboard, was hijacked by four Arab terrorists and forced to fly to Israels's Lod Airport. The group demanded the release of 317 Palestinian prisoners or they would blow up the plane and all aboard. Israel's defense minister Moshe Dayan supervised the negotiations. One of his first actions was to have two airport workers let the air out of the plane's tires and drain its hydraur lie fluid during the night. With the plane immobilized, negotiations focused around obtaining another aircraft for takeoff. Similarly, on September 10, 1976, a TWA B-727 was hijacked in New York and flown to London, where the terrorists and passengers transferred to a B-707 and flew to Paris. After landing, the plane was blocked by vehicles so it could not take off, and a police rifleman shot out one of the tires. With the plane disabled, the terrorists found themselves barricaded, as much as if they were in the basement of.a building. In the same way, nonaerial take overs become barricade-hostage situations when the vehicle (boat, train, bus, etc.) becomes immobilized, allowing containment to occur. 16 Sometimes, even knowing the location of the captor and captives is of no use. in achieving containment. The 19 80 Iranian takeover of the American embassy in Teheran is a case in point. Knowing the exact location of the perpetra tors was of little use, and so the negotiations dragged on for over four hundred days. After the bungled rescue attempt by American marines, the Iranian terrorists took even further steps to make containment impossible, by dispersing the captives throughout Iran. By June of 1980, they claimed that hostages were in Mashad, Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz, Qom, Qazvin, Najafabad, Jahrom, Arak, Mahallat, Yazd, Gorgan, Zanjan, and Hamedan. So, in review, the three elements of the traditional barricade-hostage situation (the first two of which are true of all hostage situations) are: 1. the criminals use conditional threats to press their demands; 2. people rather than things are held in exchange for compliance with those demands; 3. both captor and captives are contained so that police can restrict their freedom of movement and access to resources. 17 Why Study the Barricaded Hostage-Taker? As the title of this dissertation implies, my inten tion is not to deal with every type of hostage-taking event, but only the barricaded hostage-taker. Although other hostage crises, such as kidnappings and aerial hi jackings, occur frequently and are important areas to explore, they are in separate worlds in terms of response strategies, and thus would require whole volumes of their • own. So, insofar as the kidnapper and hijacker remain unbarricaded, he falls outside the purview of my study. , Secondarily, the barricaded hostage-taker is the G single most common type of hostage taker, and thus demands particular attention in learning how to understand his motivations so that we may respond to him appropriately. Since police negotiators are more likely to face this type of hostage-taker than any other, a detailed study of communication strategies pertinent to his psychological condition ; seems most useful. Thirdly, the barricaded hostage-taker is perhaps one of the most vulnerable to persuasive attempts of any type of hostage-taker. He,is usually a cornered perpetrator of C . Irving Goldaber, "A Typology of Hostage-Takers," The Police Chief, 46 (1979), 22; "America's Menacing Misfits," Time, 21 March 1977, p. 20. 18 foiled bank robber, and generally neither anticipates con tainment, nor does he plan in advance to take hostages. For him, they are more an improvisation in response to being surprised by police. The 1976 Taskforce on terrorism reported in its recommendations that such a character, "lacking the objective, final goals of the true terrorist, is relatively more vulnerable to shifts of mood and orien tation - including movement from belligerency to cooper ativeness." Further, it states: Often even the initially most hostile barricaded Suspect can be literally exhausted into either nonviolent surrender or vulnerability to apprehension with minimum force. 7 j , Therefore, a study of communication strategies useful 'for the process of negotiation would seem most applicable to the barricaded hostage-taker, since he is the most suscep tible to persuasion. As the perpetrators' level of personal commitment rises, as with the terrorist extremist, or as his perception of reality departs significantly from the norm, as with the suicidal or mentally disturbed hostage- taker, the intervention strategies suggested in the follow ing chapters will have less and less utility, until, at the extremes of total commitment and/or an incomprehensible mental state, the hostage-taker will likely repulse all 7 National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice, Standards and Goals, Disorder and Terrorism: Report of the Taskforce on Disorders and Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976), p. 198, 200. 19 attempts at negotiation and probably incur a tactical assault - the very thing which communication is designed to prevent. Hostage-Taking; Frequency of Occurence Dr. Frederick Hacker put it succinctly: "terror and terrorism are as old as the human discovery that people can 0 be influenced by intimidation." History is filled with instances of harm or threats as a means of popularizing political views or achieving personal goals. Examples in clude the first century sicarii, the twelfth century assassins, the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, and the Russian anarchist movement at the turn, of - this century. "But its adoption in the last decade by hundreds of groups 9 as a means of political expression is new." Likewise, hostage-taking (one form of terrorism) has become epidemic in the last fifteen years. Although no national statistics have ever been compil ed to trace the increase of hostage-taking, other indicat tors provide clues to the dramatic increase in this problem. In 1979, Edward Mickolus undertook the monumental task of chronicling every terrorist action in the world, using 1968 as a starting date, cross-referencing each ac- 8 Frederick Hacker, Crusaders, Criminals, Crazies (New York: W.W. Norton, 1976), p. ix. 9 Mickolus, p. xin.. 20 tion by type of terrorism, by date of occurrence, and:by nations involved. Included also was a brief synopsis of each event. According to his figures, during the period 1968-1979, 3,329 terrorist actions occurred in the,world or approximately 277 per year. The pattern appears to by cyclical, but nevertheless shows the steady rise over the last twelve years (Fig. 1).^® “ 400- S 300- 200- 1004- fear of Occurrence (Fig. 1) Since Mickolus' taxonomy of terrorist activities identifies those involving the taking of hostages, by type, his statistics provide useful information as to the fre quency of such actions. He notes that from the period 1968-1979, terrorism involving the taking of hostages ■^Mickolus, p. xiii. 21 occurred-at the followin'g.'rates ; Aerial Hijacking - 100 Barricade-Hostage - 70 Kidnapping - 285 Non-aerial Takeover - 14 As can be seen, hostage-taking alone comprised over 14% of the total number of terrorist actions recorded. Bear in mind that "terrorism" accounts for only a portion of the total of hostage-taking situations. Hun dreds of other hostage events originate from non-political motivations, thus are not included in Mickolus' list. By comparison, Mickolus numbered U.S. terrorist hijackings in 1968 at only three, although Information Please Almanac placed the total number of hijackings for the same year at 35. And so with hostage-taking, terrorist and non terrorist actions combine to produce a large overall total. Prison rioters, foiled bank, robbers, psychopathic gun slingers, and suicidal maniacs have all taken innocent victims hostage as part of their criminal actions. To catch a glimpse of the overall increase in hostage-taking in general, other indicators provide some insights. A review of the New York Times Index, which contains an exhaustive list of every article appearing in the news paper (arranged alphabetically by subject), reveals that so few hostage cases were reported in the United States ^ Information Please Alamanac, 19 82 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), p. 442. 22 that a separate subject heading for "hostages" was not incorporated into the index until 1973. Previously, hostage-related stories were categorized under such head ings as "terrorism," "bank robberies," "hijacking," or listed under the name of the perpetrator. In Mickolus' world chronology of terrorism, the first reported "barri- cade-hostage" act did not occur until June 9, 19 70. As the number of hostage incidents rapidly increased (consistent with the corresponding leap in world terrorism), a new subject heading was apparently necessary to categorize hundreds of different stories by their one common denomi nator: "hostages." In 1973, the New. York.Time classified over two hundred stories under the heading "hostages." By 1977 the hostage heading filled three index pages. From 1974 to 1977 the New York Police Department alone handled 12 over eighty cases. Today we regularly hear stories of people being held hostage by a criminal in exchange for certain demands. For example, the Los Angeles FBI alone handles from four to twelve hostage cases a year. Several explanations have been offered to account for the dramatic rise in hostage-taking. Jim Botting, special agent .for the Los Angeles FBI, and leader of its Crisis Management Team, feels that incidents have risen, but not 12 Barbara Gelb, "The Cool-Headed Cop Who Saves Hostages," New York Times, 17 April 1977, Sec. 6, p. 30, col. 1. 23 nearly so much as media coverage, increasing our awareness of such events, thus making it appear that hostage inci- 13 dents hace increased far more than they really have. Brian Jenkins, specialist in terrorist studies for the RAND Corporation, a Santa Monica, California-based think tank, explains that hostage-takers, like all terrorists, have be come bolder, partially in order to get the media attention they need to promote their cause. For example, in March of 1977, twelve Hanafi Muslims, armed with rifles, pistols, knives, and a crossbow, coordinated the takeover of three Washington, D.C., public buildings, killing one man, wound ing thirteen others, and taking 134 hostages. Never before had a terrorist group coordinated the multiple (near simultaneous) takeover of. buildings, and the selection of Washington, D.C., as the target city assured intense and prolonged media coverage across the country and around the world. For the next thirty-nine hours the terrorists enjoyed a wide forum for publicizing their personal, poli tical, and religious propaganda. The impact of media coverage of such events in pro moting future events is another reason why hostage-taking rose so rapidly in the 1970's. Dr. George Gerbner, dean of the Annenberg School of Communication, explained that "these terrorist acts are media events. Without coverage, . v S ' • • ' ' '13 Personal Interview, Jim Botting, 14 September 1982. . 24 the terrorists couldn't do it. "-*-4 According to Dr. Harold Vistosky, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Northwestern University, increased media coverage of such events causes them to feed on each other. "These crimes 15 are highly contagious." Dr. Frederick Hacker, Beverly Hills psychiatrist and student of terrorism, agrees. "Why should it be less true of violence, once advertised, than 16 of breakfast cereals or deodorants?" The potential risk of inadvertantly glorifying hostage-taking by covering the event on television, thus exciting the imaginations of a future terrorist, is a real problem. For example, airline hijacking is a recent phen omenon. For thirty-seven years, from 1930 to 1967, only twelve hijackings occurred in the United States, Yet, in 196 8 alone, twenty-two cases were reported. And that figure nearly doubled the following year with forty hi jackings. Critics lay part of the blame for the increase on extensive media coverage, effectively "advertising" new terrorist ideas. Only after strict passenger search procedures were implemented at airports in 1973 did the number of hijackings in America drop off sharply. 14 ^ Carey Winfrey, "Hanafi Seizure Fans New Debate On Press Coverage of Terrorists," New York Times, 19 March 1977, Sec. 1, p. 33, col. 1. ^^Time, 21 March 1977, p. 20. 1 6 Time, p. 27. 25 . The media have responded to the problem of press coverage by offering self-imposed guidelines. In the aftermath of the Hanafi Muslim raid, CBS News President Richard S. Salant issued a new set of guidelines for net work journalists to follow in covering stories concerning the holding of hostages by terrorists. Insisting that such stories should be covered "because they are newsworthy," he nevertheless called for journalistic restraint in at least four regards: 1. The. story should not be sensationalized beyond the actual fact of its being sensational. 2. To avoid.giving a terrorist an "excessive platform" on television for his views or grievances, there should be no live coverage of the terrorist except in the most compelling circumstances. 3. Because the vituperative rhetoric usually occurs with the terrorist's listing of demands, it might be better for reporters to paraphrase the demands rather than for the producers to present them directly through the voice of the terrorist or kidnapper. 4. Coverage of the story should be in such over all balance as to length that it does not -^7 crowd out other important news of the day. Another reason why hostage-taking has increased in the last decade is the increased police response time to crimes in progress. The acquisition by police departments 17 Les Brown, "CBS Issues Guidelines on Terrorists," New York Times, 15 April 1977, Sec. 3, p. 28, col. 1. 26 of sophisticated communications devices and a fleet of vehicles to cover a wide geographic ares of responsibility partly accounts for this phenomenon. In addition, police . routes are often computerized to allow for greater coverage of those areas with higher crime rates. Also, banks, for example, are now equipped with a variety of sophisticated silent alarm systems that alert police quickly, allowing them to arrive at the scene even while the robbery is occuring. Robberies that at one time ended in a speeding car chase from the scene of the crime now become hostage situations with the robbers trapped inside the bank. In fact, the most common seizure of hostages in the United States is by the criminal who has been surprised by police and takes innocent bystanders as a tool in escape nego tiations. Dr. Knutson, psychiatrist and political scien tist at the University of California, Los Angeles, calls many of these criminals "reluctant captors," for whom hostages are an incidental, generally improvised, part of 18 their scheme. It is ironic that police create most of the hostage crises that they must then unravel. The recent trend in hostage-taking appears to be dropping, as the frequency of news reports indicates. In 18 Rochelle Simmel Albin, "Researcher Examine Terror ist Psychology," New York Times, 20 November 1979, Sec. 3, p. 1, col. 1. 27 1981 only fifty-three U.S. hostage-related articles appear ed in the New York Times. Four possible reasons may account for the drop. First, fewer people are in fact taking hostages to press their criminal demands. That reason may seem tautological, but some might dismiss the downward trend as a total artifact of reduced news cover age. That is, some might charge that the incidents have not decreased, the press is just not reporting on them as thoroughly as before. But that explanation contradicts the fact that the media, as CBS New President Richard S. Salant confirmed, considers such events newsworthy, and continues to report on them. News coverage is, of course, not un related to hostage-taking. As such events become common place through extensive coverage, they lose both their novelty and appeal, so that they no longer become headline items. The decreased importance given to the event may in. and of itself account for the downward trend. Second, the success rate for hostage-taking as a nego tiating chip has been shown to be rather poor, discourag ing its profusion. Most cases end in the surrender of the perpetrator and the release of his captives. Some end in the death of the criminal, either by his own hand or by police sharpshooters. This explanation would apply specifically to terrorist hostage-taking in which the 28 seizing of victims was both premeditated and the primary goal of the group. Mickolus' statistics show that barri- cade-hostage attempts have never been popular (70 cases in 12 years, as opposed to 1,402 explosive bombings during the same period, clearly the singular most popular form of 19 terrorist activity). Of those seventy cases, casualties were reported in fifty-eight of them. Additionally, Mickolus remarks, "The terrorist operations that have generated the greatest publicity have had hostage seizures as their primary aim and have frequently resulted in ca sualties. The 1973-1975 period saw an increasing popular ity in this type of incident. Improvements in security measures at likely targets, such as embassies and other official installations, have made this type of action far more difficult to engage in, resulting in a noteworthy decline in 1976 and 1977."20 The third explanation given for the drop in hostage- taking is the general increase in crime. As all crime levels rise, police find it impossible to be everywhere at once. As police manpower is spread thinner, response time to many crimes becomes slower. That reduced capacity to respond in many cases provides tha bank robber, for ■^Mickolus, p. xxi. 20 ... Mickolus, p. x x m . 29 example, the necessary time to get out of the bank and escape, eliminating the need for hostages. So, in some instances, the sheer volume of crime tends to reduce the frequency of one type of crime: hostage-taking. Finally, whenever possible, police in responding to robbery-innprogress calls will now hasten to the scene as unobtrusively as possible, so as not to signal their presence to the robber. They are then able to avoid creat ing a hostage situation by waiting to apprehend the crimi- 21 nal until after he leaves the bank. Yet, the importance of maintaining skilled crisis intervention teams remains high priority for many police departments, even those who may only rarely face such an event. The Santa Cruz Police Department, for- example, maintains an eight-person hostage negotiating team, even though it has only been needed six time since the team was established in 197 5. Yet the lives saved in each of those successfully negotiated cases more than offsets the expense of training and maintaining such a team, according to the police department. For instance, in one of those six cases, a mentally disturbed man, Thomas Benton Wilson, hijacked a school bus 21 Telephone interview with Richard Damon, Director of the Santa Cruz Police Department Hostage Negotiation Team, 26 October 1982. 30 with a sawed-off shotgun and took it to a religious re-" treat, where he collected a total of seventy-five hostages. He demanded that Charles Kimbro be brought to him, con vinced that Kimbro had killed his own son, Shane Kimbro, and was not being punished for it. However, family sources said that Shane was alive and well. Wilson was undoubtedly confused and emotionally unstable. Later psychological tests performed on Wilson revealed that one of his fanta sies was mass murder. Had the authorities not been trained to negotiate, but rather elected to storm the building, the story could have ended quite differently, with numerous ■ dead hostages, instead of a subdued Thomas Wilson, who surrendered .himself and all hostages unharmed almost five 22 hours later. The Barricaded Hostage-Taker: Who Is He? Mickolus' chronology of terrorism identifies four events that involve the seizing of people to exchange for compliant behavior (aerial hijacking, nonaerial takeover, kidnapping, and barricade hostage-taking), yet it infers nothing of the motivation behind such actions, the reasons why a person would take others hostage, the kind of person who behaves so provocatively. Other researchers have de veloped typologies designed to distinguish among motiva 22 New York Times, 18 August 1977, Sec. 1, p. 19, col. 1. 31 tions rather than methods of operation. Frederick Hacker, for example, categorizes hostage-takers three ways: 23 1) "crusader", 2) "criminal", and 3) "crazy." Harvey Schlossberg, a New York City police officer and Ph.D. iii clinical psychology, developed a similar profile, calling them 1) terrorist with a cause, 2) professional criminal, and 3) the psychotic.^ The first type of hostage-taker, what Hacker calls the crusader, is motivated by an idealistic desire to right a perceived wrong or promote a cause. He does not act from considerations of personal gain, but rather from a desire to serve a higher goal. He is unselfish and sacrificial, and is quite willing to kill or die in order to further the ideals to which he is committed. He is determined and ruthless. The distinctive feature of the crusading hostage-taker as opposed to the garden variety social activist is his commitment to violence as the change agent, the catalyst for bringing about a new order. He has decided that in justice cannot be corrected within the established social mechanisms, which he views as either impotent or intoler ably tedious. He no longer asks "What is socially accept- 23 Hacker, p. 8. 24 Lt. John A. Scully, "Hostage Negotiations," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 43 (1974), 11. 32 able?" but only "What will work?" He is satisfied that violence is right because it produces the desired results. In addition, the crusading hostage-taker rarely acts spontaneously. He chooses his victims carefully, he plans for all contingencies, and then initiates the scheme at the very moment most likely to afford him maximum exposure. On March 5, 197 5, two members of the Japanese Red Army, Jun Nishikawa and Kazuo Toshiro, were arrested in Sweden by Stockholm police while they were taking photographs and making sketches of a building that houses the embassies of Lebenan, Austria, and four other countries. Later, over three hundred photographs, diagrams, and background notes were also found that Toshiro confessed were to be used as preparation for an attack on the Lebenese•embassies in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, in which they were to 25 capture hostages and ransom demands. This fortunate discovery both prevented a hostage event and served as a chilling reminder that the crusading hostage-taker does not act impulsively. Hacker's second classification of hostage-takers, called the criminal, refers to the individual who uses hostages to achieve some personal gain, such as money. He is typically characterized as selfish and self-protective. Mickolus, pp. 511-512. 33 Unlike the crusader, the criminal is not a high risk-taker. Concerns for his personal safety govern his behavior. He is conventional in terms of society's prevailing values, and thus generally responds to pleas for compassion, justice, and fair play. He has been observed to allow doctors to enter the building to attend to the sick and wounded, re lease women and children, arrange for his captives' comfort and warmth, and even act as short-order waiter in taking down food requests from the hostages. The criminal may or may not- act spontaneously. For example, the kidnapper generally plans his scheme care fully, whereas the cornered bank robber rarely even knows what to do with his captives. Yet neither the kidnapper nor the bank robber anticipate containment, and are psy chologically unprepared to cope with the pressures of becoming barricaded with hostages. Hacker's third classification of hostage-takers is labeled the "crazies." By this, Hacker means those emo tionally disturbed people who are no longer able to cope with the stresses of life and involve others in some act of desperation. They are characterized as self-centered, non- rational, sometimes delusional, aggressive, suicidal, and high risk-takers. They are unpredictable, vacillating, - and hesitating. They are labeled crazy because their con 34 duct is unusual, unforeseen, and incomprehensible by soci ety 's standards, He lacks what is called "functional rationality," which refers to the appropriate relationship between means and ends. For example, it would seem inap propriate to kill a person out of revenge for being laid off work. One action does not functionally follow from the other, Hacker1s typology is an attempt to isolate motivations for taking hostages, yet it lacks a precision that he him self confesses. He states, "Of course, the pure ideal type is rarely encountered. Many criminals are severely dis turbed or try to exploit various causes for personal gain. Some mentally ill individuals are irresistibly attracted to crusades or engage in personally motivated antisocial acts,''26 In other words, the labels are not mutually ex clusive, a problem which limits the system's utility. Pre sumably, knowing the type of hostage-taker should enable the negotiator to respond with greater sensitivity. Yet knowing that the hostage-taker is "criminal" does not ex clude the possibility that he is also "crazy," For that matter, virtually all terrorists ("crusaders") behave antisocially, thus qualifying them as psychopaths, further blurring the distinction between "crazies" and "crusaders." 2^Hacker, p, 8, 35 Undaunted by the conceptual muddle of Hacker's typo logy, Irving Goldaber went a step further, by isolating three subdivisions within each of Hacker's three categor- 27 ies. Under the label "psychological" (Hacker's "era-i ; zies"), Goldaber listed three types: 1) the suicidal personality, 2) the vengeance-seeker, and 3) the disturbed individual. Under the label "criminal," Goldaber identi fied 1) the cornered perpetrator, 2) the aggrieved inmate, and 3) the felonious extortionist. The "political" (crusader) hostage-taker was divided into 1) social pro testor, 2) ideological zealot, and 3) terrorist extremist (See Fig. 2 for a detailed description of these subtypes). While Goldaber sought to add precision to- the tripartite classification scheme, many actual hostage events could be classified into more than one category. In some cases a researcher would be hard-pressed to choose. For example, on February 18, 19 80, an Oklahoma man held his lawyer at gunpoint and demanded fifteen thousand dollars he said he lost at his lawyer's advice. For five hours he held the lawyer hostage until police agreed to pay the money. The lawyer walked out of his office unharmed shortly after the man received the fifteen thousand dollars. The gunman then 27 Irving Goldaber, "A Typology of Hostage-Takers," The Police Chief, 46 (1979), 21-23. 36 TYPES OF HOSTAGE-TAKERS SUICIDAL PERSONALITY VENGEANCE SEEKER DISTURBED INDIVIDUAL CORNERED PERPETRATOR AGGRIEVED INMATE FELONIOUS EXTORTIONIST SOCIAL PROTESTOR IDEOLOGICAL ZEALOT TERRORIST EXTREMIST PSYCHOLOGICAL CRIMINAL POLITICAL WHO IS THE HOSTAGE- TAKER? A/t unstable, hopeless, depressed individual An otherwise ordlnary person who is angry an accutely or chroni cally unsta ble person Potentially any criminal A frustrated desperate prison leader A cold, professional criminal An idealistic educated young person A fanatic, programmed cultist A person will ing to kill or die for a political view DISTINGUI SH TNG FEATURES Doesn't care If he Is killed Is driven by an irrational purpose extreme lack of judgment Caught un aware with no plan of escape Familiar with setting, authorities, and victims Knows and repsects police power An exuberant member of a dynamic group Is willing to die for his beliefs Has realistic assessment of impact of act WHEN DOES HE TAKE THE HOSTAGE? In a severe emotional state after meticulous planning When the irrational solution strikes him In desperation when victims are available After plann ing or when pushed too far While executing a carefully laid plot When he feels the need to eliminate social Ills After he has sustained a wrong When publicity potential is greatest WHERE DOES HE COMMIT THE ACT? Anywhere when his defenses fail where he can get maximum satisfaction In any setting In the area where he is trapped In his own environment In location of his selection At the site of the unwanted entity anywhere Where victim is off-guard WHY DOES HE DO IT? To cause someone else to fulfill dv.ath wish To gain revenge To solve his problem and achieve mastery To escape capture To effect change or gain freedom to obtain money To create social change or justice To redress a grievance To attain political change HOW DOES HE TAKE THE HOSTAGE? with Irra tional taunts Through overt action or furtive behavior in an improvised illogical manner with weapon and as a ' reflexive response With planned overpowering force with weapon in a calcu lated manner In a- group by massing a human thrust with robot like violent or nonviolent conduct With emotion al and violent execution of a plot : POLICE RESPONSE Calm him until he can be seized Seize hire Calm him, negotiate, seize if possible Negotiate; if unsuccessful, employ tactics Negotiate; if unsuccessful, use tactics Negotiate; if unsuccessful, use tactics Negotiate; if unsuccessful, use tactics Negotiate; If unsuccessful, use tactics Negotiate; if unsuccessful, use tactics TYPOLOGY OF HOSTAGE-TAKERS surrendered and returned the money .to the police.2? How should this perpetrator be classified? Vengeance-seeker (getting even for the money he lost)? Felonious extortion ist (holding a victim in exchange for a fifteen thousand dollar ransom)? Or disturbed individual (demonstrating a loss of functional rationality)? Maybe all three? In another case, the social protestor is defined as an idealistic person, strongly committed to a cause. He is sustained by friends who share his values, frustrations, and experiences. His reason for taking hostages is to eliminate a social injustice or to create social change. Though he does perceive reality with a rational mind, he can become very difficult to handle because of his tendency toward extreme action. He usually works as-a group rather than working alone, to capture his hostages and state his case. Compare his motivations and method of * operation to that of the aggrieved inmate and you will discover tremendous similarity. The aggrieved inmate rare ly works alone, since the success of his plan depends on overpowering guards, capturing hostages, and securing a section of the prison. A survey of prison riots in the last ten years shows that that may be coordinated with as many as 1,200 participants. The aggrieved inmate also 2 8 New York Times, 19 February 19 80, Sec. 1, p. 13, col. 6. 38 perceives reality with a rational mind, though he is capa-i ble of extreme behavior. His reason for taking hostages is to press for situational changes or, in a few cases, to try to obtain freedom. However, he is most often unhappy with his living conditions and as a last resort has threatened the lives of helpless people in order to be heard. Inmate demands range across many issues and have been known to include pleas for better medical and dental care, more and better food, broader visiting privileges, the dismissal of various antagonistic prison officials, better mattresses, wider variety of music on the prison radio station, reli gious freedom, less celltime, and higher salaries in the prison shops. Essentially, the only distinction between the aggrieved inmate and the social protestor is the simple fact that the aggrieved inmate is in prison and the social protestor is not. Their motivations are similar, their method of taking hostages is similar, and in many ways the style of negotiation suggested for each is similar. The point is, analysis becomes difficult when the distinctions among types of perpetrators are unclear. The possibility that a hostage-taker may fall into more than one category is very likely and underscores the complexity in determining the proper response strategy. Imagine, for example, the dilemma in negotiating with an extortionist terrorist extremist who is both homocidal and suicidal, a 39 a typical combination. Nevertheless, the Hacker/Goldaber typology enjoys widespread acceptance within law enforce- 29 ment agencies, including the FBI. Murray S. Miron, professor at Syracuse University and pioneer in the study of the analysis of threats, offers a different classification scheme, one that provides useful distinctions among perpetrators. He simply categories them along two dimensions: 1) instumental behavior and 2) ex pressive behavior.30 By instrumental behavior, Miron means those actions which lead to a recognizable goal which the perpetrator desires and which constructively benefits him. For example, a cornered.bank robber behaves instrumentally when his threats of violence are expressed conditionally. By expressive acts, Miron refers to those acts which serve only to display the power and importance of the perpetra tor. Such acts may appear senseless to others, in that the perpetrator stands nothing to gain by it, and may in fact be self-destructive, but nevertheless serves to make a statement of his desperation, frustration, anger, or fear. Many suicides are considered expressive acts, rather than 29 One of the articles contained in the Resource Learning Center at the FBI training facility in Quantico, . Virginia, is entitled "Hostages - A Viewpoint" excerpted from the RCMP Gazette, Vol. 36, No. 4, which promotes the three-way classification, terming them "the common crimi nal," "the psycho," and "the fanatic." 30Murray S. Miron and Arnold P. Goldstein, Hostage (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979), p. 10. 40 instrumental. The utility of this classification system is that it avoids the problems of basing response strategies on who the perpetrator is ("terrorist extremist" as opposed to "soical protestor" as opposed to "felonious extortionist" as opposed to . . .), but rather on what he does. Miron rightly asserts that the nature of the criminal act, whether instrumental or expressive, provides sufficient clues to aid the negotiator in understanding the real needs of the perpetrator. The negotiator may then effectively collaborate with the captor to achieve a mutually accept able resolution. For example, in March of 1977, Corey Moore took a Warrensville, Ohio, police captain hostage and demanded that, among Other things, every white person get off the planet earth and the President Jimmy Carter publicly apologize for all the wrongs done to the black race from 1617 to 1977. The Goldaber typology might classify Moore as a social protestor, ideological zealot, vengeance-seeker or disturbed individual (or perhaps a combination of them all!). In any case, the typology confusion leaves one wondering which label fits best, or, assuming that the perpetrator possesses elements of several types, how to "patchquilt" a response strategy that will meet the needs of each type. But Miron's scheme would identify Moore's actions as expressive, rather than instrumental, since the 41 demand was primarily designed to publicize his bitterness and frustration over perceived black oppression by the whites. Negotiators knew to focus on the feelings behind the demands rather than complying with the demand itself. In fact, as part of the final agreement with Moore, Presi dent Carter agreed to speak personally (over the phone) with Moore after he surrendered, and to acknowledge the frustrating reality of racial prejudice. Part of the complexity of Miron's otherwise’simple model is that the two dimensions are difficult: .to iso late. For example, Miron confesses that a suicide threat can be either instrumental or expressive, and one may not be able to tell readily which it is: If the potential suicider seeks to have someone else comply with his demands at the threat of his killing himself, he is behaving instru- mentally. The jilted girlfriend who threatens to kill herself if you don't' .take ;her back clearly wishes to coerce you into giving her what she wants. Her attempt is to play upon your guilt by attempting to make you responsible for her death. . . . Suicides can also be expressive acts. The death of the victim is a statement of despair and rejection shouted to the world. 31 Not only can the labeling of the act be difficult, the categories themselves may not be mutually exclusive. Miron notes that often perpetrators mask expressive acts behind 31 Miron and Godlstein, p. 10. 42 apparently instrumental behavior. For example, the terror ist extremist frequently attempts to provoke expressive suicide at- the hands of the police. These are acts designed to establish the perpetrator's importance and elicit audience sympathy for his cause through media coverage. However feasible their request, the terrorist frequently operates with a hidden agenda. Miron summarizes: Every human action typically has a number of different purposes. Sorting through these multiple purposes of any act is difficult but vital. Otherwise, you may find yourself responding to the obvious or manifest content of an act and only making the hidden or latent problem worse.32 He suggests the psychological experts can be helpful in sifting through those manifest behaviors to offer sugges tions' that would help the police negotiator in addressing these hidden problems. Since the relevance in asking the question "Who is the hostage-taker?" lies in the clues such information would provide in facilitating subsequent negotiations, then two additional dimensions ought to be included which relate directly to the perpetrator's willingness and capability to negotiate. It is obvious that if the hostage-taker is totally unwilling to negotiate his demands, then.'it does not matter what he is asking for. - whether it be $350 or the deed to Hawaii - there is no need for a negotiator. 32 Miron and Goldstein, p. 11. 43 Simply agree to his demand or refuse. Is he a social pro testor? A terrorist? A suicidal maniac? No matter. The first and fundamental question is: can he and will he nego tiate? Therefore, the first dimension focuses on the hostage- taker ' s level of personal commitment to his demand and his threat. The hostage-takerTs level of commitment may be de fined as his determination to stand by his word and see his actions through, and to resist compromising with police authorities in obtaining his goals. This dimension would actually be better understood-as a continuum, ranging from very highly committed to very lowly committed. The barri caded hostage-taker would generally register on the low end of the commitment continuum. As police experience bears out, this type of hostage-taker frequently does not antici pate containment, nor is he psychologically prepared for it. As such, he is both uncommitted to his position and very susceptible to persuasion designed to extricate him from his condition. The lower his commitment, the more willing he will be to negotiate, and the more useful and applicable will be the negotiation strategies enumerated in the succeeding chapters. Estimating the level of commitment of the hostage- taker provides important information .about- the strength of 44 the perpetrator's demands, what he is willing to settle for, the amount of delays he will tolerate, and the persuasive strategies he will probably respond to. If, for example, the perpetrator yields on a one million dollar demand to accept a ten thousand dollar counter-offer, he will proba bly accept even less. In fact, some perpetrators have been known to surrender for a cigarette or- even a Big Mac sand wich. Levels of commitment may be gauged in at least seven different ways: 1. Amount of violence hostage-taker used initiating the act This factor suggests that the greater the violence, the greater the commitment. Although this rela tionship is not absolute, it is rarely observed as an inverse relation. Police will be quick to note that deaths and casualties resulting from the initial takeover are to be discounted as evidence of their propensity toward violence once the situ ation is stabilized. Nevertheless, the fact that he.has killed already demands that he be taken seriously, because he probably means what he says. 2. Number of cohorts If more than one culprit is involved in the hos- 45 tage event, they likely will experience a group dynamic effect causing them to remain stronger in their resolve as they share the risk of failure together. In fact, researchers suggest that in prison riots, for example, the sooner the event can be resolved the better. As time drags on, they tend to evolve from a disorganized rabble into a unified body, complete with a'leadership hierarchy, enumerated demands, and a clear plan of action. 3. Amount of apparent planning It stands to reason that if the perpetrator did not plan to get into the barricaded situation, he is likely to be highly motivated to’ get out of it. He would thus be lowly committed to his action and quite willing to negotiate for. his freedom. This is frequently the case with the foiled bank robber, who is both unprepared for police containment and anxious for his freedom. In some cases, determ ining the level of planning is only possible after the event is over, such as discovering the captor carried with him precut lengths of rope to bind his captives' hands or possessed detailed floor plans of the building. Yet the negotiator may 46 still glean important information in this regard by asking the perpetrator such questions as "How did this happen?" or "How did you get here?" 4. Willingness to compromise The fact that the perpetrator will talk at all is a clue to his willingness to negotiate. Beyond that, by pushing for reduction in demands and extensions in time deadlines, negotiators not only reduce the volatility of the event, but also dis cover the amount of commitment the perpetrator possesses. Commitment may be viewed as inversely proportional to one's willingness to negotiate: the less the commitment, the greater the willing ness to negotiate. The knowledge that a hostage- taker is willing to lessen demands and/or extend deadlines provides important clues about his level of commitment. In December of 1972, four members of Black September, a Palestinian terrorist group, took over the Israeli embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, and demanded the release of thirty-six terrorists held in Israeli jails. After nineteen hours of negotiation the group agreed to free their host tages and drop all demands in return, for safe passage out of the country. And so in most cases, 47 if the commitment of the hostage-taker is low, then negotiators will be able to bargain successfully for substantial reductions in demands. 5. Amount and sophistication of weapons This information is related to amount of planning, in that at times hostage-takers have been known to secretly store extra provisions and weapons in the building they plan to seize, in preparation fot a long stand-off. Secondarily, weapons such as explosives call for much planning in devising the bomb and laying the charges, thus preventing its spontaneous application. In other words,.if the perpetrator had to plan the use of certain weapons, he is likely prepared to use them. 6. Level of distress at the event Psychological research indicates that commitment, or the question of "do I want to be here, doing what I am doing?" is in part discernible by the 33 person's level of distress incurred by the event. A person who demonstrates anxiety, fear, nervous ness, or a host of other indicators, manifests a distinct discomfort and desire for release from 33Suzanne C. Thompson, "Will It Hurt Less if I can Control It?" Psychological Bulletin, ,90 (1981), 89-101. 48 the situation responsible for producing the dis tress. The highly committed person, on the other hand, is one who exhibits little to no distress at the situation and appears quite resolved to re main in his present state. Such a person would be much more impervious to persuasive strategies de signed to satisfy his need for comfort and safety. 7. Tolerance for personal risk The person who is willing to blow himself up with his victims is either grandstanding or a very dangerous person. Those who are prepared to die for their beliefs are considered fully committed to their position. The bank robber who straps a bomb to his chest and threatens to explode it is to be taken seriously unless, or until, it can be determined that the bomb is a hoax. The hostage- taker who deliberately seeks great personal dan ger must be interpreted as determined and, hence, fully committed. Not only does the negotiator need to be informed of the perpetrator's willingness to negotiate, he must also have some idea of the person's capacity to negotiate, or in other words, what that person is able to respond to. Principally, this information is acquired from a determin- 49 ation of the captor's reality orientation. Hacker calls 34 this element a person's level of "functional rationality." Functional rationality refers to the appropriate relation ship between means and ends. A person is considered func tionally rational if his actions seem to logically lead to his desired goals. Miron would equate this with instru mental behavior. This second dimension may also be viewed as a contin uum, ranging from highly rational to extremely irrational. The more rational the perpetrator,, the*"more-willing such a person will be to negotiate, to understand the danger or futility of certain positions, and to view compromise as a necessary part of the negotiation process. Again, the barricaded hostage-taker typically falls within the realm of functional rationality, and is thereby a prime candidate for successful negotiation. Understanding a person's ability to perceive reality and respond to it will greatly assist the negotiator in his attempt to discover options for ending the crisis that would appeal to the captor. If a person is mentally unsta ble, for example, he will not likely respond to intellect tual discussions about the sanctity of life and the need for law and order. The negotiator would need to dispel 34 Hacker, p. 17. 50 with formal logic and concentrate on empathizing with the cpator, to enter his world and understand his' needs. Only then can he offer solutions and alternatives that would satisfy the perpetrator. Discovering the hostage-taker1s reality orientation results from at least two important clues: 1. The nature of the demand What the person-is asking for provides a wealth of information. It generally allows you to quickly categorize the person's actions as either instru mental or expressive. But just as importantly, it informs you about his reality. In January of 1976, Mike Petrovic, took two bank employees hostage and demanded that the bank's air be filtered through bird seed, that the bank manager cleanse himself in the ocean, and that everyone join hands, walk to the ocean, and meditate. In 19 77 Corey Moore insisted that all the whites §et off the plan&t. In September of 1980, Robert Faldetta became enraged when his wife tried to take him home from the Manhattan bar she found him in. He pulled out a gun and fired several shots into the air. After clearing the bar of everyone except the owner, Faldetta told police negotiators, "I just wanted to be left alone." 51 Negotiators study the nature of the demand to deter mine if, in fact, the demand could reasonably, or even conceivably, accomplish its intended goal. If the means/end relationship appears incongruous, questions are immediately raised about the captor's functional rationality. In March of 197 7 Anthony Kiritsis barged into the Meridian Mortgage Company office in Indianapolis, took one of its executives hostage, and demanded that his debt to the company (amounting to $13 0,000 in commercial loans) be cancelled, that the mortgage company offer a public apology for wrongs done to him,•and that he be granted total immunity from prosecution. He con tended that the company had dissuaded several les sees from locating on property that Kiritsis had purchased to build a shopping center. But, as Miron put it: It is -difficult to see how any sane person could really believe that these demands would be met, and that even if met would be valid after surrender. Thus, Kiritsis' be havior either must be interpreted as expres sive or simply i n s a n e .35 After his eventual surrender, Kiritsis was, in fact, determined through psychological tests to 35 . Miron and Goldstein, p. 48. 52 be insane, and on October 21, 1977, was ordered to a state mental home- for treatment. 2. Extreme behavior/indifference to safety Hacker defines the "crazy" as a high risk taker, suicidal, aggressive, and sacrificial. He is there fore prone to self-destructive behaviors. The ne gotiator is wise to take note of such provocative action, for it suggests mental instability. Finally, in deciding what must be known about the per petrator, Miron enumerates several critial demographic items necessary to give the negotiator a full sense of the nature of the person he is dealing with. Such information in cludes : 1. Characteristics: name, age, sex, size, physical condition. 2. Background: race, ethnic group he most identifies with, political ideology. 3. Prior crimes and police record. 4. Intelligence. 5. Specialized skills. 6. Special affiliations. O C 7. Unusual habits:(drug user, smoker, alcoholic, etc. ^Miron and Goldstein, pp. 92-93. 53 This additional information will assist the negotiator in selecting his choice of words, likely topics of discussion to avoid or introduce, and compromise offers that will possibly be accepted. The Importance of Communication as a Response Strategy Historically, police departments have responded to crimes and criminals through tactical strategies similar to military actions, where, having encountered the enemey,/one jockeys for position, reconnoiters the opponent's strengths and weaknesses, and prepares for the least costly and most effective method of assault. In order to buy the necessary time to set up for the tactical assault (to allow troops to get into place, to bring up needed supplies, etc.)., adver- • saries frequently engage each other in conversation. The opponents may negotiate, taunt, question, or apply any of a number of strategies designed to distract or stall. Addi tionally, communication has been used (and still is) to assist in the planning of the assault by teasing out cri tical information concerning the enemy's tactical situa tion (how many accomplices? how many hostages? where are the hostages located? what types of weapons are being used? location of explosives? etc.). On other occasions communication functions as the 54 overture to the fight, used for prodding the opponent into saying or doing something that provides sufficient justi fication to strike the first blow. And so, rival street gangs may stand across from each other exchanging insults, "psyching up," and escalating the conflict to the point where violence follows naturally. Rapoport describes such a ritual: The two enemies stand poised for combat. What follows is a series of maneuvers, verbal jabs, and feints, in which invitation to join the com bat, is mixed with caution (the enemy's strength is being gauged). Each jab, however, calls for a counter-jab, and so must be followed by another somewhat bolder one. Actually the combat had already begun. The exchange of words is neces sary to put each combatant into the proper emotional state for the exchange of blows to follow. The thrusts follow one another to the inevitable outburst of physical v i o l e n c e .37 However, the early 1970's saw an increased commitment to the use of communication as a genuine response strategy for resolving hostage episodes, rather than merely as a stalling tactic. In fact, negotiation is listed as the preferred response option for virtually all types of 3 8 hostage-takers. This increased reliance on negotiation is based on four objectives which communication is seen as superior in achieving. First,i as a response strategy, communication is 37 Rapoport, p. 2. 3 Q Goldaber, p. 23. 55 instrumental in saving the lives of the hostages. Perpe trators are likely to kill their captives for a variety of reasons, which include retaliation for demands not met, panic at the thought of capture, anger, or frustration. Through the use of communication, tensions can be reduced, restoring relative calm to an otherwise unpredictable situ ation. Also, through negotiation, demands may be scaled down, deadlines extended, or the perpetrator exhausted or discouraged into surrendering. One important statistic underscores the desirability of negotiation rather than assault for saving the lives of the hostages: 79% of all hostage deaths occur in rescue 3 9 attempts. As such, captives' lives are at greatest peril during tactical maneuvers, and for a variety, of reasons. First, the captor is likely to panic or become enraged, and start shooting hostages during the assault. Second, the captives themselves may panic in the assault and may rush the door - or the captor - frightening the captor into shooting them. Finally, and most tragically, the hostages may be accidentally shot by their own rescuers. The dis aster at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the 1971 Attica prison riot remind us of the danger to hostages in attempt- 39 Brian Jenkins, "Numbered Lives: Some Statistical Observations from Seventy-seven International Hostage Episodes" (Santa Monica, Calif.:-RAND Corporation, 1977), p. 25. 56 ing to rescue them. In the Munich rescue attempt, all of the hostages were killed, and at Attica nine of the hostages were accidentally shot by their own rescuers. • Noted Exceptions Advocates of fast, decisive - action point to examples of their own to defend the use of force to save hostages' lives. The 1976 Israeli raid at the Entebbe, Uganda, air port to save 106 Israeli hostages, is frequently cited. At 11:00 p.m. on July 4, 1976, over one hundred Israeli com mandos stormed the Entebbe airport, where 106 Israelis were held hostage by ten Palestinian terrorists, all passengers of hijacked Air France flight 139. In the swift fifty- minute raid, the terrorists were taken by complete surprise and were unable to kill any of the hostages before they were all killed. The only hostages to die were those who stood up in panic when the Isralei commandos poured into the lounge where they were housed. Three were accidentally killed by the Israelis who mistook them for the terror-1 - ists.4^ Despite these few deaths, advocates of decisive action point to the Entebbe raid and similar events in support of their position. Nevertheless, the statistic re mains unchanged: almost 80% of all hostage deaths occur 40Raymond Carroll, "How the Israelis Pulled it Off," Newsweek, 19 July 1976, pp. 42-46. 57 during rescue attempts. Since the safety of the hostages is paramount, the use of negotiation as an alternative stra tegy becomes very attractive. • The second reason that communication has become the preferred initial strategy is to save the lives of the per petrators as well. As one crisis intervention team leader put it, "We're in the business to save lives - that means 41 everybody, criminals included." Strxcter demands are being placed on policemen to exhaust all possible methods of apprehending criminals short of actual gunplay. These tighter regulations reflect a growing sentiment among the general population that all life is precious, and the in discriminate use of police weapons is more a menace than a help to society. In addition, some hostage-takers are ; deemed mentally unstable, with a diminished capacity to distinguish fantasy from reality. As such, police are com pelled to save him from himself. Police have also discovered that some hostage-takers are suicidal individuals who lack the will to end their own lives, and so take hostages to try to provoke the police to do the job for them. The members of the Symbionese Liber ation Army, for example, became very difficult to apprehend 41 Personal interview with Mike Wellins, Director of the Crisis Intervention Team for the City of Orange, CA., Police Department, 9 September 19 82. 58 "because of their determination to commit suicide by estab lishing the conditions under which their destruction at the 42 hands of someone else was inevitable." On May 17, 1974, six of the SLA members were killed in a police shootout at their hideout in Los Angeles. The personal conflict a police officer experiences after having shot a criminal becomes a related matter with serious implications. The phenomenon, only recently iden- 43 tifxed as "post-shooting trauma," is an emotional reac tion at having killed another person. The symptoms include 1) flashbacks or "intrusive recollections," in which the officer becomes preoccupied with reliving the past, 2) hyper-vigilance, 3) time distortion, 4) fear of insanity or loss of emotional control., 5) heightened sense of dan ger, 6) sorrow/guilt, 7) emotional numbing, 8) and the precipitation of normal life crises. The officer may become anxious, depressed, and irritable, and turn to sub stance abuse to help him cope with the stress. The reac tion may become sufficiently acute to immobilize the officer, forcing him to take a "stress disability" leave of absence. 42 Miron and Goldstein, p. 75. 43 Massad Ayoob, "Post-Shooting Trauma: Part I," Police Marksman, May/June, 1982, pp. 15-17. 59 In addition to the trauma suffered by the officer in volved in the shooting, "secondary trauma" victims also 44 suffer. Researchers have found that not only is the shooting officer affected, hisipartner, the dispatcher who sent him, and the entire department is touched. The entire city may be affected by this secondary trauma. In Los An geles, the average stress disability pension costs the city 45 . about $2.5 million. Most of those stress disability pensions result from the emotional trauma of shooting another person. In summary, police have discovered that every effort to avoid violence spares both the life of the criminal and the emotional stability of the officer. The third reason for relying on communication as the strategy.of preference is to save the lives of the police men who might otherwise have to take tactical steps to resolve the crisis. On December 18, 1978, two New York State troopers were shot in the chest with a high-powered 44 David Corey, "Secondary Trauma," A paper presented to the California State Psychological Association Confer ence, San Francisco, 5 February 1983. 45 Los Angeles Police Department Statistics, prepared by the Chief Accounting Officer. The $2.5 million figure is based on a 27-year old officer pensioned at 50% salary (this is minimum; most are pensioned at a higher rate) and lives until age 76. In 197 9, twenty-three LAPD officers received a stress disability pension. In 1980 twenty-six received one, and in 19 81 sixty-five received one. 60 rifle while trying to enter the house of Henry Schaap, who was reportedly holding his wife and daughter hostage. Al though both officers were wearing flak vests, they were seriously wounded and may have been killed had the captor fired at their heads. In turn, Schaap was immediately shot and killed by other officers who broke through a side win- 46 dow. Assaults on barricaded hostage-takers are always high- risk endeavors. Although rarely do police officers in America resort to such tactics, foreign countries such as Israel provide clear evidence of the danger in such action. For example, on March 5, 197 5, eight Palestinian terror ists attacked the Hotel Savoy, taking ten people hostage and demanding the release of ten Palestinian guerrillas and Greek Archbishop Hilarion Capucci, who was imprisoned for smuggling guns to Palestinian terrorists. Refusing to comply with the demands, the Israeli government ordered its troops to storm the building. The attack began at 5:30 a.m. and lasted fifteen minutes. The terrorists set off' one of their explosives, destroying the fourth floor of the hotel and seriously damaging the rest of the building. In all, seven of the eight terrorists were killed, three Israeli soldiers died, and eight of the ten hostages were ^ New York Times, 19 December 197 8, Sec. II/ p. 7, col. 1. 61 killed. Ironically, during assaults policemen are often in great danger of being accidentally killed by their own fellow officers. . In 1979, police chief Thomas Buntrock of Mequon, Wisconsin, was accidentally killed by his own men after he exchanged himself for two other hostages taken by Anthony Johnson during a service station robbery. In the ensuing car chase, pursuing police fired into the car, 47 hitting Buntrock, whom they mistook for the robber. Hundreds of hostage incidents have been peacefully resolved through calm, often lengthy, negotiation. Al though the process of talking through the crisis may seem tedious, exhausting, and emotionally stressful, the lives spared from the potential danger of assault (to hostage, criminal, and police) make communication an important strategy. Finally, the decision to negotiate rather than assault is valuable in deglamorizing the event itself. Often criminals in such situations experience a new sense of im portance that so much attention and excitement are focused on them, perhaps for the first time in their lives. The feeling of power associated with diotating terms to author ity figures can be intoxicating to the person issuing 47 New York Times, 8 December 1979, Sec. 1, p. 9, col. 1. 62 demands and vicariously stimulating to potential hostage- takers watching the event on the television news. Crimi nals taking hostages often do so to frighten and dominate others. The wider the fear, the more powerful and success ful the offender. "The more over-reactive our response, the more we cower or lash back with fear or resentment, the 48 greater the punishment the criminal visits upon us." The more the criminal can impress others that he is more a victim that an aggressor, the more his actions may appear justified and credible, thus elevating the status of the hostage-taker from criminal to folk hero. At minimum, it is not unusual for policemen to suffer criticism for excessive force in resolving hostage events with gunplay, even when the captor was shown to be armed and dangerous. The use of communication, on the other hand, is de signed to reduce the excitement associated with the event. Protracting negotiations over long hours (some marathon sessions have extended over one hundred hours, although the 49 average is about twelve hours)',. creates a sense of tedium and hum-drum which is frustrating to the criminal and dis tasteful for the news media who report the event. Often 48 Miron and Goldstein, p. 18. 49 Robert Mirabella and Jeanne Trudeau, "Managing Hostage Negotiations," The Police Chief, 48 (1981), 47. 63 the negotiator is a mere sargeant, with no decision-making power, further deflating the criminal's sense of self- importance, who fruitlessly demands to speak to "someone in charge." In addition, by avoiding the impression of alarm, police may demonstrate through calm talk and relaxed be havior that neither criminal nor event is frightening, further minimizing the terror-value which the criminal may have hoped to play upon. In summary, communication as a response strategy is preferred by police crisis teams for four reasons: 1) to help save the lives of the hostages, 2) to preserve the life of the criminal, 3) to minimize the personal risk to the police officer, and 4) to deglamorize the event. A 661- page government taskforce report on coping with terrorism and civil disorder concedes the "Catch-22" dilemma of deciding between preserving life and capitulating with terror or risking the lives of innocent people to preserve the law of the land, but it stresses the importance of persuasion rather than force in resolving the matter. "Society," says the report, "should aim to outwit the 50 terrorist rather than outfight him." 50 National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice, Standards and Goals, Disorder and Terrorism: Report of the Taskforce on Disorder and Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976), p. 26. 64 Overview of Remaining Chapters This dissertation is divided into four-chapters. The first chapter provides the -rationale for the study. It explains the nature of the problem, its frequency of occur rence and the significance of communication as a response strategy. Chapter Two summarizes the theoretic literature on threats, compliance-gaining strategies, deception detect tion, persuasion, negotiation theory, and miscellaneous conflict resolution paradigms that could be applied to the hostage situation. Since the field of persuasion (within which hostage negotiation finds itself) is one of the most studied phenomenons of human behavior, it is likely that certain hypotheses and/or research findings may find appli cation to this one important context. Chapter Three will survey the communication strategies actually used by police negotiators to persuade the crimi nal to release his hostages and surrender. The fact that crisis intervention teams across the country enjoy such a high success rate in saving lives and capturing perpetra tors indicates the utility of such strategies in gaining compliance. Although every situation differs and calls for a unique response, certain patterns have developed that allow police instructors to strongly caution against var ious approaches and recommend others. Chapter Three will 65 review the state of the art in how police talk criminals into surrendering. Chapter Four will synthesize Chapters Two and Three by pointing out where field experience either conflicts with or conforms to research findings. Also, it will dis cuss where variables found important to the successful resolution of a hostage crisis have either been ignored or considered irrelevant in standard persuasion research approaches. In addition, Chapter Four will point out where negotiation procedures might be refined by more fully in corporating the findings of persuasion and conflict reso lution research relevant to the hostage situation. Finally, Chapter Four will offer suggestions for future research in this most important area. It will sug gest research directions for the social scientist, train ing procedures for the police instructors, and miscellan eous suggestions for minimizing and managing this frightening and life-threatening phenomenon. 66 CHAPTER TWO If the hostage negotiator is to be useful in his job of preventing the captor from obtaining an unacceptable demand and/or harming the captives, he must be knowledge able in selected areas from the vast spectrum of persuasion and negotiation theory. I say selected because not every thing written and researched in these two fields are applicable to the specific context of the hostage crisis. For example, elements of conflict negotiation theory rec ommends both avoidance and escalation as useful strategies 1 in resolving certain conflicts. However, experts m hos tage negotiation reject both of these strategies as inap- 2 propriate. The hostage negotiator can neither ignore the crisis nor is he advised to escalate the tensions of those involved. However, writers in the field of persuasion, conflict resolution, and negotiation theory do offer a great deal of insight into areas quite important for hostage negotiators to understand. Some of these conclusions might not be 1Joyce H. Frost and William W. Wilmot, Interpersonal Conflict (Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown Co., 1978), pp. 148-149. 2 Miron and Goldstein, pp. 45, 97-99. 67 discerned through personal, or even collective, experience that forms the bases of much of the recommendations offered by police instructors. Most negotiators agree that despite the number of hostage incidents, too few opportunities occur to reveal all possible outcomes from the various con ditions and strategies. In place of actual experience, we are left to surmise and speculate what "might work" in a given situation. Some of these theoretical ideas have spawned research which tends to support various hypotheses. Other theories remain untested, or untestable, yet stim-. ulate our thinking and expand our notions of possible alternative strategies in dealing with the barricaded hostage-taker. This chapter will detail much of the communication literature relevant to the heeds of the hostage negotiator. It is not meant to be exhaustive. It is designed to be representative of the key concepts and variables related to the dynamics of opinion change and behavior modification. At the risk of sounding, repititious, let me emphasize that this chapter is not a general survey of persuasion or nego tiation theory. Not all of the strategies presented by the many distinguished authors would be pertinent or useful as tools for the negotiator. I have selected those concepts which seem to have particular bearing on this unique con text . 68 Specifically, I will discuss the relevant theoretic notions and research findings of the following areas: 1) threat communication, 2) deception detection, 3) com pliance-gaining strategies, and 4) miscellaneous conflict negotiation models. A review of these topics will acquaint the police negotiator with the latest findings and per spectives of non-police authors in answer to the question: "How do I successfully negotiate with a barricaded hostage- taker?" Threat Communication Although virtually untested in strictly controlled laboratory experiments, threats are generally perbeived to be particularly effective, so much so that laws have been devised to forbid people from issuing many types of threats Those guilty of illegal threats are culpable for assault. Even so, we are daily confronted with threats from all sides. We threaten ourselves (intrapersonal threats), and in fact punish ourselves for disobeying our own commands.. Dieters who go on an eating binge punish themselves with starvation and guilt for disobeying their own prescribed eating schedule. We frequently face interpersonal threats from parents ("If you don't get a haircut, you're grounded for a month."), friends ("If you don't help me with my algebra now, I won't type your term paper like you wanted me to."), and lovers ("Either you buy me that new dress 69 or its no sex for a month."). We face institutional threats as well. I am sure you have observed the following signs: 1. "Returned checks will be subject to a five dollar service charge." 2. "Uncancelled hotel reservations will be charged to the customer." 3. "No parking. Violators will be towed away at the owner's expense." 4. "Five hundred dollar fine for littering." Each of these statements contains all the elements of a threat. So let us for a moment examine the anatomy of a threat. The structure of a threat is basic. It is composed of two elements: 1) the demand/expectation and 2) the pre dicted consequence for noncompliance. Watzlawick similarly reports that the threat is "a demand for certain behavior, coupled with the announcement of specific consequences that 3 will follow if the other party does not comply." The first part of the threat, called the demand, may either seek to compel the hearer to do something ("If you don't do X, which I desire, then I shall do Y, Which harms you."), or to deter the hearer from an activity ("If you do A, which I dislike, then I will do B, Which you dislike."). 3 Paul Watzlawick, How Real is Real? (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), p. 107. 70 The concept of deterrence suggests that among the field of possible behaviors available to a person, only one (or a particular class) is forbidden and will result in punish ment. Coiripeilance, on the other hand, implies that among alternative behaviors, only one (or one class) is desired by the threatener, and must be enacted to avoid the punish- 4 ment. The second part of the threat, called the prediction of consequence, enumerates the possible outcomes for future behavior. The consequence may entail 1) the initiation of a negative stimulus ("Either you get in the tub, or else I'll spank you."), 2) the continuance of a negative stim ulus ("I'll stop torturing you when you give me the secret 5 information."),. or 3) the withdrawal/denial of a positive stimulus ("Either you eat all your vegetables or else you don't get any dessert."). The two demand types may be combined with the three types of consequences to produce six different types of threats: 1. (deterrence + initiation of negative stimulus) "Halt or I'll fire I" 4 Morton Deutsch, The Resolution of Conflict (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 125. 5 The unique feature of the continuance consequence is that the negative consequence is begun before the demand is issued, and is designed to persist until the demand is met. Ransom demands are usually made after the negative conse quence has been initiated, as in the kidnapping of valuable items. 71 2. (compellance + initiation of a negative stimulus) "Tell me where the money is or I'll break your arm. " 3. (deterrence + continuance of negative stimulus) "I'm not going to stop bothering you until you stop supporting Proposition #2." 4. (compellance + continuance of negative stimulus) "I've got your painting and I'm going to keep it until you pay me one million dollars." 5. (compellance + denial of positive stimulus) "If you kids don't behave yourselves, I'm never going to take you out to dinner again." 6. (deterrence + denial of positive stimulus) "If you' cheat on me I'll never make love to you again." As mentioned in Chapter One, threats may be both con ditional and unconditional. Essentially, the unconditional threat eliminates the demand element, issuing only the statement of consequence. Notice the difference: (conditional) "Step out of my way or else I am going to kill you." (unconditional) "I am going to kill you." The conditional threat includes a statement of demand with which the hearer may comply in order to avoid the conse quence . The conditional threat that leaves the statement of ___________ ' 72 consequence either vaguely worded or entirely eliminated is classified as an ambiguous threat. It is called ambiguous because in the absence of a clearly stated consequence, the hearer is left to imagine, out of uncertainty, what the exact nature of the punishment might be. Ambiguous threats are of at least three kinds. First, there is what may be called the unstated threat. In this case, the consequence is not mentioned at all. For example, imagine that a thief leaps out from behind a tree and accosts an unsuspecting citizen, demanding "You'd better give me your wallet!" The thief has not said what he will do if the victim fails to comply. The consequence is left to the imagination. Or, consider the irate employee who storms into the boss's office and forcefully declares "I've put up with this for as long as I can. I want a raise today." As the boss studies his employee's flushed face and tense gaze he wonders "What will my employee do if I don't give him a raise? Will he quit? Sabotage the busi ness? Sell company secrets to my competitor? Go on a hunger strike?" No one can say for sure, since the conse quence for noncompliance was left unstated. In our daily lives we see many unstated threats, worded as such perhaps to make them less offensive. For example: 1. "No Dumping" 2. "No Loitering" 73 3. "No Soliciting" 4, "No Parking" 5* "Speed Checked by Radar" Although the consequence is left unstated, we usually as sume that something will be done to those who disobey the demand, Another type of unstated threat is the illustration/ object lesson threat. When harrassed by a troublemaker, one might declare "Last week I hospitalized a guy for bothering me," The troublemaker is left wondering "What will he do to me? The same? Worse?" Julius Gettman noted in his research on union representation election cam paigns that certain behavior on the part of management can be viewed as a threat by its employees and hence, forbidden 6 by the National Labor Relations Board, For example, mem bers of management may not attend union campaign meetings. The presence of management is considered a threat to the employees present at the meeting, now exposed as union sym pathizers and fearful of future management retaliation, Nor may management- isSue illustration threats, such as "Lest year XYZ Company was shut down by its management only three months after it was unionized." Julius Gettman, Union Representation Elections; Law and Reality CNew York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1976). 74 A second type of ambiguous threat is the threat- 7 promise, or what Bowers calls the "thromise." The thro- mise is a message that combines the double contingency of the negative aspects of a threat and the positive aspects of a promise. If a kidnapper says to his victim "If you keep quiet, nothing will happen to you," he signals both a promise, of safety and a vague threat of harm. A third type of ambiguous threat may be termed the vaguely stated threat, or simply the vague threat. This type of threat is one in which the consequence is stated, but stated so broadly or equivocally that the receiver of the threat is still left to surmise the exact nature of the consequence. The language of international diplomacy’ is replete with vaguely worded threats: 1. "Continued resistence will result in the strictest of consequences." 2. "Soviet interference will not go unanswered." 3. "An attack on Afghanistan will be considered a direct attack on the interests of America, and America will respond appropriately." In fact, only rarely will a nation engage in blunt, expli cit threats that clearly spell out both demand and conse- 7 John Waite Bowers, "Beyond Threats and Promises," Speech Monographs, 41 (1974), ix-xi. 7/5 quence. In 196 2 the world stood on alert when then Presi dent John F. Kennedy issued the following threat to Russia: Ships carrying to Cuba weapons capable of striking the continental United States must either turn back or submit to search and seizure, or fight. If they try -to run the blockade, a warning shot will be fired across their bows; if they still do not submit, they will be attacked.8 Fortunately, Russia did not test the sincerity of the threat. The chief utility of the ambiguous threat, according to Deutsch, is its potential for creating an overestimation of the costs of noncompliance in the minds of the receivers. However, he points out several reasons why ambiguous threats are generally less effective than clearly stated threats. First, a vauge threat may create the impression that one has little power or intent to make good the threat. When one knows he cannot actually fulfill such a specific threat as "I'll break your nose," he must fall back on ambiguities, such as "I'll get you," or "You'll be sorry." Yet, by blustering in such generalities, one may only convince others of his real impotence. "After all, if one really has the determination and ability to benefit or harm the other sufficiently to motivate his compliance, why g New York Times, 23 October 1962, Sec. I, p. 1, col. 4. 76 would he want to be vague about this?"9 In response, one might argue, as would the diplomatic corps, that by eliminating ambiguity one limits his own options to respond. By declaring what he will do, the threatener implies what he will not do, thereby reducing his flexibility. In addition, by explicitly stating the consequence, the threatener gambles that it is sufficiently stern to induce compliance. If the target determines that he is more willing to absorb the predicted punishment than to comply, then the stated threat has failed it purpose. As in the field of persuasion, research in in fear/ threat communication has concentrated its attention on dis covering the effectiveness of such messages, in other words, treating it exclusively as an independent variable. Very little attention is paid to the important question of how to prevent threats from being effective, or how to resist threats. By comparison, William McGuire pioneered research focusing on inducing resistence to persuasion, which cul minated in his inoculation theory.Presently, however, too little research allows us to confirm or deny many of our intuitive notions of how to successfully negotiate our 9 Deutsch, p. 137. "^William McGuire, "Inducing Resistence to Persuasion: Some Contemporary Approaches," in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. I (NewlYork: Academic Press, 1964) , pp. 191-229. _______________________________________________________________________77 way past the coercive designs of others. That is not to say that nothing is known. Theorists in conflict and game theory do offer a variety of suggestions. Their insights are reviewed below for two reasons: 1) it represents the collective wisdom among social scientists with regard to threat-resistance, thus providing a brief "state of the art" report, and 2) it is hoped that the ideas and sugges tions presented will provide a springboard to future re search in this vital yet uncharted region. How to Make a Threat Work Paul Watzlawick, in his book How Real is Real?,^ ' de- tailed the elements of a threat necessary for its success. First, the threat must reach its target. In other words, the threat must be received by the threatened party and understood as a threat. Second, it must be convincing enough to be taken seriously. This may be accomplished in three ways. First, the threatener must be perceived as being capable of carrying out the threat. In 197 7 Anthony Kiritsis held off police for sixty-three hours with the threat that should they try a forced entry, he would de tonate twenty-five sticks of dynamite he had wired to explode. Kiritsis1 previous experience with explosives "^Watzlawick, pp. 106-117. 78 made his threat believable. He was a former West Point gun instructor who was well acquainted with firearms and ex plosives. In addition, it was learned that several days before the hostage incident, he had purchased twenty-five sticks of dynamite. Even though it was later discovered that Kiritsis had merely rigged up a lighted candle to dangle over an open container of gasoline, he was perceived as being capable of carrying out such a threat, and the police kept their distance. The second element of believability requires that the threatener be perceived as being willing to carry out the threat. At the end of World War II, America threatened to drop an atomic bomb on Japan if it refused to surrender. Although Japanese intelligence confirmed that such a bomb was being tested, it neither believed such a bomb was ready for use (capability), nor did it believe America would ever use such a weapon of wanton destruction. Only after two such bombs were dropped did Japan fully believe America to be both capable and eminently willing to carry out such a threat. In addition to making the threat believable, the threatener will enhance the effectiveness of the threat by convincing his target that the consequences for noncompli ance will be worse than the consequences for compliance. 79 In other words, the target must prefer compliance to pun ishment. For example, if a mother were to threaten her child, "Either you eat your minced egg plant or else no dessert," the child may likely prefer the punishment (fore going dessert), considering it less dreadful than the compliance of eating the egg plant. The third element of a threat necessary for it to be effective, according to Watzlawick, is that the target must be capable of complying with the threat. In other words, the threatener must believe that the target possesses the means to fulfill the demand. The hostage-taker will issue threats anticipating that all three elements will be present. Watzlawick states that if any of these ingredients are missing or can be elimina ted, the threat will fail. The job of the negotiator, then, is, in part, to create conditions that effectively neutralize the power of the threat while still preserving the safety of the captives. With regard to eliminating the first ingredient, it is unlikely that avoiding receiving the threat will provide a very useful means for resolving the crisis, but the theo retic concept of simply ignoring the hostage-taker is an intriguing notion. For example, what would happen if a terrorist group took over an embassy and its staff but nobody responded to hear their demands? Aside from this 80 hypothetical extreme, there are ways in which responding negotiators can create the illusion that they do not under stand precisely what they are supposed to do, which would be the equivalent of not receiving the threat, The purpose . of such, a ploy would be to buy time to allow tactical teams to get better situated, to gather vital information about the perpretrators, and to begin wearing the perpretrator down. This approach may be accomplished in a variety of ways. One way is to simply delay meeting with the hostage- taken until enough time has passed to cool the situation down and restore relative stability, Mike Wellins, Di rector of the Crisis Intervention Team for the City of Orange, California, suggests that a wait of between twenty minutes and an hour and a half before making initial con tact with, the perpetrator is not unreasonable. Until the hostage-taker can issue his demands, he can hardly expect negotiators to comply, Once the threat is received, the negotiator may feign confusion over just exactly what the threat means or what the perpetrator is actually demanding. In this way the negotiator is essentially saying, "I have not really re ceived the threat because I do not yet fully understand specifically what I am supposed to do." For example, the perpetrator may demand $500,000 and "a plane out of here." Immediately the negotiator may begin to request clarifica- 81 tion. He may say, "Five hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. How do you want it? In gold? Small bills? Unmarked? Can we give it to you in sequential serial num bers? Will one hundred dollar bills be all right? If we give it to you in small bills, that will be rather bulky. Do you want .us to put it in a sack? A suitcase? How do you want us to deliver the money to you? Will you come out and get it? Do you want us to deliver it to you? What assurance do we have that you won't shoot the courier or take him hostage as well?" With regard to the plane, the negotiator may request more information. "How do you want to get to the plane? By car? Bus? Walk? Where shall I get a vehicle? Do you want to leave at night or in the day? If you leave at night, I might be able to find you a plane, but I don't know about the day. They are all out. Where are you planning to go? I only ask this because I don't want to give you a Cessna if you expected to fly to Algeria." On and on the negotiator can go, requesting more clarification, pushing all decision making on the perpe trator, discovering what he will settle for, bargaining for concessions, fatiguing, frustrating, and driving the hostage-taker to make decisions to the tactical advantage of the police. Eliminating the second ingredient involves making the hostage-taker believe that his threat is not credible, a 82 dangerous ploy at best. The negotiator does not want to blatantly challenge the captor to "prove" he means what he says by actually shooting one of the victims. Neverthe less, the negotiator may try to suggest possible reasons . why carrying through with his threat is not in his own best interests. By suggesting to the perpetrator that "you don't really want to be here doing this," the negotiator may delicately signal his disbelief in the perpetrator's level of commitment. More specifically, he may say things like: 1. "We've got your record here. You're just not that kind of person. What is it that you really want?" 2. "Don't you think you'd much rather be out here where the air is fresh and the sun is shining, instead of cooped up in that cold, small room?" 3. "You don't really want to hurt anybody. You're just hurting and you want someone in this crazy world to listen to you. I understand and I am listening." 4. "If you come out now, all we've got on you is firing a gun within the city limits. Hell, you'll be out on bail this afternoon. Why don't you just let those people go?" By planting such suggestions in the hostage-taker's mind, the negotiator may cause him to eventually doubt his own commitment. Finally, Watzlawick suggests that a threat can be nullified if the target can establish that he is powerless to comply. If, for example, an extortionist were to demand 83 five million dollars from John Q. Citizen, the target could quite convincingly explain that he hasn't got that much money, nor is he even remotely capable of getting it from anyone he knows. But if the demand were for one thousand dollars, that would be a different story. If nothing else, he could take out a personal loan from the local bank to get the money. The point is, if one can convince the ex tortionist that the demand is impossible to meet, then the extortionist will likely renegotiate the demand and settle for less. Let me give you some examples. In 1974, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patricia HearSt and initially demanded that her father, Randolph Hearst, supply $400 million in food to feed "the poor people of California." Yet after effec tively portraying the demand as impossible to meet, the SLA scaled the demand down to $6 million. In 1975, seven South Moluccan terrorists seized the Indonesian consulate in Amsterdam, taking thirty-six hos tages and demanding that the Dutch government, which for years claimed colonial domination over much of the Indo nesian islands, recognize the nonexistent Republic of South Molucca, release twenty-five terrorists held in Dutch jails, and initiate U.N. mediation on Moluccan independence with Dutch, Indonesian, and Moluccan representatives. The Dutch government claimed that it was unable to help the 84 terrorists or the Moluccan cause because Indonesia was now an independent nation, over which Holland possessed no legitimate authority. In essence, the terrorists were told, "We'd like to help you, but there is nothing we can do." The Dutch government did, however, agree to discuss joint problems with Moluccan community representatives. The terrorists settled for this paltry counter-offer, released all of its hostages, and surrendered to authorities. Banks are now equipped with time locks that resist tampering. Therefore, during closing hours, bank personnel are quite believable when they state that they cannot get at the money until the bank opens. They are simply not able to comply with a midnight demand for money. By establishing a climate of helplessness, some organ izations are able to substantially reduce the amount of threats its members must face. Most late-night convenience stores post the sign: The clerk does not keep more than $50 in the cash drawer at any time. All excess is put into the store safe through a money slot. The clerk does not have the key. In this way, robbers are usually discouraged from preying upon an otherwise easy mark, since the clerk is unable to make the robbery worth the risk. Most taxi cab ;doors read "The driver does not carry more than five dollars in change at any time," for the same reason. Likewise, the American 85 government publicizes the fact that it will never pay a ransom for its diplomats if kidnapped. Although this stra tegy does not prevent some American diplomats from being harrassed or even killed as hostages, it is felt that far more would be terrorized if America demonstrated a willing ness to comply. As a result, most foreign kidnappers have turned their aim from government officials to employees of 12 bxg corporatxons, who have been more than wxlling to pay. For instande, in 197 4 the Exxon Corporation paid a reported $14.5 million for the safe return of its executive, Victor 13 Samuelson, from Argentinian terrorists. Of course, the counter-strategy to meet the potential plea of helplessness to comply would be for the threatener to, in turn, claim helplessness in preventing the negative consequence from occurring, if the target should refuse to comply. In such a case, the target is warned that he quite literally brings the punishment on himself. The San Fran cisco International Airport has a large sign in front of the short-term parking entrance reading "6 ft. 10 in. Maximum Height for all Cars." Beyond the "demand" sign 12 "Political Kidnapping: An Ugly Turn in the U.S.," United States News and World Report," 25 February 19 74, p. 25. 13 Nathaniel C. Nash, "Coverage in Case of Kidnapping," New York Times, 29 September 1974, Sec. III., p. 14, col. 3. 86 lies the consequence for noncompliance: a row of closely spaced solid iron balls suspended exactly six feet ten inches from the ground by metal chains. Should a driver refuse to comply with the height demand, he would bring the punishment on himself by driving into the iron balls, which would seriously damage his car. Puncture spikes placed across certain restricted parking areas with the sign reading "Stop! Severe tire damage if you proceed," serves the same function. Determinents of Threat Compliance In his book, The Resolution of Conflict, Morton Deutsch detailed nine aspects of a threat that determine whether or not the target is likely to comply with the 14 demand. Though untested, these assumptions provide use ful information in understanding the nature of a threat, why threats work, and conversely, how to prevent them from working. First, Deutsch suggests that threats are more com pelling when the threatener is perceived as having a legit imate right to coerce others. "When superior status or need justifies superior rights or claims, threats may be- 14 Morton Deutsch, The Resolution of Conflict (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973), pp. 124-142. 87 15 come acceptable." For example, a mother who threatens harm to anyone who disturbs the sleep of her critically ill child would more likely be obeyed than a woman who threat ens to harm anyone who makes noise in her vicinity. Kelly concurs, suggesting that the perceived legitimacy of a threat may be influenced by the legitimacy of the need that 16 gives rise to it. In addition, Deutsch states that threats may not be considered inappropriate, thus more likely to be effective, if they are directed at deterring action that the actor acknowledges he has no right to per form. So, for example, a police officer, whose job is maintianing law and order, is generally accorded the right to threaten harm to lawbreakers. Even members of the press bow to the blunt demands of police when ordered to remain outside police perimeters when covering a crime-in-progress story. Deutsch's second factor in determining the strength of a threat is the credibility of the person issuing it. This item relates to Watzlawick's point about the perceived believability of the threat. In addition, Deutsch main tains that threats that are not excessively difficult, "^Deutsch, p. 126. 1 f i H. H. Kelly, "Experimental Studies of Threats in Interpersonal Negotiations," Journal of Conflict Resolution, 9 (1965), 79-105. 88 painful, or costly to carry out in the event of noncompli-^ ance are inherently more believable than those that are burdensome, dangerous, expensive, or complicated to carry out. Heilman's research on the credibility of threats indicates that previous behavioral patterns affects a threatener's credibility. She notes that that promiser who carries out his promise develops a reputation that makes credible a subsequent promise or threat, whereas a threat ener who carries out his threat makes credible his future 17 threats, but not his future promises. Third, Deutsch points out that the magnitude of a threat will influence future compliance. He posits that the credibility of a threat will decrease as its magnitude increases. He reasons that, for example, the threat of being lashed twice is considerably greater than that of being lashed once, but the difference between twenty and nineteen is small psychologically. Thus, there would seem to be decreasing gain from increasing the magnitude of threats For example, Schell argues that the threat of nuclear holocaust transcends the rational notion of deterrence: For While it arguably makes sense to deter the foe from some action with the threat of a holocaust, it can never make sense to launch ■^Deutsch, p. 130. 89 the holocaust if the foe is not deterred, since there is no human purpose that can (justify extinction.18 Yet he points out that the very success of so monstrous a threat depends on its credibility. It would follow, then, that if compliant behavior is the desired objective, one would be advised to select a threat noxious enough to be shunned, yet palatable enough to be believed, Fourth, Deutsch states that the kinds of values ap pealed to will affect the potency of a threat. Knowing what to threaten is as critical as knowing "how much." For example, if one were to threaten "Either you buy me this coat or I won't love you anymore," the qualitative differ ence between the demand (coat) and the consequence (loss of love) make the threat less likely to work. Or, if someone wanting you to stop mowing your lawn at 6:30 a.m. threat ened to throw rocks at you, you may become even more malicious than compliant. Fifth, the target of the threat is suggested by Deutsch to be a critical factor in determining the threat's success. In other words, depending on which person is to receive the punishment for noncompliance, the receiver of 1 8 Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), p. 213. 90 the threat is likely to be more or less willing to comply. In this regard, there are only three general targets of a threat: 1) the person doing the threatening ("If you don't marry me I'll kill myself."), 2) the person of whom the compliant behavior is demanded ("If you don't marry me I'll kill you."), and 3) a third party ("If you don't marry me I'll kill your sister."). Deutsch hypothesizes that if one thinks that the threatener is not bothered by questions of legitimacy and is willing to be viewed as an outlaw, then threatening to harm a third party may seem much more potent 19 than a threat aimed directly at the receiver. In other words, I may be more willing to ailow punishment to come to myself, than to allow punishment to come to another for my behavior, particularly if that other person is important to me, such as a close friend or relative. For that matter, I may even recoil at the thought of harm inflicted on a total stranger as a result of my unwillingness to comply. Powell, in some related research, offers some answers to this question. He found that subjects were no moved to support a program of community fallout shelters when the consequences enumerated in certain fear-appeal messages were directed at members of the listener's family ] 9 Deutsch, p. 134. 91 than when they were directed at the listener himself.^® He did find significantly less support when the conse quences were focused on the more general "American soci ety." Powell suggests that concerns for personal safety are no more compelling than concerns for the safety of loved ones, but not as pressing when the third party is not emotionally tied to the receiver of a threat. Sixth, Deutsch includes the element of time as a possible facilitator in threat communication. "It seems safe to assert that, for most people, consequences that are remote in time are less potent than those that will occur 21 xn the near future." In other words, the perceived immediacy of risk works to influence one's decision to com ply. For example, if I were to issue the threat, "Either you fix mashed potatoes and gravy tonight or else in five years I will not buy you your anniversary present," the remoteness of the consequences would tend to dilute the sense of danger. Even if the other person did not comply, there is the possibility that I would forget about the threat, change my mind, need a favor which the other could use to cancel the threat, or many other mediating circum- 20 Frederxc Powell, "The Effects of Anxiety-Arousing Messages When Related to Personal, Familial, and Impersonal Referents," Speech Monographs, 32 (1965), 102-106. 21 Deutsch, p. 136. 92 stances that could occur in the interim. One reason that teenagers do not fear the health dangers of cigarette smok ing is the perceived remoteness in time of the consequence of cancer. The seventh element, the clarity and precision of the contingencies involved, refers to the relative ambiguity of the threat, a variable discussed earlier in this chapter (pp. 73-77). Deutsch asserts that threats are more likely to be effective if the redeiver clearly knows what is expected of him. In other words, the demand must be un- mistakeably precise. For example, the parental threat, "You'd better be good while I'm gone or there'll be no T.V. tonight," would be ineffective, in circumscribing the child's behavior, since in the child's mind it is unclear exactly how "be good" translates into behaviors. Leventhal agrees, stating that fear communications are likely to increase in effectiveness as recommendations for allevia- 22 ting the fear become more specific and clear. Deutsch points out two risks in expressing the consequences vaguely. First, the target is more apt to view the threat- ener with less credibility and more impotence for not 22 H. Leventhal, R. Singer, and S. Jones, "Effects of Fear and Specificity of Recommendations Upon Attitudes and Behaviors," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2 (1965), 20-29. 93 detailing exactly what will happen "if I don't." Second, if the threat must be implemented for noncompliance, it is likely that the disparity between what the target expected and what he actually suffered will make future threats less credible. This is because, in the face of uncertainty, many people imagine greater danger than actually exists. When the imagined danger is not realized, people tend to downplay their estimations of future danger. The ambiguous threatener runs the risk of developing a reputation for having "a worse bark than bite." Eighth, the style or manner in which the threat is communicated may affect the gravity with which it is re ceived. If, for example, it is expressed in a hesitant, non-confident style, the uncertainty of the vocal cues may lead others to doubt the intent or capability of the sender. The more convincing one can sound, the more likely the threat may be believed. Yet the question remains: what makes a person "sound" like he means it? In some cases, a calm, self-possessed voice may signify control and determination to carry out the threat, while in other cases a frantic, erratic voice may suggest the kind of mental instability that makes a person appear capable of doing anything if provoked. What constitutes a "convincing style" remains untested and unclear. Last, Deutsch suggests that the personal costs to the 94 threatener in fulfilling a threat influences the threat's effectiveness. Generally, the greater the personal cost relative to the cost to the target, the less effective the threat. At the point when the threat promises greater harm to the threatener than to the target, the target may choose to accept the punishment, satisfied that "it's going to hurt you more than it's going to hurt me." In summary, Deutsch offers nine suggestions how to increase a threat's likelihood of working: - 1. The threatener ought to be perceived as having a legitimate right to coerce others into certain behavior. 2. The threat must be believable. 3. The magnitude of punishment must not be out of proportion with the behavior desired. 4. The values appealed to ought to be consistent with the behaviors demanded. 5. The target of the threat ought to be someone per sonally committed to the one responsible for enacting the complying behaviors. 6. The implementation of the punishment ought to be promised to follow soon after demonstrations of noncompliance. 7. The demand and consequence should be clearly _ stated. 95 8. The threat should be expressed in a "convincing" manner. 9. The cost to the target should not be as great as the cost to the threatener. Averting the Fulfillment of a Threat Thomas Schelling, in his book, The Strategy of Con flict, offers several thoughts on how to avert the fulfill- 23 ment of a threat. First, he declares that one might simply carry out the complying behavior before the threat is ever made. The utility of this strategy is based on the conditions that 1) the threat would be inevitable and 2) resistance would be totally futile. In such a case, complying to an anticipated threat would tend to minimize the appearance of capitulation. Even though the behavior might be viewed as conciliatory, proactive behavior may create more of an illusion of power, control, and self- determination . Second, Schelling suggests that a target might arrange to share the risk of noncompliance with others, so that no one person would be left to face the full brunt of the punishment if it is implemented. Insurance companies may 23 Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960.) 96 serve as brokers for this diffusion-of-risk strategy, mini mizing any personal loss due to property damage. In this manner, the target may accurately and convincingly state that the threat is not sufficiently motivating, since he/she stands to lose little if the threat is carried out. Third, Schelling recommends that one can make it ap pear that he would gain in spite of the threat's fulfill ment, making the threat actually appear to be attractive. For example, religious reformers throughout history have preserved their own lives from a vengeful church establish ment by declaring that their martyrdom would only champion the cause of reformation and likely produce more support ers than all of the reformer's sermons put together. Fourth, Schelling echoes the advice of Watzlawick in stating that one might represent himself as unable to com prehend the threat. A threat unreceived cannot be obeyed. Additionally, "if the threatened person can be unavailable for message, or can destroy the communication channels, even though he does in an obvious effort to avert threats, 24 he may deter the threat itself." Finally, Schelling declares that perhaps the best of all strategies is the appearance of ignorance, obstinancy, ^Schelling, p. 38. 97 or simple disbelief. In support of this view, many hostage events have ended in peaceful surrender of the perpetrators when police officials flatly refused all of the captor's demands. Quite conceivably, the bold act of rejection may convey an attitude of either disbelief in the sincerity of the threat or genuine obstinancy. Imagine the frustration in such a case for the hostage-taker: "I can kill all of the hostages, but if the police don't care, then where am I?" By way of illustration, on September 27, 1974, five armed Dominican leftists kidnapped U.S. Information Officer Barabar Hutchison, took over the Venesualan consulate in Santa Domingo, seized seven more hostages, planted bombs throughout the consulate, and threatened to blow it up unless the American government paid one million dollars in ransom and that thirty-eight political prisoners be re leased from Dominican jails. The American government flatly refused to pay the money and Dominican President Balaguer refused to release any prisoners. Instead, the Dominican President ordered that food deliveries to the consulate be reduced to one shipment per day of sandwiches and water. On October 3, the terrorist leader issued new demands. "Upon moral reflection" and because one of the hostages had turned ill, he scaled down the demands to 98 merely the release of the political prisoners and safe con duct out of the country for both the prisoners and the terrorists. Balaguer again rejected the offer. After three more days of negotiation, Balaguer made an "absolute final offer": safe conduct out of the country for the terrorists alone in exchange for the safe return of the hostages. The offer was accepted. Deception Detection For most police negotiators a nagging question lingers throughout the negotiation process: "Does this character actually mean what he says? Will he reaily carry out his threat and kill his hostages, or is he lying?" In other words, negotiators must wrestle with the dilemma of dis tinguishing a real threat from a bluff. To assist in answering this important question, research in deception detection offers information. The rationale behind the study of deception detection is that the act of lying is thought to produce a certain level of anxiety at the thought of not being believed, which in turn may be manifested, or "leaked," through cer tain nonverbal cues. The study of deception detection, then, focuses around discovering consistent patterns of behaviors and vocal cues which typically indicate lyirtgI ' " 99 A large body of theory and research has been generated to try to explain how people lie, what physiological re sponses may result, and what cues observers should attend to in detecting deception. That vast literature will not be reviewed in total here, as it has been adequately syn- 25 thesized elsewhere. With relation to the hostage-taking situation, specific issues will be addressed here: 1) types of lies', 2) indicators of deception, and 3) accuracy of interpretation. First, lies may be categorized in at least three dif ferent ways: 1) amount of spontaneity (did the liar devise the lie on the spot or did he have time to prepare and re hearse the lie), 2) the relationship between the overt message and the covert message (The overt message refers to the manifest or expressed message, while the covert message represents the actual feeling of the communicator. These two variables will combine to create four arrangements: 1. positive overt message +.negative covert message "I had a great time (but I really didn’t)!" 2. positive overt message + positive, covert message "I had a great time (and I really did) i" 25 See for example Mark L. Knapp and Mark E. Comadena, "Telling it Like It Isn't: A Review of Theory and Research on Deceptive Communication," Human Communication Research, 5 (1979), 270-285; Bella M. DePaulo, Miron Zuckerman, and Robert Rosenthal, "Humans as Lie Detectors," Journal of Communication, 30 (1980), 129-139. 100 3. negative overt message + positive covert message "I had a terrible time (but I really didn't)!" 4. negative overt message + negative covert message "I had a terrible time (and I really did)!" The second and fourth configuration would be defined as truth-telling, since the relationship between the overt and covert message was consistent, but the first and third con figuration would be classified as lies, because of the in consistent overt/covert relationship.), and 3) lies may be classified by content: "factual" lies ("I've got a bomb in my briefcase."), or "emdtional" lies ("I'm not nervous."). The question of how liars and truth-tellers behave when uttering these types of messages has led to a long ■list of what are called indicators of deception. Prelimi nary investigations revealed several potential indicators: 1. Liars tend to move less, speak less and more slowly and with more speech errors, and smiled more than truthful communicators. 2. Facial expressions that contradict the verbal message (i.e., a flicker of contempt shown to a superior). 3. Vocal patterns that contradict the verbal message (i.e., saying "I'm not angry!" in an angry tone of voice). 4. Prolonged or exaggerated expressions that seem out of place for the context of the message (i.e., a smile that lingers too long, a frown that is too severe, a look of fear that lacks the proper blending of surprise). 101 5. Conflicting or contradictory expressions (i.e., a smile of pleasure with a knitted brow of concern, smiling lips with dead cold eyes, etc.). 6. Unnatural timing of expressions (i.e., trying to fake surprise at opening a present when you already know what is inside, difficulty in making the expression seem spontaneous, terminating the expression of an emotion too soon, etc.). 7. The appearance of nonverbal "adaptors." Nonverbal adaptors are habitual behaviors associated with satisfying self and body needs, such as grooming, scratching, smoothing, stroking, fidgeting, all of which were learned to produce comfort and project a satisfying image. When we experience discomfort for any reason, these adaptors may emerge to com pensate for that discomfort. Adaptive behavior may be an indicator or uneasiness about lying, but it can also just as easily be the result of shy ness, insecurity, fear, or any of a variety of physically or psychologically unpleasant feel ings .26 Recent research has revealed, however, that these in dicators themselves can mean both truth or deception, depending on the context. For instance, if the receiver is initially suspicious of the honesty of the speaker, then he may doubt the message more if it is preceded by a long hesitation. However, if the receiver perceives the source as reliable and trustworthy, the answer may become even more trusting if preceded by the same period of hesita- P. Ekman and W. V. Friesen, "Nonverbal Leakage and Clues to Deception," Psychiatry, 32 (1969), 88-106. 2 7 DePaulo, et al., p. 136. 102 Nevertheless, current thinking holds that several be haviors correlate with deception: self-adaptors, self grooming, postural shifts, nervous hand gestures, smiling, and responses that are vague, implausible, or lacking in 28 fluency. With regard to these behaviors, DePaulo cautions: ' r ' [A]ny deviation from a hum-drum response, whether in the direction of an overplay or an underplay, can serve to signal fraudulence to a vigilant observer. . . . In general, then, it appears that the kinds of cues or qualities that lead a speaker to be taken for. a liar include nervous fidgeting,; responses that appear implausible or uncertain, and replies that are a little too long or short, a little tpo quick or slow.29 With regard to the spontaneous vs. prepared liar, research has revealed an interesting twist in behavior. Subjects who had prepared lies in advance and were allowed to rehearse them were seen to behave no differently than truth-tellers in terms of message duration and eye con tact.^ However, speakers who were forced to lie spon taneously, that is without warning or time to prepare a reply, gave shorter, less plausible answers with longer ^DePaulo, et al., p. 136. DePaulo, et al., p. 136. 30R. E. Kraut, "Verbal and Nonverbal Cues in the Perception of Lying," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36 (1978), 380-391. 103 response latencies. Other studies suggest that the body may be the best place to look when the deceiver is lying about an emotion, but head or head/body may be better for factual decep- 31 tion. Hocking and Leathers found vocal cues the most reliable indicators of deception (over body cues, facial 32 cues, and eye contact). Those vocal cues include: a. nervousness b. sentence change c. number of "ah’s" d. number of pauses e. stutters f. rhythm g. word repitition h. speaking rate i. intruding sounds j. reaction time k. latency in response Consistent with that finding, Knapp* and Comadena reported that research comparing audio-only with audio/visual pre sentation methods found that the audio-only method rendered 31 Knapp and Comadena, p. 280. 32 John E. Hocking and Dale G. Leathers, "Nonverbal Indicators of Deception: A New Theoretical Perspective," Communication Monographs, 47 (1980), 129. 104 more accurate reports of deceptive messages than the audio/ visual method. "The condition which best approximates most real life situations, then, seems to elicit less accu- „ 33 racy." Research to determine which sex was more skilled at detecting deception has revealed that women are superior to men in judging the accuracy of message configurations in which the overt and covert message are the same, that is when the person is telling the truth, while men seem to be 34 better at interpreting deceptive messages accurately. "In decoding deceptions, then, women, are more likely to read what they are supposed to read than.what is actually ' true." Finally, Knapp and Comadena report that the degree of accuracy in judging factual information does not signifi cantly differ between spouses, friends, and strangers. Friends, however, were seen to be significantly more accurate than spouses and strangers in judging emotional information.^ 33 Knapp and Comadena, p. 2 80. Bella M. DePaulo and Robert Rosenthal, "Sex Differ ences in Eavesdropping on Nonverbal Cues," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37 (1979), 273-285. 3 5 DePaulo, Zuckerman, and Rosenthalp. 133. 36 Knapp and Comadena, 2 80. ______ 105 Based on these findings, four recommendations for hostage negotiators may be suggested. First, since pre pared liars do not seem to exhibit distinguishing behaviors from non-liars, then negotiators may safely ignore any pre pared message as an accurate indicator of truth or decep tion. He would more usefully work to force the perpetrator into a spontaneous lie by asking unexpected questions for which the subject was not prepared. Observing his reaction and response in these situations will probably provide a more reliable indicator of deception. Second, since abnormality or "significant deviation" from a normal response is suggested as the best standard by which to judge usual indicators of deception, the negotia tor should observe the perpetrator's behavior during the expression of truthful messages (for which the accuracy can in fa<bt be corroborated) to be used as an anchor or tem plate by which to judge nonverbal behavior during these spontaneous reply drills. For instance, floor plans of the building may inform the negotiator that the building has a back door. He may then ask the perpetrator if the building has a back door, then observe not only his reply, but all relevant vocal and body (if visible) cues. By running through a series of such questions, the negotiator may acquire more sensitivity as to the perpetrator's lying and truthful behavior. Knapp and Comadena concur, stating 106 that "if the observer has seen the deceiver in previous en counters, or has some benchmark of honest communications in . . . 37 a similar situation, accuracy may be facilitated." Third, phone communication with the perpetrator may be more useful than visual face-to-face encounters in provid ing the negotiator with accurate indicies of deception. As 3 8 both Knapp and Comadena and Hocking and Leathers agree, vocal cues alone provide reliable indicators of deception, while body cues may confuse or even cause the observer to deny the deceptive cues in the vocal report. As an inter esting side note, one piece of research showed that sub jects who were lying over an intercom and not aware that they were being observed as well, were readily detected as 39 ■ liars. Obviously, when one does not believe he is being seen, the "mask" drops, and accurate facial cues become apparent. The possibilities for the negotiator in detect ing deception in this regard are intriguing. It may be possible (though perhaps not likely) for a hostage-taker to be seen, through a window or some other means, as he is speaking over the phone to the negotiator. If he does not believe he is being observed, he may be less careful to 37 Knapp and Comadena, p. 280. p p Knapp and Comadena, p. 2 80; Hocking and Leathers, p. 128. 39 Knapp and Comadena, p. 2 80. 107 control his facial cues while speaking, and thus uninten tionally provide vital information to police about his level of sincerity. Fourth, it may be useful to include a trained police woman as part of the negotiating team ( ‘ whenever possible) to consult with in making determinations of truth or de ceit. Since women have been shown to more accurately and consistently detect truth, they may be helpful in assisting the negotiator in his effort to estimate the level of the subject's sincerity. Content Analysis Although much of the work in deception detection cen ters around the observation of nonverbal cues as indica tors of lying, the actual verbal message itself may provide clues to the trained observer that can aid in dis tinguishing a lie from truth. Most major criminal investigating departments retain "document analysts" who look for clues in handwriting, typewriting, spelling, style in written messages or voice patterns in recorded ones, to help identify potential sus pects. But few are skilled in distinguishing crank letters from deadly throats simply by reading the content. Murray S. Miron's computer analysis research in coercive communi cation accords him prominence in a field where few stand 108 out.40 For the past eight years Miron, a psychologist and professor of psycholiguistics at Syracuse University, has analyzed thousands of actual threat messages, including bomb threats, kidnap ransom notes, suicide threats, extor tions, assassination threats, and hostage confrontations. Miron disects these messages, supplied to him by the FBI, Secret Service, and police departments, through extensive content analysis to evaluate the seriousness of the threat. Although Miron staunchly refuses to publicize his own findings on how to detect real threats from fakes, he has provided a few simple examples to help clarify his method of analysis.v For example, on one occasion a threat spoke of "sixteen bombs" planted around a building, a number so unlikely that police figured (correctly, as it turned out) that the threat was only a fake. In other cases, the nature of the demand itself may indicate the volatility of the perpetrator. Miron finds it easier to deal with cases involving straightforward demands for money because the motives are generally simpler and the person ality of the perpetrator less dangerously fragile. In a recent kidnapping case which Miron worked on, the kidnapper 40 See for example Murray S. Miron and Thomas A. Pas-, quale, "Psychololinguistic Analysis of Coercive Communica tion, " ^ (1978), 95-120. 109 told a wealthy executive "I want the money/ that's all. I'm 41 not going to hurt the kid unless I don't get the money.” Miron revealed a "fake threat" letter to a small city mayor to demonstrate some of the clues to look for: We have taken a contract on you and your wife. Do not try to inform the police or your wife will be the first to go. Believe me, I will be informed if you contact the police. To buy back you life's [sic] our organization must have $30,000 in small bills ($10 & $20) please. Do not send marked bills or have the police at the pickup point because we have that all staked out. To make the delivery, you will drive Friday Sept 12th at 9:00 P.M. on Highway #56 to Lumpkin Road, turn left on Lumpkin. When you get to Highway #56, cross 56. Still on Lumpkin Road. About one mile you will see a dump on the right, stop! I wafct you there at 9:00 P.M. not before' or after. A chopper will land at 9:05 and collect. When we reach Hqs. the contract will be lifted. If not you will be dead in 48 hours. , — Sinn Group Leader #1 As Miron explained, this letter represents enough evidence 42 of juvenile fantasy to make one immediately suspicious. The language is filled with T.V. police show slang like "contract," "chopper," and "all staked out." Terms such as "our organization" and "Hqs." seem meant to inflate the importance of "Sinn Group Leader #1," a name reminiscent of 41 Berkeley Rice, "Between the Lines of Threatening Messages," Psychology Today, 15 (1981), 62. 42 . Rice, p. 60. 110 known terrorist groups. There are other clues of youthful bluster: the "please" attached to the demand for money, and a ransom for only $30,000, which could only seem impressive to a teenager. Additionally, Miron notes that threats such as "you will be killed" or "you will be dead" seem passive, impersonal, and therefore less dangerous than "I will kill you." As it turned out, the mayor, who.received the threatening letter, spent a nervous few days until the weekend passed without incident. Although the letter writer was never caught, Miron remains convinced that it 43 was merely the expression of a "juvenile ego trip." In a more detailed explanation of his method of com puterized content analysis of threats, Miron revealed the results of an analysis of thirty-six suicide notes, which he insists are a type of coercive threat. These notes were written by males and females, ages twelve to twenty- one. The notes were obtained from police files in two eastern cities. Half of them were successful in their suicide attempt, the other half failed for a variety of reasons. Miron was interested to discover if an analysis of the threat notes themselves could reveal significant linguistic differences between them that would enable one to predict - without knowing anything else about the > 43 Rice, p. 60. Ill writer - which ones would succeed in their attempt and which, ones would fail, Although his analysis was ipso facto and has not yet been tested without prior knowledge of the outcomes/ his study did find clear distinctions. The notes of those whose suicide attempts resulted in death were 1) shorter, 2) contained fewer references to other people, 3) fewer references to physical surroundings, 4} fewer references to will or authority, and 5) more references to emotions and principles. Miron describes this pattern as that of an "alienated, egocentric person who does not relate to the surrounding social or physical world and who is unable to find structure or purpose in life. This group made certain to choose a method of self^ 44 destruction that had little chance of failing." On the other hand, the survivors' notes were 11 longer, 2) contained fewer expressions of their own emotions, and 3} usually included references to physical surroundings and other people, such as "You'll be sorry when I'm gone," or "You've hurt me for the last time-" According to Miron, these expressive threats represent a type of subtle extortion, threatening to hurt someone else by committing suicide. He does not find it surprising that such threats do not result in death, since one must survive 44 Rice, p, 62 112 in order to enjoy the effects of the threat. Interestingly enough, the survivors chose such means as an overdose of sleeping pills, even calling someone to announce the threat, thereby increasing the likelihood of failure. Miron’s published study of his procedure for describ ing the content of the seven tapes recorded by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 is evidence of the detailed complexity of his computer analysis of threat 45 messages. 1 The'fitst!step was to construct a computer dictionary which contained a large number of words and phrases which could be classified into categories of im portance in terrorist acts. So, for example, the category of "destruction" in this dictionary represented all those phrases and terms such as "kill," "bomb," and "blow away" which might occur in the text. The computer dictionary is able to distinguish semantic word twists by scanning the way the word or phrase is used in the context. For ex ample, the word "pig" which is often used in such messages, is usually assigned to the category "Denigration - Low Status" rather than as a farm animal, by examining pre ceding words for membership in the category "Institution." Hence, "fascist pig" and "corporate.pig" are people, while 4 5 Miron and Pasquale. 113 "delicious pig" and "roasted pig" are animals.^ In analyzing the seven SLA communications, Miron con structed a dictionary of eighty-five categories which accounted for approximately sixty percent of all signifi cant word occurences of the messages. These categories were developed mainly from a pool of 847 categories of the "threat analysis dictionary," already devised by several other reseachers working on similar content analysis prob- 47 lems. As the text xs scanned by the computer diction ary, the frequencies of occurences of words assigned to each category are printed as a profile of the message. The next step is to take these frequencies in each category and relate them to every other category in order to detect patterns of similarities of category use. These patterns, in turn, are then examined by the computer to determine the essential attributes or central themes contained in the message. The pattern of themes serves as an explanation of the nature of the message. Richard Velde, then Deputy Administrator of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), and now the 46 . Murray Miron and Arnold P. Goldstexn, Hostage (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979), p. 76. ^See P. Stone, D. Dunphy, M. Smith, and D. Ogilvie (eds.), The General Inguirer: A Computer Approach to Content Analysis (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1969). 114 Director of the LEAA, in his testimony before the House Committee on Internal Security, has said of this approach: A proposal currently being reviewed and which is receiving serious consideration is one by Professor Murray S. Miron, Professor of Psycho linguistics at Syracuse University. This project, entitled "Semantic Analysis of Threat Communications," would seek to achieve an understanding of the personality dynamics of those individuals who employ threats of violence or property damage as a central part of their criminal behavior. Threats and sub sequent behavior would be studied to form the basis of a threat analysis dictionary. Such a dictionary could be used to auto matically scan threat communications as they are received in as attempt to identify the predicted outcome and courses of action contained within the threat. As a result, police responsiveness to particularly threat ening communications could be improved mark edly. 4 8 Yet Miron is the first to admit that his method is not foolproof. "It's fairly accurate in general, but in spe cific applications, we're only guessing. It's still more 49 of an art than a science." In 1977 a Colorado judge ruled that the jury not be allowed to hear Miron's analysis of an extortionist's written threars, stating: This psycholinguistic analysis is somewhat like searching into the mental activity of the particular individual. Now, I agree, or I would concede, that this science can be 4 8 Cited in Miron and Goldstein, p. 77. 49 Rice, p. 52. 115 helpful in an investigative procedure. I think you can ferret out things with this method, all right. But when you come to determining the guilt or innocence of a person charged with a crime on this type of testimony . . . I wouldn't feel comfortable. I don't think the science has developed to that p o i n t . 50 Miron agrees. "It's still far too experimental for 51 that." Nevertheless, Miron's approach to interpreting threat messages enjoys firm support within law enforcement circles. The repeat business he continues to receive from the FBI and other police departments suggests to him that he must be doing something right. Richard Gallagher, for mer FBI Assistant Director in charge of the Criminal In vestigative Division, stated, "To be honest, I don't com pletely understand the stuff he does with his computers, but I'm only interested in the bottom line: is this threat real or not? As far as I'm concerned, on threat analysis 52 he's the best in the business." Compliance-Gaining Strategies Researchers in the field of persuasion typically focus attention on why people comply rather than how one goes 50 Cited in Rxce, p. 64. ^Rice, p. 64. Rice, p. 54. 116 about gaining compliance. The extensive research with such variables as conformity and persuasibility is generally of this former type. Yet, the hostage negotiator is often more . immediately concerned with how to obtain the compli ance of the perpetrator rather than the more philosophic question of why such people might comply. The negotiator must be equipped with a wide range of strategies upon which to draw in particular instances to affect obedience. Ideally, the negotiator will work toward committing the perpetrator to surrender both himself and the hostage. At minimum, the negotiator will seek to discourage the perpe trator from harming anyone else. What, then, does the literature in persuasion offer as specific strategies which may be useful in obtaining compliant behavior? In 19 67 Gerald Marwell and David Schmitt'generated a list of sixteen compliance-gaining strategies, a synthesis of most of the previous research to that time, which attempted to formulate various dimensions of compliance- 53 gaining behavior. The relevance of the Marwell and Schmitt formulation for the purposes of this study is their interest in enumerating exclusively short-term com pliance attempts. Although long-term compliance is im- 5 3 Gerald Marwell and David Schmitt, "Dimensions of Compliance-Gaining Behavior: An Empirical Analysis," Sociometry, 30 (1967), 350-364. portant to our lives, they argue that the phenomena of short-term and long-term compliance place premiums on dif ferent kinds of techniques. For example, the use of a "moral obligation" strategy tends to be effective for short-term compliance, but not for long-term, since its emotional underpinning tends to erode over time. There fore, in order to avoid confusion or misleading readers into false expectations for certain persuasive strategies, they hold that taxonomies should distinguish between those techniques applicable for long-term goals and those most appropriate for activating only immediate behavior. Clearly, hostage situations call for a predominant focus on short-term strategies, since the immediate action of surrender is all that is desired. Perpetrators are not expected to perpetuate a predisposition toward surrendering behavior. In fact, so short-term are the desired behaviors that in most cases the sweet-talk, buddy-buddy approach used to mollify the hostage-taker ends abruptly when he surrenders his weapon. In some cases, captors have been shot dead by police marksmen the moment they lowered their 54 weapons. In any case, since the Marwell-Schmitt taxonomy focuses on short-term strategies, it is particularly appro- 54 See for example New York Times, 29 May 1977, Sec. I, p. 20, col. 3; New York Times, 20 March 1978, Sec. I, p. 19, col. 4. 118 priate to present, explain, and illustrate each strategy as possible alternative persuasive devices in hostage confron tations . 1. Promises. One might activate behavior by offering to reward the person who complies with your wishes. For example, one might promise, "Son, if you get good grades, I'll increase your allowance." Deutsch suggests that one 55 should carefully consider the implications of a promise. Since its success requires that the promise be delivered, a promise can be more costly thah a threat, whose success does not require its fulfillment. For example, if I want my son to get better grades, I can issue a promise, "If you get better grades, I will increase your allowance." If the promise works and my son markedly improves his scholas tic performance, I must then make good the promise and fork over the money,•or else face the loss of credibility for not being true to my word. On the other hand, I can issue a threat, such as "If you don't get better grades, I'll ground you for a month." If the threat works, and I obtain the complying behaviors I desire, I don’t have to fulfill the threat. A successful threat costs me nothing, if you discount the loss of respect I may suffer t - C Morton Deutsch, The Resolution of Conflict (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973), pp. 138-139. 119 through my use of intimidation. The question of whether or not to issue promises and what specifically can be promised is an important one for the hostage negotiator, because while the promise is a potent strategy, one must be ready to deliver on the prom ise if the perpetrator decides to accept the terms. For example, in 1977 Corey Moore was talked into surrendering himself and his hostage unharmed in return for a promised phone conversation with the President of the United States. Early on in the negotiations, President Carter agreed that he would be willing to talk to Moore if he surrendered. Yet, after Moore agreed and turned himself in, officials advised Carter against honoring the' promise, fearing that it would encourage many similar incidents from crackpots who would be willing to go to jail just to get to talk to the President. Nevertheless, Carter honored the promise and spoke briefly with Moore over the phone while Moore was in jail. 2.~Threats. The nature and function of threats have been subtantially discussed earlier. Suffice it to say that as Marwell and Schmitt indicate, the use of threat is one way to secure complying behavior. 3. Expertise (Positive). This strategy is similar to a recommendation, based on one's knowledge about "the nature of things." So, for example, an auto mechanic 120 might tell me that I ought to buy a foreign made car because "they have fewer repairs." The effectiveness of this appeal relies on the credibility of the speaker as one who "ought to know." So, in other words, the positive expertise strategy is a statement of what good things will happen to the target if he complies, simply because "that's the way life is." 4. Expertise (Negative). This strategy is similar to a warning. It spells out the bad things that will natu rally occur if compliance does not follow. It is not a threat, since the one issuing the message is quite power less to make the negative consequence occur.For example, a doctor may warn a patient, "If you don't take this medicine, you're going to get sicker." Mothers often use this type of strategy to gain compliance from their children: "You'd better put.on your coat or you'll catch a cold." Again, the success of the expertise method depends in large part on the perceived credibility of the message sender. 5. Liking. This strategy stipulates that the actor become very friendly and helpful to the target in order to get that person to like him in return. This is designed to 56 For a more detailed discussion on the differences between a warning and a threat, the reader is referred to Chapter 4, pp. 23 4-239. 121 put the target into the right mood for when the actor makes the request. So, for example, the stereotypic wife may act vary warm and loving to her husband in order to "soften him up" for her request that he buy her a new dress. 6. Pre-Giving. The pre-giving strategy calls for the actor to reward the target before requesting compliance. So, for example, the father who wants better grades from his son might first raise his allowance and then state that he now expects to see better grades. 7. Aversive Stimulation. Marwell and Schmitt dis tinguish the aversive stimulation approach from the general category of threats, presumably because they consider a pure threat the declaration of a future punishment for non- compliance. Aversive stimulation is to the threat what "pre-giving" is to the promise. In other words, the aversive stimulation approach requires that the actor first punish the target, then continue to punish the target until compliant behaviors result. For example, the father may take his son's car keys away and state, "You aren't going to use the car until your grades improve." 8. Debt. The debt method requires that the actor remind the target of all the past favors that the actor extended to the target, and that in fact "you owe me this favor." So, the wife might try to get her husband to take her out to dinner by saying, "I've cleaned the house, did 122 the dishes, washed the clothes, cooked the meals, and run errands for you all week long. The least you can do is take me out to dinner tonight." This strategy coordinates well with the pre-giving strategy, as the one seems to naturally follow from the other. 9. Moral appeal. The moral appeal is one in which the actor appeals to the target's sense of right and wrong (however that may be defined) to get the target to behave a certain way. For example, if a student found a radio in an empty classroom, his friend might advise that "you'd better take the radio to lost and found. It wouldn't be right to keep it." 10. Self-Feeling (Positive). The positive self- feeling technique entails that one suggest to the target that he would feel better about himself if he complied. A person's self-esteem is considered a potent motivating force. One's feeling of self-wroth will color perceptions of authority, self-evaluations of intelligence, talent, appearance, and the amount one is willing to conform to the wishes and expectations of others. It then seems reason able to expect that a person will act in certain ways if he believes it will enhance his feeling of self-worth. So, for example, one might encourage another to start a jogging program by saying "you'll feel better about yourself if you do. " 123 11. Self-Feeling (Negative). Still within the realm of appeals to self-esteem, the alternative approach would be to predict how much worse a person would feel about him self if he did not comply. Intuitively, it would seem that to predict that positive self-worth would result from a certain behavior would imply that a feeling of negative self-worth would result from noncompliance. However, one might, for example, feel good about taking a pet home from the pound, whereas one might not feel bad about choosing not to do so, unless one is clearly shown the consequences of such inaction (i.e., that the animals are suffering, being put to death, sold to less-caring owners or in less- appealing surroundings, being sold to laboratories for the conduct of painful experiments, etc.). So, to assert that "you will feel badly about yourself if you do not comply" requires that the target must comprehend the implications of his refusal. 12. Altercasting (Positive). The altercasting ap proach calls for the target to engage in a bit of momentary role-playing by asking him to imagine what a person with "good" qualities would do in a similar situation. Since most people want to see themselves as "good;" they may endeavor to match this internal perception with consistent behavior, . In 1977, when the Hanafi Muslim terrorists seized the three Washington, D.C., public buildings, taking 124 134 hostages,-an integral part of the negotiation process involved a strong dose of positive altercasting. Having captured the buildings to broadcast their re ligious outrage at certain anti-muslim activities (such as the release of the film "Mohammed - messenger of God," which this group found disrespectful to their prophet Mohammed)* the terrorists put themselves in the awkward position of justifying their own violence in light of the teachings of the Koran, the Muslim Bible. Experts in the Islamic faith and the teachings of the Koran took part in the negotiations, pleading with the captors to behave con sistently with the faith which they sought to champion. An oversimplified version of this altercasting argument would be as follows: a. You burst into the buildings and took hostages to protest the fact that the Koran is being disgraced. b. By your outrage, you appear to be devoted to the teachings of the Koran and see yourselves as committed disciples to its precepts. c. Would not, then, a devoted follower of the Koran seek to emulate all of its teachings, specifically its call for mercy, love, and longsuffering kindness? d. Therefore, if you really were what you want us to believe, then you should let the innocent hostages go. The terrorists did just that! 125 13. Altercasting (Negative). The reverse of the pos itive altercasting strategy posits that only a person with "bad" qualities would not comply. As in the case of the positive and negative self-feeling strategy, the positive and negative altercasting technique often go hand-in-hand when applied to a specific target. In another example, my three year old son often responds predictably to both pos itive and negative altercasting when I appeal to his desire to be "a big boy." If I want him to eat his vegetables, I might say that "big boys get to.stay up late and watch T.V.; big boys get to have dessert and go on special trips; big boys get to do special projects; but big boys also eat their vegetables. If you want to do all these fun things, then you have to show me that you are a big boy by eating your vegetables" (positive altercasting). I also engage in negative altercasting: "Stop whining. Only babies whine. Are you a baby?" (to which he emphatically shouts "NO!"). "Then don't whine." Checkmated, he silently fumes, not quite old enough to figure his way out of that double bind. 14. Altruism. In the altruism strategy the actor seeks the compliance of the target simply because "I need you to do it for me." This strategy relies upon one's capacity or willingness to help others for no other reason than because of their condition of need. Hitch-hikers and car-trouble victims often gain compliance from passing 126 motorists to stop and help simply because of their own apparent state of helplessness. Children often take the altruism approach in trying to persuade their parents to do something, understandably because of their actual state of dependency. So the girl might turn to her father and ask to be driven to the school to see a special basketball game, because "I don't have a driver's license, so I need you to take me, please." 15. Esteem (Positive). Abraham Maslow suggested in 1954 that one of man's most pressing needs was to be well 57 thought of by others. To satisfy this need we take gobs, accept responsibilities, achieve lasting goals, and make substantial civic contributions. Even the selection of the car we drive, the clothes we wear, and the size of house we buy may be motivated by our concern over what others may think of us. It seems likely, then, that this need for social esteem can be a powerful motivating force in gaining compliance of others. If a person can be convinced that such complying behaviors will significantly enhance others' estimation of him, he will likely obey readily, particu larly if those "others" are important to him. In hostage confrontations, the element of esteem is a 57 Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (New York: Harper and Row, 19 54). 127 critical consideration in devising strategies for resolving the crisis. For many terrorists, backing down would cause them to lose face with others in the terrorist organiza tion. In the 1972 Black September terrorist group takeover of the Israeli embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, the surrender of the terrorists in exchange for their safe passage out of the country was strongly criticized by the Black September organization, who felt that the "cowardous" of these per petrators caused the organization to lose reputation. Therefore, the pressure that some terrorists may feel to gain the approval of their peers can make the work of the negotiator most difficult. If it appears that the esteem of "significant others" is a major barrier preventing the hostage-taker from backing down and surrendering, the nego tiator may seek to satisfy this very need, thereby removing the main obstacle to their compliance. For example, in the Bangkok negotiation efforts, officials argued that the very act of taking over the embassy and drawing media attention to the cause of the Black September organization was an important accomplishment in itself and that the terrorists could be well satisfied that their primary goal in the : takeover was met. "Therefore," concluded the negotiators, "wouldn't it make the endeavor complete to be able to escape unharmed to continue to work for the cause in which you believe?" In the face of their other frustrated de- 128 mands, the terrorists accepted their small media gains as pleasing to their peers, and surrendered. Simple loss of face by society in general can halt the resolution of a hostage event with a common bank robber. After having issued wild threats of death and destruction, the robber may find peaceful surrender too embarrassing. With television cameras recording every new development, he realizes that the whole country may see him back down. To meet this problem, experts offer two suggestions. First, if at all possible, have all television cameras removed from the scene so that surrender cannot be broadcast on national television news. Second, Miron recommends that certain criminals be led out in handcuff: This is delicate. You shouldn't, of course, threaten arrest, but you can make it clear by implication that your presence as a law enforcement officer implies that he will come with you. The point is that the world can plainly see when you emerge to gether that you prevented him from taking his life, that he wanted to and was prepared to do it, but you stopped him.58 16. Esteem (Negative). Again, the reverse of the pos itive strategy becomes an equally compelling approach. The negative esteem strategy involves telling the target that if he does not comply, others important to him will think r o Miron and Goldstein, p. 11. 129 less of him. A few years ago, the college where I teach initiated a special fund raising campaign for some worthy cause. Each member of the faculty was requested to donate ten dollars, twenty dollars, or whatever they could. To keep everyone abreast of the progress of the campaign, a sheet was posted on a prominent bulletin board which not only provided overall money totals but listed each and every faculty name, indicating after each name how much (if any) they had donated. There my name appeared, naked to the world without a donation pledge attached to it. The pressure I felt to comply with the donation request was in large part due to the loss of esteem I feared by my more generous colleagues. Recent Refinements However, the hostage negotiator may look at these six teen strategies and wonder which ones have the greatest likelihood of success in the situation for which he finds himself. In partial answer to this dilemma, Miller, Boster, Roloff, and Seibold conducted a study designed to refine the sixteen-strategy model in terms of its utility 59 in various contexts. They measured each strategy's util- C Q Gerald Miller, Frank Boster, Michael Roloff, and David Seibold, "Compliance-Gaining Message Strategies: A Typology and Some Findings Concerning Effects of Situa tional Differences," Communication Monographs, 44 (1977), 37-51. 130 ity in terms of the relationship between the two communi cators (interpersonal or ngninterpersonal) and in terms of the impact of the persuasive attempt on the people in volved (short-term consequences or long-term consequences). The table below summarizes their findings. TABLE 2 COMPLIANCE-GAINING STRATEGIES: LIKELIHOOD OF USE INTERPERSONAL Short-Term Consequences Long-Term Consequences Likely Strategies Altruism Threat Altercasting - ( + ) Altercasting (+) Liking Altruism Liking Promise Unlikely Strategies Moral Appeal Esteem (-) Aversive Stimulation Self-Feeling (-) Esteem (-) Aversive Stimulation Threat Debt Pre-Giving Esteem (+) 131 TABLE 2 - CONT. ' .NONINTERPERSONAL Short-Term Consequences Long-Term Consequences Likely Strategies Threat Expertise (+) Promise Expertise (-) Liking Altruism Expertise (+) Promise Liking Debt Altercasting (+) Unlikely Strategies Moral Appeal Aversive Stimulation Source: Miller, Boster, Roloff, and Seibold, p. 45. Particularly interesting are the following patterns: 1) positive altercasting and altruism are a likely strat egy choice in both ihterpersonal contexts and for non interpersonal relationships with long-term consequences, 2) the liking strategy was seen as preferred in all situ ations, 3) aversive stimulation was almost always unlikely to be used, 4) the debt strategy seems to have relevance only for long-term consequences, yet in the interpersonal context it seemed unlikely while in the noninterpersonal context it seemed likely, and 5) aversive stimulation and negative esteem strategies seem to have no place in the 132 interpersonal context. Applications for the hostage negotiator seem clear. Since his relationship with the hostage-taker will of ne cessity be noninterpersonal (since the two will know little to nothing of each other at the outset of the negotiation interaction), the noninterpersonal category will have greatest application. As far as consequences, the negotia tor must be concerned with both short-term and long-term effects. He will focus on short-term effects because of the immediate and pressing need to secure the freedom and safety of the hostages, at all costs. However, he must be be mindful of the long-term effects of his strategy selec tion, both for the perpetrator he is speaking to and for future potential hostage-takers who may be watching the event. Therefore, the strategies that seem to have the greatest likelihood of utility are 1) promise, 2) liking, and 3) positive expertise, since these appear as likely choices in the noninterpersonal context for both short- and long-term consequences. In a more recent study, Clark identified categories of persuasive strategies according to the primary objectives 6 0 of the message. These categories are: 6 0 Ruth Anne Clark, "The Impact of Self Interest and Desire for Liking on the Selection of Communicative Stra tegies," Communication Monographs, 46 (1979), 257-273. 133 1. Instrumental Objectives; those strategies primar ily designed to get action at all cost, including threats, commands-, and promises: "If you don't do X, I'll punish you." "I'm afraid you're just going to have to do X." "If it's excitement you want, there are better ways to get it than what you are doing." "If you don't do X,•I'11 reward you." 2. Interpersonal Objectives: thpse strategies that are primarily designed (aside from requesting compli ance) to affect the interpersonal relationship of the communicators, either positively or negatively: "Like you, I know how hard it is to live under the pressures of society." "I really want to help you." "I'm Certainly not out to get you." "You've got some good ideas on your part." "The decision is up to you." "Listen up, jerk!" "Boy, are you in big trouble." 3. Identity Management of the Communicator: those strategies that directly enhance the image of the one issuing the request: "I really hate to have to do this to you." "I know that I look like part of the problem to you. " 134 "I'm only doing my job and it's for your own good." "Your welfare means more to me than my job." 4. Identity Management of the Recipient: those strata egies that define the image and self-worth of the recipient of the request, either positively or negatively: "You've never done anything like this before." "I can see why you feel the way you do." "Someone as bright as you should be able to keep a cool head." "You had just as many reasons to do this before now but you didn't." "You've created problems for a lot of people." "If you were as decent as you say, you wouldn't hurt these people." Clark sought to discover which strategies would be most likely to be chosen under each of the following four conditions: 1. High interest in obtaining the desired behavior and a high interest in maintaining a positive relationship with the recipient 6f the request. 2. High interest in obtaining the desired behavior and a low interest in maintaining a positive relationship with the recipient of the request. 135 3. Low interest in >obtaining the desired behavior and a high interest in maintaining a positive relation ship with the recipient of the request. 4. Low interest in obtaining the desired behavior and a low interest in maintaining a positive relation ship with the recipient of the request. Quite clearly, the hostage negotiator will be primarily 4 concerned with the first condition, that of securing the desired -action and maintaining a positive relationship with the hostage-taker. Obviously, if the hostage-taker is antagonized by the negotiator’s method of persuasion, as with a threat, he may very likely be less willing to com ply. Therefore, both action and relationship will be high priorities in all negotiation appeals. Clark found that those communication strategies which best serve the need for action froxii each category were: 1. Instrumental objectives: threat,("If you do X, I'll punish you."), and'warning ("If you do X, these negative consequences will naturally happen.") 2. Interpersonal Objectives: Explicit statement of liking or concern ("I really like you and want the best for you." 3. Identity Management of the Communicator: Justifying use of authority from perspective either of com municator or recipient ("I'm only doing my job and 136 its for your own good.") 4. Mangement of Identity of Recipient: Positive alter casting ("Someone as bright as you should be able to keep a cool head."), and casting criticisms in the form of hypothetical illustrations about some one other than recipient ("If someone were in financial trouble, the solution isn't to rob a bank. ") Clark found that those communication strategies that best serve the need for the maintanence of relationship from reach category of strategies were: 1. Instrumental Objectives: Explicit staement of needed action ("I'm afraid you're just going to have to do X."), and citing obligation to others ("If I let you do this, a lot of people are going to suffer.") 2. Interpersonal Objectives: Expressing a willingness to help execute the desired action ("I'll help you out of this mess if we'll just work together.") 3. Management of Identity of Communicator: Expressing regret over position and use of authority ("I really hate to do this to you.") 4. Management of Identity of Recipient: Praising past effofts or abilities ("You've been no trouble up until now.") ____________ 137 Finally, and most importantly for the hostage negotia tor, Clark reported that the strategies that served the needs of both action and relationship, from each category, were: 1. Instrumental Objectives: Warning ("If you do X, I can't stop these negative consequences from naturally occuring.") 2. Interpersonal Objectives: Explicit statement of liking or concern ("I like you and really want the best for you.") 3. Management of Identity of Communicator; Expressing regret over position or.use of authority ("I really hate to do this to you.") 4. Management of Identity of Recipient; Positive altercasting ("Someone as bright as you should be able to help us to work this out.") The specific application of any compliance-gaining strategy will depend, of course, on the particular case and must be tailored to the individual perpetrator. Obviously, no one strategy can work in all cases. In some cases, no strategy may seem to have an impact, while in others, a combination of strategies will make the best sense. Nevertheless, some general recommendations can be made with respect to the use of compliance-gaining strategies. 138 Jerry Goodman, Professor of Psychology as the University of California, Los Angeles, states that one's success in tell ing another person what to do (what Goodman calls "advise ment") will be impaired greatly unless four conditions are 61 met. First, the negotiator must be sensitive enough to the target's needs so as to phrase the request or sugges tion appropriately and at the right time. Stepping right in at the outset and shouting over a loudspeaker "All right. Give up I We have the place surrounded," may do nothing more than stiffen resistance and make future reso lution more difficult. Second, the target must have a sense that the negotia tor empathetically understands him. In other words, we are more likely to do what we are told if we feel that those making the commands really know who .we are and how we feel. Third, the target must perceive that the negotiator has collected all the required evidence to make a useful suggestion toward a resolution. Recently a friend of mine approached me with a problem. "My wife and I are having rocky times, and I'm afraid we're on the verge of a divorce," he confided. "But I don't want to get a divorce. What should I do?" With such little information about the f t 1 Jerry Goodman, SASHA: Self-Led Automated Series on Helping Alternatives (Los Angeles: University of Califor nia, Extention, 1978), p. 14. 139 exact nature of his problem it is doubtful that I, or any one else, could have offered any useful advice at that point, nor would any advice been taken very seriously at that point in the discussion. Clearly, one must gather information both for the purpose of making an intelligent suggestion and to satisfy the person receiving the advice that the helper has adequately grasped the complexity of the problem. Otherwise, the target may likely dismiss the suggestion with a cold "you don't understand." Fourth, the target must feel that the advice-giver is competent to translate evidence into guidance that works. Is the negotiator expecting compliance simply because of his status or role, or does he present an image of concern and of professional problem-solving skills? These four elements of 1) need, 2) empathy, 3) evi dence, and 4) competence as perceived by the target should guide the negotiator in when and how to make behavioral requests that are less likely to be rejected. Miscellaneous Paradigms An array of miscellaneous negotiation and conflict re solution models pervades the literature which have partic ular application to the context within which the hostage negotiator must work. Most of the conflict situations presented in the literature are interpersonal or the more 140 generalized social conflicts that are not colored with the immediate danger of loss of life as feedback for a wrong negotiation move. Even studies in international conflict, which offer theories of how best to prevent war, do not translate well into the context of the hostage crisis. For example, deterrence theory, which posits that the more im posing your military position, the less likely your oppo nent will provoke attack, implies that the potential belligerent has not yet initiated acts of aggression. But in the hostage scenario, not only has the perpetrator struck the first blow, he has generally been seen to be more prone to violence in the face of bristling police armaments than to be subdued by their presence. The .models presented below are representative of the many types which appear to have utility for the hostage negotiator. They are communication strategies, rather than tactical,which seek to deescalate tensions and move all parties toward a resolution satisfying for both police and captor. Removal of Threat Anatol Rapoport suggests a three-step strategy de“1 signed to remove any fear a target might have for embracing the position of another. Rapoport states that often logi cal arguments become a type of psychological aggression 141 because the line of reasoning generally implies the follow ing: 1) certainly it is understandable how you feel, > ■ 2) this is because you are deluded, and your delusions are based on such and such (unworthy) desire, therefore, 3) now./ that you know this, surely you ought to see the correctness of repenting. Logical arguments may not be intended this way but they are often perceived this way, and result in 6 2 only stiffened resistance. Rapoport suggests that one not try to "sell" another point of view, or even shake the old one loose, but rather take a permissive approach which involves three components. 1. Convey to the opponent that he has been heard and understood. By doing this, you are saying, in effect, "I understand how you feel," then actually proving that you do. The experience of being heard and understood without being judged makes the target more receptive to the impact of other views and feelings, because the threat which has prevented their examination has diminished. In other words, we are more inclined to listen and understand others when we have a sense of being heard and understood our selves . 2. Delineate the region of validity of the opponent’s stand. It is usual in a persuasive argument to point out 6 2 Anatol Rapoport, Fights, Games, and Debates (Ann Arbor: University Press, 1960), p. 286. 142 the areas where the opponent's position is invalid. It is thought, perhaps, that if one can see his error, he will repent. In the approach where the removal of threat is a consideration, this procedure is reversed (although the logical implication remains virtually the same: by listing where the opponent's views are valid one implies the re sidual condition, under which it is not valid. But the emphasis is on the former, not the latter.). Showing ex amples of where and how the opponent's view of things is defensible is a continuation of one's message to another that he has been heard and understood. 3. Induce the assumption of similarity. Having shown the opponent that we can see his image and recognize the context in which it is valid, we invite him to perform the same exercise with respect to us. The goal, of course, is to get the opponent to see the legitimacy of your position. If he has been made to feel that he deserves.to be be lieved and trusted, then so do you; that if he feels that he has been relieved by the removal of threat, then it is to his advantage to relieve you, in order that threats, and the inevitable limitations they impose on resolution at tempts, do not interfere with the cooperative efforts in the situation. 143 Conflict Resolution Strategies Frost and Wilmot offer four "tactical choices" as possible ways of confronting conflict, which may have 6 3 varying levels of utility for the hostage negotiator. First, they enumerate the strategy called "avoidance," which suggests that one way to cope with conflict is to side-step it. People who would rather not fight avoid conditions' that tend to provoke fights. However, the avoidance tactic is generally a luxury the hostage negotia tor cannot afford, without being charged with "dereliction of duty." As Miron comments, "At the very least, never agree to leave him alone if he promises to come out after 64 you are gone. He comes with you or you don't leave." If the tactic of stalling can be considered a type- of conflict avoidance, then a case can be made for the use of avoidance as part of a larger strategy. Hacker notes that "prolonging negotiations to avoid escalation and direct confrontation are usually indicated in a situation in volving barricaded hostages. Delaying tactics pay off only when dragged out as long as possible, maximizing the ef fects of fatigue and dedramatization. " ^ ^^Wilmot and Frost, f i 4 Miron and Goldstein, p. 11. ^Hacker, p. 222. 144 Second, the tactic of escalation is one that prompts issues to become more sharply defined, the number of issues in the conflict to expand, and tensions to become more heated. Issuing threats is one example of an escalation tactic, since it tends to intensify rather than defuse hos tility. The functional utility as a negotiation tactic would be to raise the level of conflict to a point where it can be more effectively resolved. If, for example, one party chose to remain silent at a supposed indignity (avoidance tactic), the other might nonetheless detect the displeasure and seek to discover its causes. In this case, the conflict cannot be effectively resolved so long as it is avoided by one party. Escalating the conflict generally flushes out the source of unhappiness so that it can be discussed and rectified. However, for the hostage negotia tor, escalation tactics can be a dangerous matter, since it can easily move the conflict beyond the limits at which the parties can productively handle it. AS such, negotia tors are advised, for instance, never to issue counter threats and avoid all precipitous acts, such as sudden and obvious movements of large numbers of men. Third, Frost and Wilmot enumerate what they call maintenance tactics. When people use maintenance tactics, they act in ways that neither defuse nor escalate the con flict in any appreciable way, trying to keep the conflict 145 at a level of tension that tends to be most productive for both. Geneva Convention Rules of War are generally invoked during international disputes between belligerents who neither want to avoid violence nor want violance to escat late beyond control. In the case of the hostage negotia tor, the reduction of tension is a primary objective, but not to the point where the perpetrator becomes casual and cavalier. If the sense of danger is totally removed from the situation, the captor may lose the motivation to move toward resolution. As such, when police sense that a mood of total' relaxation has settled on the perpetrator, they may cautiously raise his anxiety level to remind him of his peril. They may allow a police siren to blow, expose the location of a police marksman for the captor to see, or even bump on the walls of the building to cause him to wonder what they are doing. Maintaining a low level of antiety also tends to physically and psychologically exhaust the perpetrator, whose mind and body are forced to remain in a modified "fight-or-flight" posture. As weari ness sets in, the captor's resolve may tend to wane, increasing his desire to give up and surrender. Finally, the tactic of reduction is one with partic ular importance for the hostage negotiator. Reduction tactis seek to defuse tension, minimize hostility, and bring the level of conflict to a point at which it can be 146 effectively managed. Frost and Wilmost enumerate seven reduction tactics. 1. Fractionation. This strategy involves breaking down a massive conflict into smaller, more manageable con flicts. This does not make the conflict disappear, but does make it easier to cope with when separated into its component parts. Separating out smaller parts of conflict also allows for compromise on each of the issues. 2. Neagitive Inquiry. A type of fractionation, this approach is one in which a person, when criticized, re sponds by asking for more information, not less, about what the other finds objectionable. By asking for more infor mation, one is able to obtain detail, such as specific frustrations, complaints, resentments, which serves to uncover the small underpinnings of a major dispute. 3. Metacommunication. When people talk about the communication that is going on, they tend to detach them selves emotionally from their focused attention on the heated debate. Such statements as "Did you just hear what you said?" "What would you like to talk about?" and "Let's not threaten each other if at all possible," tend to draw attention away from the situation itself and allows the two people an opportunity to look at themselves. This act of detachment can have a calming effect. 4. Respond to all levels of the conflict. By dealing * with all points of dispute, including facts and personal 147 feelings, one is able to more clearly identify the exact nature of the conflict. Therefore, the negotiator will want to respond to all statements of feeling ("I just feel so confined, I can't stand it anymore.") as well as fact ("You have four hours to deliver the money or I'll start shooting hostages at the rate of one an hour."). 5. Position Paper. Frost and Wilmot observe that often negotiations begin with threats, non-negotiable statements, and "bottom-line" ultimatums, which in actual ity serve as the basis for bargaining. The very act of stating "this is what I want" reduces the conflict to concrete, manageable terms. These flat statements are often reduced and qualified, after the "hard-liner" has made it clear that he demands an equitable solution. 6. Establishment of Outside Criteria. By first agreeing to the terms of a fair solution, the two parties may offer creative alternatives for satisfying such terms. For example, a husband who demands to go to Canada for his vacation may find himself hopelessly locked in conflict with his wife, who wants to visit a Florida resort, until they decide what criteria must be met for a mutually equitable solution. They discover that she just wants to dine out at a fine restaurant every night and play lots of tennis where its sunny. He wants to get away from the humidity and never have to wear a suit. They are able to 148 settle on Aspen, Colorado, where fine restaurants and tennis courts abound, humidity is nonexistent, and the atmosphere is casual. 7. Compromise. Frost and Wilmot note that compromise probably reduces conflict better than any other type of interaction. At the heart of compromise is the demand that all parties win something and lose something, such that no one wins everything and no one loses everything. Even so, compromise is a delicate matter in hostage situations. For example, some demands are in fact "non-negotiable," such as Requests for firearms, alcohol, drugs, or more hostages. Yet, in the spirit of compromise, police try to avoid the appearance of flat out rejecting any demand. At times, they will only say "We'll see what we can do," and hope the request is never brought up again. Power Bargaining Although some of the prescriptions relevant to corpo rate negotiations do not apply to the hostage situation, such as bargaining in good faith (a practice police often set aside), Diesing offers four general rules to follow in power bargaining struggles within the corporate framework 6 6 that can apply to hostage negotiators as well. Paul Diesing, Bargaining Strategy and Union- Management Relationships," Journal of Conflict Resolution, 5 (1961), 369-378. 149 1. Avoid extreme weakness. In most negotiation efforts the perception of the distribution of power as grossly unequal tends to eliminate the need for compromise and encourages unilateral dictation. Negotiators, then, must avoid the appearance of helplessness or intimidation, even if motivated by a desire to. appear friendly and non- threatening. In support of this position, Shure, Meeker, and Hansford found that negotiators using a pacifist strata egy against a powerful opponent were not able to encourage cooperative behavior, but only became the repeated victim of domination.^ 2. Respect the central power position of the other side. Within the hostage context, this strategy demands that negotiators not belittle or criticize the larger or ganization to which the terrorist belongs. If the captor's only power source is his weapon, the negotiator should not mock his attempts to hold off the entire police department with a single gun. This strategy requires self-restraint, even when the police may be weary of the perpetrator's pompous behavior. 3. Find principles and goals which can be shared. Principles and goals are the main bulk of the understand- 67 Gerald H. Shure, Robert J. Meeker, and Earle A. Hansford, "The Effectiveness of Pacifist Strategies in Negotiations," Journal of Conflict Resolution, 9 (1965), 106-117. 150 ings which are basic to any relationship, even hostile ones. For the hostage crisis, principles and goals may be of two kinds: procedural and substantive. Procedural principles are those which specify methods or resolution that are expected and considered appropriate. So, for example, the negotiator must get the perpetrator to agree that he may seek a resolution only through the negotiator. In other words, the criminal must accept his mediation. Substantive goals are the established criteria for settling the dispute. Generally, police broadcast very few explicit substantive goals to the perpetrator. In some cases they may say "You can have pretty much whatever you want, but understand that you aren't leaving except with me." In all cases, police simply state as the minimum substantive goal "the safety of the hostage." 4. Be honest to the proper degree. In many ways honesty is vital to successful negotiation, both for the immediate crisis and for future crises. Chapter Three (pp. 173-177) details the practical reasons for honesty in hostage negotiations. The general rule of thumb is to never go back on a promise, once the criminal agrees to give up under those terms. Yet, complete honesty is often set aside for the pragmatics of apprehending the criminal. A few examples will illustrate the point. A hostage-taker in Atlanta, 151 Georgia, trapped inside a large hotel demanded $20,000 and a getaway car. The money was promptly delivered and the car driven to the front door for him to see. When he freed the hostage and leaped into the car to escape, he discovered that the battery was dead. The car had simply 6 8 been jump-started to get it to the hotel. In 1977, Anthony kiritsis was promised total immunity from prose cution if he freed his hostage he had taken from a local mortgage company. When he surrendered, the promise of immunity was denied. In 1975, Anthony Cotton shot another tenant in his apartment complex, then barricaded himself and another woman with her child in a room for several hours. In his apparent altered state of consciousness, he became convinced by police negotiators that another man had shot the victim, and that in fact he and the woman were important witnesses who had to quickly make formal state ments at the police department before they could apprehend the culprit. One may question the ethical issues of ends and means, but of much more immediate concern to police is the very practical question of the short-term and long-term effec- 6 8 "Gunman Collects Ransom But Gives Up in Stalled Cab," New York Times, 6 October 1979, Sec. I, p. 48, col. 1. 152 -iveness of honesty vs. deceit. In general, while the rule of honesty is usually applied to hostage crises, in cases where deceit can be conealed from the perpetrator and seems to offer strong chances in ending the stalemate, negotia tors have been observed to lie, distort information, with hold facts, bluff, mislead, and otherwise deceive the per petrator ihto isurrendering. Summary This chapter was designed to hit the mountaintops with respect to theory and research related to communication strategies useful in hostage situations. Although the field of conflict resolution, bargaining and negotiation theory, and threat communication studies are broad and have generated extensive discussion, the hostage crisis is so unique that many suggested strategies do not apply. Many have never been tested. 153 CHAPTER THREE In the last decade police have faced, with increasing frequency, the challenge of resolving hostage crises peace fully. Hundreds of cases across the country have provided compelling evidence for how best to avoid bloodshed and capture the perpetrator. Tactical strategies have been refined in great detail, including methods of containment, the deployment of sharpshooters,' pursuit strategies .if the perpetrator is allowed to move from one location to an other, and lines of communication among all response units. Just as importantly, communication strategies directed at the perpetrator have been refined, as a result of the experiences law enforcement agencies have shared with their colleagues. By word-of-mouth, through in-house seminars, through police journals, and international symposiums, \ successful hostage negotiators have shared their methods of talking criminals into surrendering. For example, in 1975, INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) sponsored an international symposium on "Cases Involving Hostages" at its headquarters in St. Cloud, France. The 154 purpose of the symposium was to bring together police ad ministrators responsible for combating the taking of hos tages, in order for them to recount their experiences and exchange ideas. Delegates from over forty nations con vened, as well as the International Association of Police Chiefs, Council of Europe, and the International Civil Aviation Organization, to discuss police tactics, organi zation, equipment, international cooperation, and the prevention of hostage incidents. Within the United States, Frank Bolz, former Director of the New York City Police Department Hostage Negotiation Team, has written a book of 1 his experiences, and has gone on the lecture circuit. Many other police experts continue to train recruits in the delicate art of hostage negotiation. Although most hostage negotiators will admit that each case is unique and unlike any other, they have nevertheless discovered patterns and success rates for various negotia-^ tion strategies, which are incorporated into future plan ning. This trial and error method of learning has resulted in a virtual catalogue of communication strategies consid ered successful, useful, preferred, or otherwise recommended in similar situations. Those strategies that intuitively seem dangerous or counter-productive, as well " ' ‘ Frank Bolz, Hostage Cop (New York: Athenium Press, 1979) . 155 as those that actually resulted in disaster, are routinely discouraged in future training seminars. Even so, nego tiators are' cautioned that sometimes even recoitvmerlded strategies may be fruitless, and that occasionaly an un orthodox approach can work like magic. For instance, negotiators are instructed never to leave the hostage- taker alone, even if demanded to do so by the subject. Yet, one officer recalled an incident in which he responed to a domestic disturbance call only to find a husband barricaded in his house with a gun to his wife's head. The captor ordered the officer to leave. To his surprise, the officer obeyed. The officer simply drove off in his police car until he was out of sight, got out of his car and walked back to the house. In a half hour the man came out of the house to see if the policeman was actually gone, whereupon the officer quickly arrested him and took him- to the sta tion. Had the officer responded in the standard manner, dozens of officers would have been called in to surround the house, a battery of negotiators would have gone to work, backed with psychological consultants. The media would have been alerted, perimeters established, the gawk ing public aroused. Tensions may have blown the entire event into a catastrophic nightmare, with the potential loss of life - all far different than the outcome obtained by the officer's simply leaving the scene. 156 The communication strategies recommended by police, based on past experience, may be rbughly.'classified into five categories. These categories do not follow a neces sary order in the process of negotiations, in that one type of strategy must ;occur before another. They are more usefully thought of simply as messages serving different functions. ~ . • Method of Data Collection These strategies have been collected and distilled ’ from three principal sources: 1) FBI training manuals, 2) personal and telephone interviews with police nego tiators, and 3). published articles within law enforcement journals which make recommendations for dealing with hos tage- taker s. ■ : The FBI training manuals were obtained through initial contact with Special Agent James Botting, Director of the Hostage Negotiation Team for the Los Angeles Branch of the FBI. Through his aid, I was able to obtain various published and unpublished documents used by the FBI in structors at the training facility in Quantico, Virginia, in preparing recruits to become hostage negotiators. The personal interviews were held with James Botting, of the Los Angeles FBI, Mike Wellins, Director of the Crisis Intervention team for the City of Orange Police Department, Dr. Martin Reiser, Director of the Behavioral 157 Science Unit for the Los Angeles Police Department, and Sgt. Robert Hancock of the Los Angeles Police Department Special Weapons and Tactics (S.W.A.T.) team. Singularly helpful were Mike Wellins and James Botting. In one session, for example, Mr. Wellins allowed me to role-play the part of a barricaded hostage-taker in order for him to demonstrate negotiation techniques. The telephone interviews were conducted with Lt. Richard Damon, Director of the Hostage Negotiation team for the Santa Cruz, Calif ornia, Police Department, and Roger Baker of the Anaheim Police Department's hostage team. In both the personal and telephone interviews, the format consisted of my asking * a series of stock questions about standard or accepted negotiation procedures, those highly recommended and those specifically avoided, as well as any case studies they might provide to exemplify the points they made. From there, the interviewees were free to discuss their ex periences, training, and any other information that might be useful for my study. The law enforcement journals consulted included The Police Chief, Police Marksman, The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, and papers presented by Dr. Martin Reiser to various psychological association conferences on the sub ject of hostage-taking. 158 This chapter, then, represents the formal state of the art in terms of generally recommended procedures for nego tiating through most hostage confrontations. The first category enumerates the basic, miscellaneous rules of hostage negotiating. These otherwise unrelated recommendations are all considered "things to remember." It provides the general framework within which all nego tiation procedures seek to conform. The second category is called "calming strategies." These communication tactics are often used to initiate the negotiation process, and are primarily used to subdue tensions, restore relative order, and prevent an otherwise volatile, unpredictable clash of force. The third category is identified as "rapport-building" strategies. These communication techniques are designed to quickly establish a relationship between the perpetrator and the negotiator, to help develop a climate conducive to problem solving. The perpetrator must feel safe with the negotiator, must be able to rely on his word, and have a feeling that the negotiator is working with his best in terests in mind. If the perpetrator does not trust the negotiator then peaceful resolution of the crisis will be extremely difficult. If the perpetrator is suspicious of deceit or if in fact the negotiator is caught in a lie, the 159 captor will likely suspect deceit in any further messages or suggestions from the negotiator. Therefore, the nego tiator must early on concentrate on building rapport before he ever begins any persuasive strategy designed to gain the compliance of the criminal. The fourth category is labeled "information-gathering" strategies. As the negotiation progresses, the negotiator will seek to gain as much information as possible to help shape a persuasive strategy with the best chance of moti vating the perpetrator to surrender. 2 Herb Cohen, in his book, You Can Negotiate Anything, clearly identifies "information" as a critical variable in the negotiation process. The more information yott have about your opponent's wants, needs, desires, fears, dead lines, expectations, etc., the greater will be your chances at formulating a compromise that he will accept. For example, if the perpetrator makes a first demand of one million dollars and a plane to Algeria, you know nothing about what he is likely to accept instead, because until you acquire some information about him, you will know nothing of what prompted him to make such a demand. A great deal of information is thought useful in the 2 Herb Cohen, You Can Negotiate Anything (New York: Bantam Books, 1980), pp. 101-113. 160 negotiation process, information which the perpetrator may not even be willing to provide, but which nevertheless be obtained. Chapter One (pp. 45-54) detailed much of the information necessary to more fully prepare the negotiator to intelligently bargain with the captor. In addition to those information items already mentioned, the negotiator will want to learn the motivations for taking the hostages, the anger and frustration that prompted such an outrageous and violent act. If, for example, the negotiator can understand the actual needs of the perpetrator, he can offer a compromise solution that may be acceptable. He will also want to discern the suspect's psychological con dition and preparedness. A standard negotiator "checklist" (Appendix A) provides the responding police officer with a complete detail of every piece of information considered relevant to subsequent negotiations. Often, items in the checklist can only be provided by the subject himself, hence the need, for information-gathering strategies. Finally, the last category is titled "persuasive strategies." These communication techniques are primarily designed to produce complying behaviors in the perpetra tor. Persuasive strategies may be attempted at every phase of the negotiation, and in fact often serve as the initial message from the negotiator ("All right, Frank, 161 what I'd like is for you to throw your gun out of the win dow and come out of the front door with your hands over your head."). Miron emphasizes that too often police get so wrapped up in all the sophisticated "by-the-book" me thodology in dealing with hostage-takers that they some times forget the obvious. "At the very least, we must 3 remember to periodically ask the suspect to give up." Bear in mind that these five categories are not pure and mutually exclusive. An information-gathering technique such as "active listening" may also be very rapport-build ing, as the perpetrator begins to feel that "here* is someone who cares enough about me to listen to my prob lems." Many calming strategies will tend to build rapport as well, as the perpetrator may start to trust and rely on this negotiator who so handily allays his fears and eases his tremendous anxiety over his very life as police swarm the area to surround the building. "Face-saving" both builds rapport and serves as a persuasive strategy as well. Nevertheless, I have assigned specific strategies to separate categories according to their primary purpose, realizing that they possess secondary functions that jus tify inclusion in other categories as well. 3 Miron and Goldstein, p. 47. 162 I. Overall Strategies The communication strategies listed below are not arranged in any hierarchical order. They are all equally important considerations in the handling of most hostage cases. 1. The negotiator should use a channel of communica tion Jthat prevents spectators from listening. The ration ale behind this suggestion is that if the perpetrator is forced to speak in front of the entire police force, news camera crews, and the curious public, he may likely feel the need to maintain a mask of bravado. By creating a more intimate atmosphere that excludes most everyone except the negotiator from hearing the perpetrator's communica tions , he may feel less of a need to maintain commitment to an extreme and uncompromising position. The negotiator will want to create the illusion that "you are only talking to me," and consequently, "you are only surrendering to me." To permit this kind of intimate dialogue, it is recommended that a telephone hookup be installed. This allows for personal communication while still preserving the safety of the negotiator. Also, a telephone allows the negotiator greater control of the dialogue, as he can ter minate the conversation at any time simply by hanging up. For instance, if the perpetrator gets too pushy, makes an 163 unexpected request that catches the negotiator off guard, the negotiator is freed from the stress of having to think and act on his feet in the very presence of the criminal, who would otherwise be able to read facial ex pressions, demand instant answers, and push the negotiator into making a rash move in the heat of the moment. The telephone offers the kind of buffer that accords the officer the kind of control he needs to effectively deal with the pressures and surprises of such events. If telephone hookups are not possible, then speaking through doors or around the corner of a hall may be arranged. If these options are not feasible, then face-to-face communi cation is a necessary alternative. 2. The negotiator should not appear to be the ul-^ timate decision maker. This strategy accomplishes several objectives. First, it minimizes the perpetrator's sense of self-importance, since the "man in charge" does not appear to find the event sufficiently serious to supervise himself. This deflated self-image tends to remind the perpetrator not to take himself too seriously. Second, by appearing as only the "sergeant" and unable to make final decisions, the negotiator may defer decisions and buy time. Frequently, when faced with an unaccepable de mand, the negotiator may simply reply, "I'll see what I can do, but remember that it's not up to me." The 164 criminal is then forced to wait while the superiors con vene to make the decision. Stalling for time is an impor tant calming strategy, which will be more fully discussed under its own heading. Third, by not appearing as the ultimate decision maker, the negotiator may still maintain rapport with the perpetrator when demands are delayed or turned down, because he was not the one denying the re quest. 3. As much as possible, do not allow the perpetrator to negotiate or speak to anyone but the negotiator. From the outset, the negotiator must work to set up a close relationship with the criminal, in fact to create a de pendent relationship by making all demands pass through him to the outside, and by orchestrating all outside access to the criminal through the negotiator as well. With such control of the channels of communication, the criminal will be forced much sooner to rely on the negotiator. If he does not feel he needs the negotiator, he will .likely re fuse to talk to him, especially when the negotiator does not appear to be able to get results. The perpetrator may simply demand to talk to someone else, and will keep making such demands until he finds somebody who can make things happen the way he wants. This option must not be available. The criminal must be made to realize that he will be talking to only one person. 165 The professional negotiator is trained in methods of what to say and what to avoid saying in order to defuse tension and bring the incident to a peaceful conclusion. To allow anyone else to speak directly to the criminal risks that element of control. Family members, friends, the local priest, and especially the press, cannot be expected to subdue and mollify the suspect. Experience has shown that often these would-be helpers only create more problems for the police. Family members and friends usually remind the suspect of his frustrations as they are often the source of his aggression. Priests and ministers may symbolize moral condemnation and guilt that the per petrator would rather not face. The press have a habit of asking inflamatory questions, such as "What will you do to the hostages if the police refuse to give you what you demand?" Such a question places the perpetrator in the ego-defensive position of predicting catastrophic conse quences to ensure police compliance - predictions he may later regret but feel publically committed to fulfill. In any case, the negotiator is advised to channel all com munication through himself. In some cases, the negotiator may have to invent reasons for not allowing anyone else to the scene to talk to the perpetrator, when he has so requested. Depending on the situation, such explanations may vary: 166 a. "C'mon, you know it's against regulations to endanger any other citizen. . b. "We've tried to contact her (him) but no one answers. We'll keep trying." c. "We asked her (him) to come, but she (he) said she (he) didn't want to speak to yout" d. "She's (he's) out of the area, but we have her (him) on the phone across the street. You tell me what you want to say and I'll relay the message." 4. Do not negotiate for new weapons. Some police will insist that the list of "non-negotiables" include alcohol, narcotics, exchange of hostages, or any other item likely to increase the threat to the hostages or the negotiator. Yet, virtually all agree that weapons must not be negotiated for. If, for example, the criminal was bluf- fxng with a bogus weapon, ,then'giving .him?a: :real, one\ would definitely increase the actual threat bo all concerned. The problem of rejecting demands without actually saying "no" is partially solved by the negotiator's plea of helplessness in fulfilling requests. He may say, "I'm still trying to find out if it's all right" or "they are really balking on that," and then distract the captor by introducing some other topic of discussion, and hope the issue will not be raised again. As a rule, negotiators are advised to allow the criminal to realize for himself the futility of certain demands and initiate his own scaled-down requests. 167 5. Don't panic over deadlines. In many cases, the perpetrator will extend deadlines and/or lessen demands if he has been made to understand that such demands take time. In 1972 the terrorist band that took the Israeli Olympic s team hostage at 5:00 a.m. in demand for the release of political prisoners held in Israeli jails, made it clear that officials had until 9:00 a.m. to comply. As committed and uncompromising as they appeared at the outset, they were persuaded to extend the deadline to noon, then to 3:00 p.m., and again until 6:00 p.m. Had the German offi cials not panicked at the terrorists' apparent lack of patience, further extensions may have followed, as well as lessening of demands and the "good faith" release of some of the hostages. In any event, negotiators are advised not to worry about keeping deadlines announced by hostage- takers, for fear that failure to comply will result in deadly reprisals by the captor against the captives. Ex perience shows that very rarely do hostage-takers kill their captives for a deadline missed, and certainly not without ample warning. As long as he harbors the illusion that there is a chance of escape, the perpetrator will not risk a police assault by shooting a hostage for a missed deadline. 6. If possible, speak to the hostages. The hostage can be a help or a decided hinderance to the negotiation 168 process. If they can be instructed how to properly behave, they will minimize their own risk and make negotiation much easier. The negotiator should request to be able to see the hostages, at least under the pretext that he verify the fact that there are hostages, and that they are alive and well. This allows the negotiator :to take note of any dis tinguishing features of the hostages to pass along to po lice sharpshooters and other assault personnel. Negotiators are advised to disregard external identifying marks such as clothing, glasses, and other items that can be easily ex changed by the perpetrator in hopes of being mistaken for a hostage. If the negotiator is allowed to speak to the hos-( ’ > 4 tages, he should instruct them to: a. Stay as calm and alert as possible. b. Do not try to fight with the perpetrator, and avoid provoking them. c. Try to build a positive relationship with the per petrator. d. Try to be as real a person as possible (share thoughts, hopes, feelings, plans, family problems, 4 This is a rather common occurance. In a recent study, it was reported that 59% of the police negotiators polled had communicated with the hostages in the cases they had handled. Robert W. Mirabella and Jeanne Trudeau, "Managing Hostage Negotiations," The Police Chief, 48 (1981) , 46. 169 fear, future goals, etc.) e. Follow the perpetrator's instructions as much as possible. f. Avoid political discussions. g. Eat food offered to you. h. Stay face-to-face with perpetrator. 7. Seek to drag out the negotiations as long as pos sible. This strategy is designed to accomplish several objectives. First, by dragging out the entire process, the perpetrator is more likely to make a tactical mistake which can work to the advantage of the police. His impatience may prompt him to make a poorly planned move that could re sult in his speedy capture. His weariness may alsoallow hostages to escape, further reducing his leverage. Or he may make a demand that actually benefits the police. Second, time allows the perpetrator to think. The more time that elaspes, the more time the hostage-taker will have to consider his predicament. Research has shown 5 that abductors usually have prior felony arrests. There fore, though desperate, the hostage-taker is not ignorant of the criminal justice system, and realizes the inevitable Barbara Graves and Thomas Strenz, "The Kidnapper: His Crime and His Background," Research Paper, special operations and research staff, FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia, (1977), p. 29. 170 consequences of his actions. If given enough time, he may come to realize the futility of his quest. Combined with the reduced anxiety associated with the passage of time, as well as the discouragement and depression of sleepless ness and loss of creature comforts, the offender may give himself up. Finally, the passage of time generally produces a psy chological phenomenon which has come to be known as the "Stockholm syndrome," and tends to work in favor of hostage safety and police desires for peaceful resolution. The phenomenon takes its name from the August 23, 1973, bank holdup in Stockholm, Sweden, in which four bank employees were held hostage for 131 hours by two male gunmen. Their "jail" was an 11- by 47-«fo6t carpeted vault. As a result of this close and intense relationship, three phenomena oc curred; 1) the victims began to develop positive feelings toward their captors, 2) the victims began to develop neg ative feelings toward the police who were trying to rescue them, and 3) the captors began to develop positive feelings toward the victims. This syndrome has been observed around the world. It seems to be an automatic, probably unconscious, emotional response to the trauma of becoming a victim. In part, the Stockholm syndrome depends on the amount of time spent to gether. In part, it depends on the type of treatment the 171 victims experience at the hands of their captors. Gener ally, time is the catalyst that produces the syndrome in nonabusive situations.^ Various attempts have been made to explain the phen omenon. Some view it as a regression to a more elementary level of development, such as seen in a five-year old who identifies with a parent. The hostage becomes rather like a child, who must get permission to eat, to speak, and to move. Like a child, the hostage is in a state of extreme dependency and fright. He is terrified of an uncertain outside world, and must rely on his captor as a mother- figure to supply all his needs. As these needs are being met, the child/hostage comes to love this person who is 7 protecting him. Others see the phenomenon as identifica- 8 tion with the aggressor. This version of identification is called upon by the ego to protect itself from authority figures who have generated anxiety. The purpose of this type of identification is to enable the ego to avoid the wrath, the potential punishment of the enemy. According to this view, the hostage identifies out of fear rather than ^Thomas Strentz, "Law Enforcement Policy and Ego Defenses of the Hostage," FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 48 (1979), 8. 7 Strentz, pp. 5-6. Q Anna Freud, The Ego and its Mechanisms of Defense (New York: International Universities Press, 1974), p. 42. 172 love. Still others hold that the phenomenon is not a psy chological aberration, the the honest reorientation of one's values when forced to evaluate one's priorities against the backdrop of life and death. Walter Reich, psychiatrist and lecturer at Yale University asks: Why is it so hard to believe that persons who are exposed to views they would not have chosen to hear can discover in themselves some sym pathy for those views, a sympathy they retain? What is so unbelievable and so strange about that, so aberrant that it is to be understood as a psychological phenomenon? Why do we have to assume that conditions of captivity cancel out the capacity for logic, judgment, and belief.9 Whatever the explanation, the phenomenon is neverthe less vital to the safety of the hostages. The longer the hostages and their captors can be forced to remain to gether, the less likely will be the chance that the abduc tors will eventually kill the captives. For whatever reason, it is a statistical reality that hostages are rarely killed after the first twenty-four hours of captiv ity, regardless of the outcome. So, by prolonging the negotiation, one sees the greater chance of captive/captor identification occurring and the less peril to the hostages as a result. 8. Keep your promises. The general feeling about keep- 9 Walter Reich, "Hostages and the Syndrome," New York Times, 15 January 1980, Sec. I, p. 19, col. 1. 173 ing your word is that a negotiator breaks his promise to the hostage-taker at his own peril. Even though negotia ting with a hostage-taker entails a celtain degree of deception and holding the false carrot of hope before the perpetrator, out-and-out lying to accomplish a peaceful solution is not only ethically suspect, but tactically dangerous for at least three reasons. First, the possibility of being caught in a lie by the perpetrator before the seige has ended can make further negotiations extremely difficult. Since much of the suc cess of negotiations hinges on the rapport established between the criminal and the negotiator, credibility loss due to deliberate lying can be disastrous to police ob jectives. For example, in 1977 police negotiators had subdued Corey Moore by assuring him that police sharp shooters had been withdrawn, when in fact they had not, but were only concealed from sight. When news-hungry cameramen shot live footage of the sharpshooters squatting patiently behind rooftop barriers, the televised broadcast was seen by the perpetrator, who was watching the news on T.V. from inside his barricaded stronghold. Immediately, he shouted out to the negotiator that "everything's off right now! Only after long effort was the negotiator able to continue ^®"How to Play the Waiting Game," Time, 21 March 1977, p. 18. 174 working with the enraged captor. The second danger of deceit is that the criminal, once arrested and sent to jail through the dishonesty of a crafty negotiator, will likely one day be released (after all, hostage-taking is not a capital offense.). Once free, he may again attempt a similar crime, hoping to correct the mistakes of his previous blunder. Should he again be foiled, trapped, and barricaded with hostages, negotiators may be hard pressed to make any promise believable. Such a situation is not purely hypothetical. In 1980, Glenn Kurt Tripp hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines 727 at the Seattle Airport. The then seventeen year old youth demanded a parachute and $100,000. The FBI agent who handled the negotiations, assured Tripp that the money was on the way, but that a 727 was too large a plane to para chute from, that he would likely get sucked into the jet pods. He suggested that Tripp transfer to a smaller plane. When Tripp reached the bottom of the plane's stairway, hiding FBI agents tackled the youth and arrested him. Tripp was given a twenty-year deferred sentence and placed in a residential training facility for young adults. On Jan uary 21, 1983, Tripp again commandeered a Northwest Orient plane and demanded to be flown to Afghanistan. Police, knowing that he had been tricked once before, may have decided that negotiation would not work again. While Tripp 175 supervised the release of half of the passengers in ex change for the refueling of the plane, an FBI agent crawled through the cockpit window. The agent burst into the main cabin and, after Tripp ignored the order to "freeze," fired his gun twice and killed him.11 In other situations, the humiliation and rage at being duped by police may motivate other non-hostage related acts of revenge by released perpetrators. As such, police could possibly avoid future acts of aggression by playing fair with the perpetrator. Third, negotiators who break their promises make nego tiations more difficult in all future events. When the expediency of one negotiator becomes public knowledge, the collective credibility of all "police negotiators" suffers. For example, in March of 1977, in Indianapolis, Indiana, Anthony Kiritsis was promised total immunity from prosecu tion if he would surrender his hostage and turn himself in. Yet, when he complied, he was arrested, tried, and sent to jail. The police defended its actions by stating that the saving of lives made lying necessary. One month later, this very action complicated negotiations in an entirely different case. In April of 1977, a band of Hanafi Muslims 11Tom Brooks, "Hijacker on Flight from Seattle to Portland was Double Loser," The Seattle Times, 22 January 1983, Sec. B, p. 1, col. 1. 176 commandeered three public buildings in Washington, D.C., and took 134 hostages in exchange for certain demands, one of which was simply that the leader of the group, Kamaas Khaalis, be freed on his own recognizance until his trial, which he both expected and accepted. Yet, when negotiators agreed to the demand, Khaalis became suspicious, responding with derision: Oh, uh-uh. I'm not like that. I know that they don't hold fast to their promises. You know, like the man out there in Indiana? Hey, remember? No, they don't hold fast to their promises, and then they brag about it. See, all they did was make it worse. You under stand?^ However, the assurance of Attorney General Bell that such a promise was legal and would be honored, Khaalis surrendered to police. And the promise was kept. Nevertheless, the ramifications of lying for future hostage situations is undeniable. Negotiators are cautioned to pursue long-term rather than short-term solutions. II. Calming Strategies At the outset of a hostage-taking event, the perpetra tor generally tends toward erratic, defensive behavior in reaction to swarming police units, flashing lights, and the immediate sense of terror at being trapped. He understand- 12 Miron and Goldstein, p. 60. 177 ably fears for his life, feeling that a tactical assault is imminent. If he is not subdued and made to feel that his life is not in danger, he may initiate desperate and irreversible actions. Therefore, in order to stabilize events, the hostage negotiator's first priority will be to calm the hostage-taker. Calming strategies are those messages principally de signed to reduce the perpetrator's irrationality, terror, and tendency toward extreme behavior. There are several strategies that will help to accomplish this first import ant step toward a peaceful resolution. 1. Do not feel you must rush to make initial contact with the perpetrator. If the negotiator is satisfied that the perpetrator seriously and urgently desires to negotiate a resolution, there is no real purpose in delaying, but in the absence of that information, the negotiator need not fear about allowing some time to pass before communication is established. Allowing time to pass will in and of it-i self have a calming effect on the hostage-taker. The passage of time reduces stress, allows him to think about his situation, to evaluate the police advantages, and to get control of his own emotions. So long as police do not make provocative, threatening movements toward the perpe trator, he will be able to utilize the break in the action to pause and reflect. One hostage negotiator recommends 178 waiting between twenty minutes and one and a half hours before actually making the first contact. Not only does this elapsed time allow the perpetrator time to relax, to think, and to prepare, it allows the negotiation team to do the same. During this important pause, police will be containing the area, establishing perimeters, and gathering vital information about the actions leading to the hostage- taking itself, number and names of hostages, possible injuries, the physical features of the building within which the captor is contained, access to and from the building, and any other information that will be useful to the negotiator as he prepares to engage the perpetrator in conversation. 2. Identify yourself. When the negotiator makes con tact with the criminal, he should politely and calmly identify his name and rank. For example, "Hello. This is Sgt. Don Baker with the Baltimore Police Department." Immediately the perpetrator will know who he is talking to. The suspense and waiting are over. He now has a link with the outside, a voice to talk to. He has a name to call on. 3. Model calmness. The negotiator must always attempt to calm the perpetrator by displaying calmness in his own behavior. By his words, tone of voice, and, if possible, by his visible gestures and facial expressions, the nego tiator can convey that he is calm, controlled, and ra- 179 tional. The tone of voice should be at a conversational level, the pace slow and deliberate. If visible and at a safe distance, the negotiator may even sit down, take off his coat and hat, and in a variety of nonverbal actions demonstrate calmness and the impression that a police assault is not imminent. Calmness often begets calmness, so this initial display of tranquility can have a direct calming effect on the agitated or irrational criminal. 4. Choose your, labels carefully. The negotiator may inadvertently heighten the danger to the hostages and the anxiety of the perpetrator by the careless use of labels. The perpetrator must never be called a "hostage-taker" nor his victims "hostages." Such labels reduce people to ob jects and symbols rather than living, breathing, individual human beings. If the criminal realizes that the police view him as "hostage-taker"or "kidnapper" or any of a var iety of disparaging labels, he may very well live up to that expectation. After all, if that is how he is per ceived, he may feel there is little value in behaving otherwise. Therefore, negotiators are cautioned to always address the perpetrator by his first name. It has been said that the most beautiful word that a person will ever hear is his own name. So the negotiator is wise to use it often. It tells the perpetrator that the negotiator sees him as a 180 real person, not one of a class called "criminal." In ad dition, the perpetrator may often be included with the hostages and made to feel one of them, as the negotiator emphasizes "Don't worry. With your help, we are going to get all of you out of this safely." Also, the negotiator should always refer to the hostages by their names rather than "the hostages," and insist that the perpetrator do likewise. This action begins to humanize the victims, which tends to reduce their peril. When the perpetrator begins to relate to the hostages as people with hopes, fears, problems, and families of their own, rather than as nameless bargaining chips, he is less likely to kill them. A moving account of this phenomenon was presented by Dr. Frank Ochberg as he recounted the experience of one of the hostages of the 1975 South Moluccan takeover of a Dutch train in Beilen. Gerard Vaders, a newspaper editor in his fifties, told this story to Dr. Ochberg:^ On the second night they tied me again to be a living shield and left me in that position for seven hours. The one who was most psycho pathic kept telling me "Your time has come. Say your prayers." They had selected me for the third execution. . . . In the morning when I knew I was going to be executed, I asked to speak to Prins (another hostage) to give him a message to take to my family. I wanted to explain my family situation. My foster child, 13 M. Frank Ochberg, "The Victim of Terrorism: Psy chiatric Considerations," Terrorism - An International Journal, 1 (1978), 151-153. 181 whose parents had been killed, did not get along too well with my wife, and I had at that time a crisis in my marriage just behind me. . . . There were other things too. Somewhere I had the feeling that I had failed as a human being. I explained all this and the terrorists insisted on listening. When Mr. Vaders completed his conversation with Mr. Prins. and announced his readiness to die, the South Moluccans said, "No, someone else goes first." Dr. Ochberg observed the Mr. Vaders was no longer a faceless symbol. He was human. In the presence of his executioners he had been transformed from "symbol to be killed" to "human to be spared." Tragically, the South Moluccans selected another passenger, Mr. Bierling, led him away, and executed him 14 before they had the opportunity to know him. Finally, the negotiator should downplay the signifi cance of the criminal event itself, by not calling it a "bank robbery" or, if the perpetrator has already killed someone in the takeover, to remind him that he is a "murderer" and "in serious trouble," as it will only serve to emphasize his feeling of frustration and desperation. Bank robberies and hostage-takings are commonly and casu ally referred to by negotiators as simply "a situation" to be solved. 14 Ochberg, p. 151. 182 5. Reassure the perpetrator. The purpose of reassur ing is to go a step beyond modeling calming ;behaviors to actually explaining why the perpetrator should be calm. Specifically, the negotiator can communicate his feelings about any positive progress made in the negotiation, when such facts do indeed exist. He can seek to alleviate the perpetrator's fears that his life is in imminent danger. He can express his own optimism about chances for a mutu ally satisfying solution. Examples of such reassuring messages include: a. "We’ll be able to work this out." b. "I think we can deal with this one step at a time." c. "I'm really interested in solving this with you." d. "We're making good progress. I feel like we are not far from the end." One FBI manual cautions against what it calls "reas- 15 suring cliches," arguing that cliches such as "Don't worry about anything," "Everything will be all right," and "Everything's fine," are not sincere and tend to be re ceived with resentment. If the perpetrator knows that he has killed two people, captured twenty others, and is hold ing off the entire police department at gunpoint, a state- 15 . . Robert Fitzpatrick, "Communication Techniques m Hostage Situations," unpublished manuscript, FBI Academy Training Center, Quantico, Virginia, p. 14. 183 ment like "Everything's fine" may only convince him that the negotiator is deluded, because he knows that in fact everything is not fine. Secondarily, reassuring cliches may only serve to discount the very real fears of the cap tor and make him feel that his perception is unimportant or wrong. In other words, to toss off the line "There's nothing to worry about" to someone who is scared to death, would be far less useful that to recognize the perpetra- - tor's fears, and explain how a joint effort toward reso lution can help to alleviate those fears. So, for example, the cliche: There's nothing to worry about, might be more sensitively expressed as: I know you must be scared. That's under standable. But if we just keep cool and work together, then we'll all come out of this fine. 7. Encourage ventilation. The. negotiator may calm an agitated perpetrator by encouraging him to air his anger, rage, frustration, fear, or other bottled-up emotions. If the hostage-taker can be kept talking, he will dissipate a great deal of energy, which will have a calming effect. It is very difficult to remain highly emotionally charged while at the same time answering questions, presenting in formation at length, and ventilating hostility. The negotiator should be prepared to accept the brunt end of 184 the hostage-taker's rage. He may be shouted at, threat ened, cursed, maligned, and otherwise verbally assaulted during the process of negotiation. The negotiator must not only expect it (since he acts as the gatekeeper for all outgoing messages), he ought to prefer it as a relatively harmless outlet, rather than allow the perpetrator to express his resentment in more violent, destructive ways. 8. Distract the hostage-taker. At times, an effective way to calm the hostage-taker is to redirect his attention away from the source of his immediate concern. Distraction simply entails changing the subject of conversation, and may be accomplished in one of several ways: a. Ask a question totally irrelevant to the hostage situation.* ("Oh, by the way, that reminds me. Have you ever been to Boston?") b. Ask a question which is relevant to the hostage situation, but opposite to what the perpetrator is likely to expect. ("You must be hungry. Can I get you something to eat?") c. Bring up a topic of discussion which is irrelevant to the hostage situation. ("I don't know about you, but I'm hungry. That's the trouble with these local deli's - they don't deliver. I used to know this little deli back in Dallas that had the great est salami . . .") 185 d. Give a suggestion which tells the perpetrator to continue doing something that he expects the nego tiator to want him to stop, or otherwise behave in a manner contrary to his expectations about police or negotiators. ("I don't want you to come out now. I don't want you to surrender. Right now is not the time.") Secondarily, distraction, also is a useful strategy when the hostage-taker harps on non-negotiables. For example, he may demand a gun and some pills to keep him awake. At first, the negotiator may set the demand aside by stating "I don't know how they'll go for it, but I can ask," and hope that the topic will not be brought up again. If the demand is reiterated later, distraction may serve to spare the negotiator the awkward and dangerous task of say ing no. So, he may toss aside the repeated demand with a "Well, they're working on it. But in the meantime, I'd like to know what you plan on doing about food. You must be hungry by now . . ." 9. Avoid provocation. The negotiator should avoid any aggressive, offensive, or humiliating comments. Nor should he threaten the perpetrator, outright reject all of his demands, argue with him, or initiate sudden surprises and precipitous actions. All of these are likely to enhance the perpetrator's agitation and anxiety and could trigger 186 some retaliatory action which could result in injury or death to the hostages. Even if these actions do not lead to a violent response by the perpetrator, their intimidat ing and aggressive quality may only serve to dampen his cooperative inclinations and stiffen resistance. III. Rapport-Building Strategies During the few hours that the negotiator and hostage- taker spend with each other, an intense relationship develops. The two get to know each other, share thoughts and personal feelings, perhaps even risk death together, and develop the trust necessary to enable the perpetrator to depend on the word of the negotiator in any resolution the two agree upon. In fact, the relationship of the negotiator and hostage-taker is a major factor in deter mining whether or not the crisis will end peacefully. Ob viously, the hostage-taker must feel he can rely on the negotiator, he must feel that the negotiator is working in his best interests, and that the negotiator can be trusted to engineer an equitable resolution. Therefore, the nego tiator will want to build that rapport quickly and effec tively. A variety of communication strategies have been shown to work toward building that trusting/trustworthy relationship so vital to successful negotiation. 1. Stall for time. As mentioned earlier, time usually 187 works in favor of the police. As time passes, relation ships develop. In fact, stable relationships can only be built on time. Time allows the negotiator to demonstrate concern and trustworthy behaviors. It also allows the perpetrator more chance to bond with the negotiator and hopeful take his suggestions more seriously. 2. Demonstrate trustworthy behaviors. The negotiator should exercise every opportunity to show that he can be relied upon. He may even have to create the conditions necessary to make this apparent. For example, the nego tiator may say "I'll call you back in exactly one hour to let you know what is happening at this end." Then, in exactly one hour, he calls back and reminds the perpetrator of his kept word. The negotiator may make incidental (or even substantial) promises for no other reason than to ful fill them so as to prove he can be believed. He may take food orders, and upon delivery, impress upon the perpetra tor's mind that "I got you exactly what you wanted, just like I said I would." Building up these "points" with the perpetrator can also work in the negotiator's favor later when concessions are called for. The negotiator may declare "I've done all these things for you. But it can't go on indefinitely. I expect something on your part." 3. Self-Disclosure. One of the fastest ways to build a relationship is to share part of yourself with another. People bond very quickly to those whom they know and who 188 become vulnerable to them. Self-disclosure of personal feelings allows others to know you much sooner than if you remain aloof and secretive about your feelings. By expos ing your inner, sometimes very private, thoughts, you tend to appear more approachable, sensitive, and less frighten ing or mysterious. Therefore, as it seems appropriate in the conversation the negotiator may talk about his own personal feelings, interests, preferences, and even aspects of his profes-' j sional and personal life, such as a recent fight with his teenage son or frustrations over a troubled marriage. The negotiator will find that in addition to the rapport-build ing qualities of self-disclosures, such a tactic will also generate reciprical self-disclosure on the part of the perpetrator, thus serving an important information-gather ing function as well. 3. Show empathy. Besides the calming qualities that empathy brings to the negotiation, it also builds rapport between the two communicators. When the negotiator shows the hostage-taker that he is able to understand his feel ings and thoughts, he tends to build a bond of respect and trust. In being empathetic, the negotiator need not necessar ily agree with the perpetrator's view of reality. In fact, often he will not. However, he does not pass judgment on 189 such expressions of emotion. The negotiator neither agrees nor disagrees but only seeks to understand and acknowledge the feeling. If communication is to be successful in the hostage situation, the negotiator must not imply, and certainly not express, criticism or disapproval with what the subject is feeling. When this occurs, the negotiator ceases to act as mediator and takes on the role of judge and arbitrator, capable of acting on demands himself rather than facilitate compromise between parties. It is unlikely that when the negotiator fails to appear empathetic that a positive relationship will grow. Two very useful communication techniques expressing, high levels of empathy are 1) restatement of content and 2) reflection of feeling. Restatement of content calls for the negotiator to paraphrase and repeat back to the perpe trator what the negotiator believes he -has heard. Examples of restatement would include: a. "This is what I hear you saying . . b. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying ..." c. "Do I understand you to mean that . . ." d. "So you are saying that . . ." e. "It sounds to me like you're saying . . ." Actually> there are'.'at least; thtee.methods of."restate*' ment available to the negotiator. First, he may reflect 190 the exact statement as spoken by the perpetrator: PERPETRATOR: "I'm sick of fooling around!" NEGOTIATOR: "You're sick of fooling around?" However, such echoing may get irritating fast and start to sound to the hostage-taker like parrot-like derision. If the negotiator senses that such is the case, he may choose to summarize or paraphrase the thought expressed by the subject, ostensibly as a feedback device to check the accuracy of his understanding of the perpetrator: PERPETRATOR: "I'll beat the hell out of somebody if I don't get some action soon. You pigs better hustle your asses or you'll be sorry. There'll be some heade bashed in and you'll only have yourselves to blame. You're going to know I mean business." NEGOTIATOR: "You say you want us to move faster." Third, the negotiator may restate the perpetrator's message by simply repeating a key word from the message which seems salient, perhaps expressed tentatively as a question: PERPETRATOR: "I'm sick of fooling around. Are you listening to me?" NEGOTIATOR: "Fooling around?" or PERPETRATOR: "Everyone here ignores me." NEGOTIATOR: "Ignores?" Responding to a key word of phrase often encourages more 191 amplification on that idea to alleviate any perceived con fusion. Statements that reflect the feeling of the perpetrator do not focus on repeating or paraphrasing the facts or manifest content of the message, but seek to pinpoint the underlying emotional state of the perpetrator. Often the feelings of the perpetrator may be discerned not only by what is said, but by voacl intonations, pauses, pace, fa cial features, and body movement. Statements that reflect feeling include: a. "You sound angry and resentful . . ." b. "It sounds to me like you're scared . . ." c. "You're mad at your boss and you want to get even ..." 4. Don't belittle the perpetrator. In many ways the perpetrator may be acting like a child. He bullies others, he screams, pouts, threatens, and acts primarily to gratify personal feelings regardless of who may suffer as a result. Nevertheless, the negotiator is advised not to treat him like a child. If the perpetrator starts to feel that he is not being taken seriously as an adult, or that the nego tiator is responding in a condescending, patronizing man ner, he may be more likely to react in a violent manner. Even a belittling tone of voice may be sufficient to pro duce a violent outrage. 192 5. Don't be defensive. The well-meaning negotiator may try to defend authority figures, police hierarchy and policies, or other objects of criticism by the perpetrator, in an effort to dismiss his motivations for hostility. He may say "The police chief is a very good person," or "The police department is very competent." When the negotiator becomes defensive in responding to a subject's criticism, he is in effect telling the subject that those negative feelings are unfounded, that his perception of reality is somehow distorted. He also implies that the subject has no right to express such opinions. By responding defensively, the negotiator may discourage the perpetrator from contin uing to talk, and may cause the relationship between the two to suffer. By disagreeing with the hostage-taker's feelings, the negotiator communicates an attitude of non- acceptance, and may actually lead the subject to believe that his criticisms of police and others are justified. Therefore, the negotiator is cautioned to avoid taking sides by defending or making excuses for the objects of the hostage-taker's anger. In such cases, the best strategy for the negotiator is one of neutrality. 6. Don't criticise or threaten. Consistently, negotia tors are warned not to counter-threaten the hostage-taker, even though the temptation to do so may be very strong. An example of a counter-threat would be: ____________________________________________; ___________________193 PERPETRATOR: "If anybody tries to rush this building, I'll kill everyone in here." NEGOTIATOR: "If you so much as touch anyone in there, we'll see that you never see a day of freedom in your life." Such "don't you dare" commands by police may be interpreted as a challenge by the perpetrator, and could have the oppo site effect than that desired by the negotiator. Likewise, if the negotiator criticises or becomes im patient with the hostage-taker, he will damage the bond of trust already established, and may find the subject more obstinate and resistant to suggestions of surrender. Even though the temptation to lash out with verbal assaults, especially as time passes., may become irresistable, he must refrain. Such critical remarks may include: a. "You're just being bullheaded . . ." b. "You just won't listen to reason ..." c. "Don't be stupid ..." d. "I've heard of idiotic demands, but this one is blue-ribboned, certified crazy ..." e. "That was a dumb move ..." 7. Help the perpetrator to save face. Face-saving strategies serve many functions for the hostage negotiator. Undeniably, face-saving is a powerful persuasive strategy designed to relieve the perpetrator of many of his fears about surrendering. After all, with the aid of newspaper reporters and T.V. news camera crews, he has broadcast to 194 the nation and much of the world that he will blow up the building, kill all of the hostages and himself if his de mands are not met. Even after he may have lost the commit ment to follow through, he may still hesitate to give up for fear that others will see it as an act of cowardous, or at least of not keeping his word. Therefore, as a persua sive strategy, police negotiators must remember to help him to surrender and still feel as though he has won something, made an important point, or has otherwise behaved in ways so that people will not think less of him for turning him self in. By way of example, in the 1977 Hanafi Muslim hostage case, the leader, Khaalis, insisted that he would not surrender unless he be allowed to remain free on his own recognizance until his trial date. He argued that he would lose face with his followers if he were handcuffed and taken into custody. With his assurance that this conces sion would end the forty-hour seige, Washington Superior Court Judge Harold Greene agreed to release Khaalis without bail pending his arraignment and trial. Nevertheless,,face-saving strategies are introduced under the rapport-building heading because in the process of negotiation, the police negotiator will likely find such a strategy useful in building rapport long before its utility as a resolution strategy will come into play. When 195 the negotiator arrives on the scene, the perpetrator will have already been stopped in his robbery (or other crime) and contained. He will probably be stinging from the embarrassment and humiliation of bungling his well-laid plan and will be desperately searching for some way of sal vaging even a small victory out of the mess. The negotia tor who understands this concern may quickly build rapport by stating that he wants to work toward a mutually satis fying conclusion and that he wants the perpetrator to retreat gracefully. Face-saving strategies include: 1) controlling the pace of perpetrator concession-giving (Don't force him to give up everything all at once. Make it appear that you have battled for everything he has given.), 2) providing explicit face-saving rationalizations ("You can give up now because you have already made your point," "You need to come with us if you really care about the cause you are fighting for," or "If you give up soon, it will look like your decision instead of looking like we wore you down or that you lost your nerve. I know you've got guts and so do you. Why don't you make sure that everyone else sees it by letting these people go and coming out?"), 3) removing camera crews at the moment of surrender so that the actual scene isn't broadcast over national T.V., and 4) if appro priate, assure the perpetrator that you will lead him from 196 the hostage scene in a manner that will make it appear he was overpowered and arrested by far superior force and numbers, so that he may boast of "how many of them it took to bring me down," rather than have him meekly and quietly walk out on his own. By demonstrating that he is sensitive to the ego needs of the perpetrator, the negotiator will show that he cares about the perpetrator as an individual. The immediate effect, will be to build trust and rapport, and will second arily alleviate some of the hesitation over surrendering. IV. Information Gathering Strategies A hostage negotiation training manual for the FBI Academy states that "without initial information furnished by the subject, there can be no productive or successful X6 communication." The 197 6 National Task Force on Terror ism states clearly that one of the priority objectives for the negotiator should be to "attempt to gather a maximum amount of information concerning the incident partici- 17 pants." Further, it states: Through their discussion with participants in extraordinary violence, police negotiators should attempt to establish and verify details of the participant's identity, background, motivation, physical location, psychological "^Fitzpatrick, p. 1. 17 National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards, and Goals, p. 207. 197 condition, and preparedness. Where hostages are involved, police negotiators should attempt in addition to monitor their condition and attitude.18 Thus, one of the important functions of the negotiator is to glean useful information from the perpetrator that may provide insights that may 1) improve the tactical po sition of the police, and 2) suggest persuasive strategies likely to bring the crisis to a peaceful conclusion. There are several strategies that the negotiator may use to draw out information from the hostage-taker, often without even directly asking for such information. The following are a sample of such strategies. 1. Silence. Silence as a communication tool simply requires that the negotiator 1) not interrupt while the perpetrator is talking, and 2) avoid the temptation to fill an awkward period of silence with idle chatter of other "filler." How well the perpetrator feels the negotiator is listening to him will influence his own willingness to be open and detailed. When the negotiator interrupts, he is implying that "what I have to say is more important that what you have to say." When the perpetrator begins to sense such an attitude, he is likely to stop talking to abbreviate his comments, neither of which will be useful to TO National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, p. 208. 198 the negotiation process. The negotiator will encourage greater disclosure on the part of the perpetrator when he quietly listens and allows the captor to speak at length. Secondarily, silence allows the negotiator to observe the subject for any nonverbal cues that might be useful. Silence can convey much in the way of psychological moods. It can indicate sadness, anger, fear, contemplation, dis tress, or frustration. The negotiator should take this opportunity to assess the meaning of such periods of si lence as they may suggest possible persuasive strategies. Finally, silence slows the pace of the conversation. It allows all parties more time to think and reflect, to assemble their thoughts into words. This action has the effect of calming the participants. It also allows the negotiator to stall for time. Although in general conver sation people try to avoid pauses and lulls, since they usually create a feeling of awkwardness, in hostage nego tiations pauses can be useful in calming teh hysteria of the moment, allows for careful observation, and encourages the perpetrator to provide more details to statements he may have previously made. 2. General leads. Closely associated with the strat egy of restating messages back to the perpetrator is the strategy known as leading. Leading is simply replying with a word or phrase that shows the negotiator is listening, interested, and would like to hear more. As such, it leads 199 the speaker to pursue his line of thought or begin another. Examples of leads include: a. "Yes ..." b. "Uh huh . . ." c. "Hmmm . . ." d. "I see . . ." e. "And so ..." f. "Go on . . ." g. "And then ..." H. "Oh? ..." If the negotiator is in visual contact with the perpetra tor, an occasional nod of the head and prolonged eye con tact can serve the same purpose. Responding with leads leaves the direction of the conversation with the subject and encourages him to speak spontaneously. The negotiator can thereby convey an atti tude of attentiveness and a willingness to hear the demands and opinions expressed by the subject. 3. Discrepancy confrontation. In the course of neg otiations the hostage-taker may make conflicting statements or behave in ways inconsistent with his messages. For instance, he may demand escape to Afghanistan yet request a car for his escape vehicle. Or he may state that he has no intentions to hurt anyone yet keep a shotgun cocked and tied to a hostage's neck. Whatever the apparent discrepan cy, it affords the negotiator an opportunity to point out 200 the confusion for the sake of clarification, hopefully to encourage the subject to explain further. In addition to gaining more information, the perceptive negotiator may also cause the perpetrator to readjust one or more elements of his apparent inconsistency to appear internally consis tent, and thus more stable, predictable, and credible. The careful negotiator will pay attention to detail and carefully listen to both words and moods to detect any inconsistency in the perpetrator that may be pointed out, discussed, and clarified. 4. Ask questions. One legitimate way to glean more information from the hostage-taker is simply to request the information in the form of a question. However broadly phrased, questions allow the negotiator to introduce top ics for discussion, especially if a particular issue needs to be addressed which the subject has avoided or when the conversation has grown unproductively stagnant. Two basic types of questions are available to the negotiator: 1) open-ended questions, and 2) closed-ended questions. Both have advantages and disadvantages. The open-ended question is one that can not be answered in one or two words, but requires amplification and allows the speaker to respond at length. They are questions that usually begin with "what," "how," or "why." Examples of such questions which the negotiator might ask include: 201 "What happened here?" "Why do you feel so isolated?" "How can I help you to end this situation?" The chief advantage of open-ended questions is that they set almost no limits for the type or length of reply, but rather allow the perpretrator to create his own an swers, speak as long as he wishes, and determine the di rection of the conversation. As such, he is more likely to provide information not specifically requested by the ne gotiator and details he may not have thought to ask for. The chief disadvantage is that by its very nature, open- ended questions often prevent the negotiator from obtaining quick answers he may sometimes need. They also afford him little control of the dialogue. At such times, closed- ended questions may be necessary. Closed-ended questions are "yes/no" answer-type ques tions, limited reply questions (those which may be answered with a few words), or questions for which the negotiator presents all possible options for answers (such as a mul tiple choice question), Closed ended questions usually begin with "do," "is," and "are," Notice the differences (open-ended) "What do you want to eat?" (closed-ended) "Do you want a salami or ham sandwich? ' (open-ended) "How do you feel about yourself?" (clos'ed-ended) "Do you hate yourself?" Closed-ended questions can be very useful to the nego tiator if not overused, since they allow him to obtain 202 fast, simple answers and channels the perpetrator's think ing into specific directions. When overused, closed-ended questions restrict conversation, prevent the perpetrator from speaking freely, and inhibits much useful information from surfacing. 5. Seek details to the nature of the demands. When ever possible, the negotiator should request detailed in formation about the exact nature of the hostage-taker1s demands. Negotiators can expect most demands to include the following elements: 1) "I want A, B, and C, 2) I will not negotiate, 3) all items must be met, and in full, 4) within a specific time limit, and 5) or a specific conse quence will occur. Even though such a demand may seem sufficiently clear and detailed, it lacks the precision which the negotiator should point out. Not only does the persistent drive for greater specificity stall for time, it puts greater stress for decision-making on the perpetrator rather than the negotiator. For example, a simple demand for $50,000 and a car can lead to the following spider-web of questions: "I want $50,000." II Dp you want it in:- gold?- cash? jewels? other? 203 / If gold, would you prefer: a. coins? b. bars? c. assay certificates to prove authenticity? If cash, would you prefer: a. American currency? b. foreign currency? c. large or small denominations? d. old or new bills? e- marked or unmarked bills? If jewels: a. what kinds? b- how large? If other: a. will you take a savings bond? b. cashier's check? c. money order? d. I.O.U.? How do you want it packaged? a. briefcase? b. bag? c. box? d. what color? e. with or without a lock? 204 How do you want it delivered? a. left at the door? b. thrown through the window? c. exchange procedure with hostage? d. delivered by policeman? With regard to the demand for "a car," the following clari fication may be requested: a. What kind of car? b. How big? c. What color? d. What plates? e. How much gas do you want in it? f. What tank capacity? g. How many miles per gallon? h. Do you need anything else in the car? - radio - spare tire - maps - cigarette lighter - casette player - blankets - telephone i. Is a marked car all right (police car, taxi, etc.)? The more detail provided in the demand, the easier it is to block by explaining that you don't have that particular 205 item and will have to work on it. It also presents oppor tunities to negotiate compromise deals: "I don't have that. Will you take this instead?" By learning in detail exactly what the perpetrator wants, the negotiator may also determine what he is likely to settle for, and, more importantly, what he fundamentally looking for. For instance, the hostage-taker may demand one million dollars and a plane to Uganda when what he really desires is for the world to notice him for just fif teen minutes. In such cases, adequate news coverage and patience will be sufficient to secure a peaceful surrender. 6. Try to learn about the tactical position of the perpetrator. Whenever possible, try to assertain the following: a. exact number and location Of hostages "We'd like to get everyone some food. How many people are in there?" "Is everybody comfortable' and warm? Where is everyone staying?" b. exact number of perpetrators "We are trying to locate transportation for you. How many of you are there?" c. type and amount of weaponry "We are told you are armed. Is that true?" d. extent of creature comforts "Are you hungry? Thirsty? Cold? Tired? . . ." 206 Such information will be valuable as police formulate con tingency plans for possible assault and rescue attempts, for determining the risk potential of various maneuvers, and the level of dependency the perpetrators have on the police for their needs, all of which may become items for negotiations. V. Persuasive Strategies The 1976 Task Force Report on terrorism stated in its recommendations that "because the personal aims of the quasi-terrorist may prove to be shifting or fluid in nature, the scope for the exercise of influence over them by police, and thus for the resolution of incidents of quasi-terrorism through patient negotiation and persuasion, is consider- 19 able." In other words, the ordinary barricaded hostage- taker tends to be less rigid in his objectives and goals, and thus is more vulnerable to shifts in mood and orienta tion, including movement from belligerency to cooperative ness. And so the use of persuasive strategies becomes an important and effective element in the resolution of this type of hostage confrontation. 19 In this case, "quasi-terrorism" refers to the absence of political or ideological motivation. The con cern is exclusively with personal gain: the desire for revenge, money, self-glorification, self-punishment, etc. National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, p. 198. 207 In most cases, negotiation in barricade-hostage con frontations is simply the process of providing the criminal with a wider range of productive solutions to his problems. The challenge to the negotiator is to make these alterna tives attractive and reasonable enough to entice the perpe trator to accept them. The art of persuasion in bringing the criminal to accept the compromise solution is a slow, detailed, often tedious process which may involve a number of strategies designed to accomplish the eventual surrender of the captor. The persuasive strategies enumerated below may be used at any point in the negotiation process, but tend to occur with greatest frequency near the end of the negotiation process, and continue to dominate other strategies until resolution occurs. 1. Agree, in part, with the perpetrator's view. Begin the negotiation by agreeing, at least in part, with the perpetrator's views. By confirming the subject's view of things and showing that you are able to understand him, the negotiator .will more likely entice the subject to try to understand the position of the police. Often, people only want to know that their perception of the world is not crazy. With the confirmation of another person, the hos tage-taker may be far less hesitant to relent. 208 2. Try to persuade gradually. The negotiator will be more successful if he does not try to achieve a total sur render immediately. Not only will the subject be resistant to immediate surrender from a face-saving standpoint, by actually forcing the subject to verbally announce his re fusal to give up tends to entrench him farther into his position. Slowly moving;the subject through areas of co operation one step at a time sets up a pattern of behavior and gradually draws him closer and closer to surrender. 3. "Fractionate" the issues. One method of persuading gradually is to break up the large unmanageable "hostage crisis" into smaller more manageable issues. This allows both parties to deal with each small issue, develop a successful pattern of resolving those issues, and commits the perpetrator not to throw it all away when faced with more complicated issues later. For example, isolating motivations for the subject's behavior aims at fractiona ting issues into manageable sizes. If the subject took hostages "out of protest for the way blacks have been treated for the last three hundred years," the negotiator will be hard pressed to resolve so intangible and colossal an issue. However, further digging may reveal three very real, much more manageable frustrations: 1) "I couldn't get a loan at the bank," 2) "I lost my job," and 3) My kids live in a slum." Creatively offering workable solutions to 209 these real issues may bring the crisis to an end. 4. State conclusions. Don't just give the perpetrator the facts of the situation and expect him to arrive at the same conclusions you did. Tell him exactly what conclu-' sions you believe the facts lead to. 5. Present both sides of the argument. When talking to the perpetrator, the negotiator will tend to appear more credible and persuasive if he actually agrees against one or more unimportant aspects of his own position. It will impress the subject with the negotiator's apparent fairness and open-mindedness and may encourage him to respond in kind. For example, the negotiator may say, "You know, I'd prefer we talk with the door open, but I'm probably just being bull^headed. There's really no reason that the door has to be open ..." and so on. The minor concession will become grounds for requesting reciprical concessions. 6. Slant persuasive appeals to meet perpetrator's needs. Having obtained as much information as possible about the motivations of the hostage-taker, the negotiator will want to aim his persuasive appeals at suggestions that will help to satisfy these needs. For example, the nego tiator mey need to respond to the perpetrator's sense of pride, feelings toward his loved ones, need for status, political views, or the desire to control events. The perpetrator is reacting to a set of abstract needs, 210 feeling that his present course is the logical path to fol low. The negotiator will first seek to understand the nature of that set of needs, then offer other solutions which can also satisfy them. If the subject can be con vinced that the suggested alternative will work, he may be induced to terminate the hostage confrontation. 7. Point out similarities. When talking to the per petrator, the negotiator should try to emphasize any simi larity between himself and the perpetrator. People are more receptive to persuasive appeals from someone they per ceive to be just like them. Therfore, the negotiator should point out any pertinent comparisons: ethnic back ground , age, interests, children, or other salient char acteristics . 8. Minimize counter-arguments. It is likely that for every argument presented by the negotiator, the subject will have a reason why such an argument is fallacious, irrelevant, or otherwise unacceptable. Continued blocking on the part of the perpetrator will only Strengthen the wall between them. It also reconfirms in the mind of the perpetrator that there is no solution. The negotiator may try to head off such deliberate blocking by including in his persuasive argument /a weakened version of the perpe trator's likely response. This preempts his response and may increase the chance that he will accept the negotia-' 211 tor's suggestion. For example, the negotiator may say: a. "You're not going to want to do this, because on the surface it looks absurd ..." b. "I know you're going to think this is ridiculous, but what if we ..." c. "You'll probably find this silly, but my idea is to ..." d. "There is a very simple solution to this problem, but I'm almost sure you won't like it . . ." 9. Initiate bogus issues for sacrifice. Not only is the negotiator advised to make absolutely everything an item for negotiation, but he may also invent issues to ne gotiate simply to give in on them later as a way of encour aging concessions on the .part of the perpetrator. In fact, the longer the negotiator fights for such irrelevants, the more important will seem the victory to the perpetrator. Such bogus issues may include: a. how many meals will be delivered to the hostage- taker b. water or soft drinks c. lights for the building or not d. cigarettes or not And the list goes on. Once the negotiator yields on a single point, he should continually remind the perpetrator of it and demand reciprical concessions. The perpetrator is to be reminded that nothing is for free. The negotiator may even secure the release of some of the hostages over these minor points if he can make the issue seem important 212 enough to the perpetrator. Hostage-takers have been known to release their victims and even surrender for such in consequential victories as a single cigarette or a ham burger . 10. Offer suggestions. The use of suggestions during a hostage confrontation is aimed at securing the criminal's uncritical acceptance of an idea. By couching demands, promises, and predictions into a tentative guess> the nego tiator may pass them along to the perpetrator with less likelihood that they will be rejected outright. In fact, such suggestions may be delivered so subtly that the perpe trator may later actually come to feel that the idea was his own. The following are a collection of indirect communica tion categories of suggestions that may influence beha^- 20 vior: a. Truisms "Sooner or later you may get tired." b. Not knowing - not doing "You may not know when you will get hungry. You won't even need to think about it right now." c. Open-ended Suggestions "We all have the capacity to compromise, but some times we don't know when we are ready to nego-k . 20 From Dr. Martin Reiser, "The Use of Suggestibility Techniques in Hostage Negotiations," a paper presented at the Western Psychological Association Annual Meeting, 9 April 1981. 213 tiate." d. Covering All Possibilities of a Class of Responses "Sooner or later you may or may not want to get a breath of fresh air. The really important thing is to pay attention to what you need." e. Implied Directive "When you are ready to talk about this, then we'll find a solution." f. Imbedded Statements "You may wish to keep this thought in the back of your mind where you can get to it when needed." g. Imbedded Questions "Can you remember the last time you felt relaxed?" h. Binds "How soon do you think you'll be ready to nego tiate?" i. Double Binds "Would you like to negotiate a settlement now or would you prefer to wait awhile?" j. Interpersonal and Associative Focusing "I'd like to tell you about another settlement I helped to negotiate." k. Future Projection "Perhaps you'd like to discuss this issue later." 1. Induced Imagery "Imagine how relaxed and comfortable you'll feel when we finally solve this situation." m. Encouraging a New Frame of Reference "I could be wrong, but I'll bet your wife (mother, 214 etc.), is feeling pretty scared right now. If you put yourself in her place, I wonder what you might be feeling?" 11. Request delayed compliance. Just as important as the goal of resolution is the pace with which some crises must be handled. The negotiator should be careful to con trol the pace of perpetrator yielding and concessions so as not to cause a boomerang effect. If the perpetrator sud denly starts to feel that the negotiator is in a hurry and pushing the perpetrator to make up his mind "now or never," the negotiator may induce even greater resistance. There fore, the negotiator may want to eliminate the element of haste by requesting delayed compliance. The negotiator may ask the perpetrator to make up his mind later - not now. Especially if the issue is one in which the negotiator will expect resistance to, he may follow up his persuasive ap peal with the suggestion that the perpetrator not decide immediately, but rather, think it over, and that possibly he would see some merit in the idea later. A side benefit of requests for delayed compliance is the additional time it adds to the negotiation process. 12. Never say "No." As a general rule of thumb, nego tiators are advised to create the impression that every thing is negotiable, even so-called "non-negotiables." This is not to say that police are instructed to yield on such demands as firearms, more hostages, drugs, or other exac- 215 erbating elements, but that they are to take every demand into advisement, then proceed to stall on as many unaccept able demands as possible. However, the negotiator should not outright refuse a demand. He is to simply frustrate the perpetrator into yielding on the demand himself and offering a counter-proposal instead. For example, the hostage-taker may demand to speak to t the police chief. In time, the negotiator may report that "we are still trying to locate the chief, but he is out of town and not near a phone." After several hours of that, the perpetrator will likely drop the demand and ask for something else. By allowing the perpetrator to cancel his own demand, the negotiator evades the dangerous task of saying no him self. He also avoids enhancing his own apparent decision making power (a perception he wants to avoid), and quite possibly prevents a demand from becoming a symbolic powet struggle, escalating the demand item itself far beyond its original importance and significance. 13. Force the perpetrator to problem-solve. Whenever the negotiator takes control of the activity of problem solving, he of necessity imposes his own value system and opinions upon the perpetrator, rather than helping him to explore his own problem, and reach his own conclusions. One negotiation rule is never to tell the perpetrator what to ^ 216 do. Sometimes it may become necessary to disregard this rule, as with a mentally depressed or passive person. But even when the subject asks for advice, the negotiator . should be cautious in his response. He usually should sup ply only pertinent information which will give the subject more insight into how to solve the problem. This keeps the negotiator in a neutral position rather than forcing him to take a definite stand. If instead of giving orders, the negotiator simply helps the subject to solve the crisis for himself, the negotiator will make an important contribution to the subject's feelings, heighten his self-esteem, and make him more personally committed to the eventual solu-4- tion, thus bringing about a successful resolution to the hostage situation. In this regard, negotiator comments would include: a. "How can we solve this?" b. "What shall we do?" c. "What do you suggest?" d. "What can we do about this?" 14. Agree to demands with reluctance. In most negotia tion situations, the two parties will initially present an extreme demand, based on their ideal expectation for the outcome, but certainly not the only position they are willing to accept. A typical example is the initial demand made by PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controller's Or 217 ganization) in 19 81 for resolving the air traffic control lers' strike. The union called for a work week reduction from forty hours to thirty-two, and an annual wage ceiling increase from $49,000 to $73,000." When the United States 1 Department of Commerce refused the "extreme" demand and,1in turn, fired all striking air traffic controllers, the union president, Robert Poli, insisted that the demand was only a bargaining chip from which the union was willing to compro mise for an acceptable resolution. In hostage negotiations, often the perpetrator, unless he is a crazed political terrorist, will be willing to ne gotiate a compromise settlement from an initial extreme demand when informed that, as a package, the demands cannot be met, but that some would be negotiable. If the hostage- taker is made to feel that the eventual settlement was hard-fought and the best deal he could get, he will be more likely to commit himself to the bargain and surrender for the terms agreed upon. Even if the terms actually benefit the police, the perpetrator will likely believe he won a bargaining point. Therefore, all terms should be agreed to with obvious reluctance by police to minimize the per petrator's suspicions that he could have gotten more if he had only held out longer and appeared tougher. In the 1977 Anthony Kiritsis hostage case, authorities readily agreed to all of Kiritsis' initial demands by the 218 second day of the seizure, which included total immunity from prosecution and public apologies from the mortgage company that had allegedly wronged him. Such ready will ingness to comply caused Kiritsis to reconsider his demand, possibly wondering if he had struck the best deal he could make. After all, one would reason, if the police agreed so quickly to the first demand, who knows what they would have been willing to give if pressed harder? Not surpris ingly, Kiritsis responded that he was "not satisfied," and that he "would sleep on" the offer. Fortunately, in the morning he accepted the deal. Conceivably, he might have emerged in the morning with three, ten, or twenty addi tional demands, thus protracting the crisis even longer. By contrast, on February 25, 1977, Leroy Cotton shot and killed a man, then barricaded himself with a seven- month pregnant mother and her eighteen-month old baby in a Syracuse, New York, apartment complex. After fending off demands for 1) a plane to fly to Cuba, 2) amnesty, 3) the chief of police, and 4) his former wife, Cotton promised he would surrender for a pack of cigarettes. After much hesitation over the seemingly small request, the police negotiator conceded with great reluctance to give him only two cigarettes. Cotton accepted with relief and in fact emerged proudly from the room to surrender still smoking the cigarette. 219 15. Use factual evidence in support of your position. Negotiators are advised to use clear, unambiguous evidence to support positions which they are taking. Especially for those demands on which they cannot compromise at all, nego tiators will have greater success in dissuading perpetra tors from: pursuing impossible demands if they are shown specifically why those demands are posing problems. The more powerful the evidence, the more likely the negotiator will convince the perpetrator that this position cannot change. For example, rather than responding to a demand for the the subject’s wife to be brought to the scene with "Well, we can't do that," (a weak reason - of course you can if you only wanted to!), the negotiator should have a battery of well-rehearsed blocking techniques, complete with unarguable evidence. For example, the negotiator may later inform the perpetrator, "We have been calling her all day and nobody answers. We sent a unit to the house and nobody is home!" 16. Avoid audiences. The perpetrator will be more likely to respond favorably to police efforts for a quiet surrender if he does not feel he must do so in front of masses of curious onlookers, television cameras, and per haps all of T.V. America. Face-saving considerations may prevent the perpetrator from giving up long after he has lost the will to resist. Therefore, as much as possible, 220 keep crowds away, speak to the perpetrator directly, or over the phone, and avoid forcing the perpetrator•to humi liate himself and back down in front of throngs of onlook ers . Which Strategy is Most Successful? Having reviewed the spectrum of strategies recommended for police negotiations the question may arise, "But which ones have been shown to be most successful?" or "Which ones do police prefer above all others?" Although the question is an important one, very little research has been pubr- lished that rank orders strategies into a "most- to least- preferred" arrangement. The unique nature of each hostage case makes any one strategy either attractive or dangerous depending on the specific perpetrator. The only published study to date which seeks to address the issue of "strategy 21 of preference" was reported in 1981. The researchers interviewed twenty-three law enforcement negotiators from the state of California, who had participated in twenty- nine hostage negotiations. Among other questions, they asked these negotiators to report on the frequency of meth ods they had found to be most helpful in dealing with hostage-taking. The table below lists the strategies Mirabella and Trudeau, pp. 45-47. 221 these negotiators identified, and the frequency these ap proaches were considerd most helpful. TABLE 3 STRATEGY FREQUENCY PERCENTAGE 1. Reassuring statements 16 55% 2. Attempting to reason 13 45% 3. Suggesting alternatives 14 48% 4. Temporarily stopping communication 6 21% 5. Authoritarian approach 5 17% 6. Ignoring demands 2 7% Source: Mirabella and Trudeau, p. 47. Although most of the six communciation strategies men tioned in the study are recommended as standard procedures, at least one ("authoritarian" approach) is gnerally avoided. The successful application of such a method in the five cases reported by the negotiators in the study emphasizes the fact that it is impossible to devise a definitive "do" and "don't" list for hostage confrontations. Never theless, the fact that these negotiators perceived "reas suring statements" to be very helpful in over half the cases suggests a pattern of success that bears close attention. As the authors of the study conclude, "with additional funding, a national study could be conducted to broaden the data base in this area."'' 222 CHAPTER FOUR Hostage-taking as is currently practiced is a rela-: tively new form of terrorism. Only in the last ten years have radical political groups so boldly corralled innocent people together to be exchanged for money, prisoners, or media attention. The reasons offered for the dramatic up surge in this type of crime have already been discussed. The point is, this new deadly gambit is just now being systematically studied by law enforcement agencies to more thoroughly understand how to combat it. As an object of study, hostage negotiation is yet in its infancy. As recently as 1972, after the disaster at the Munich Olympic games, when eleven Israeli players, held hostage by Arab terrorists, were all killed in a bungled rescue at tempt by .German police, law enforcement teams around the world shuddered at their own lack of preparedness to deal effectively with such acts of terror should they occur in their own country. As a result, hostage negotiation and tactical response trainings became standard for many police departments. The question was, who was to teach them and what was to be taught? The field was so new, so explor 2-23 atory. Even by 1975, Richard, Kobetz, Assistant Director of the Professional Standards Division of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, reported that “law enforce ment administrators currently find it difficult to pre*-- pare an adequate defense against, and response to, these 1 incidents, given the newness of the phenomenon," Kobetz described the state of the art as being in "Phase one"; reacting spontaneously to each incident, attempting to free the hostages and capture the perpetrators, and begin ning' to discern a pattern. Today, many more details of that pattern have been identified. Specifically, incidents have been categorized by types, descriptions of incidents which precipitate the taking of hostages have been catalogued, psychological pro files of hostage-takers have been cast into typologies, types of common barricades have been analyzed, and tactical and negotiation response procedures have been studied, tried, and refined. In short, though the pheonomenon of hostage-taking is still relatively new, law inforcement agencies are fast approaching what Kobetz calls "Phase Two": the development of coordinated professional tech- 1 Richard W, Kobetz, "Hostage Incidents: The New Police Priority," The Police Chief, 42 (1975), 34. 224 2- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - nologies for defense and response. Yet, much, remains to be done. The current state of the art, while far more sophisticated than it was just ten years ago, leaves many questions unanswered and suggests many directions for future study and research. In at least two ways the problem of eliminating or minimizing hostage confrontations requires further examination. First police negotiators must constantly seek to improve and refine their response strategies to better react and control events once the crisis has begun. The fact that a formula for 100 percent successful resolution has not been discovered for all or any type of hostage case points to the continued challenge of searching for new and better methods of conflict resolution, to better understand the needs of the terrorist, and how best to meet those needs. In short, the question of "how best to respond to a hostage crisis, once begun," remains an open book. Second, law enforcement agencies must carefully study ways to eliminate the need or potential for hostage-taking. As is true with medicine, the best and easiest cure is pre vention. Therefore, the surest and most enduring solutions to the problem of hostage-taking will be the discovery and 2 Kobetz, p. 35. 225 implementation of realistic preventative measures which strike at the motivation for such crimes. This chapter, then, will seek to address these two issues: 1) short-term solutions: where to from here? and 2) long-term solutions - shaping the future. Short-Term Solutions: Where- to From Here? 1. Communication Research. A comparison of the communication literature reveals remarkable agreement in the findings of various published research with the recommended communication tactics of police negotiators. Whether this corroberation is a happy accident or the careful and intentional application of theory for the service of mankind, the fact remains that communication and behavioral science researchers have made substantial contributions which either confirm current police negotiation practices or provides support for new strategies. Those areas of conceptual overlap will be examined below. First, the negotiation strategy which emphasizes the similarities between the negotiator and perpetrator (Per suasive Strategy #7), parallels the research and findings of Byrne and his associates, which conclusively demon-. - strated a positive -relationship between - similarity ahd at 226 traction.3 The implications for persuasion seems obvious: "We are probably more likely to accept influence from, do favors for, and comply with requests from others when our level of attraction toward them is high than when it is 4 relatively low." The one weakness of current hostage negotiation theory is in its narrow conception of the bases of similarity. Where negotiation theory principally lists demographic characteristics, such as background, family, and ethnic group as salient determinants of similarity, Byrne's literature review and research identifies many more. Table 2 lists several of the factors of similarity that have been found to affect interpersonal attraction. The implications for hostage negotiators would be to explore even greater opportunities for establishing a cli mate for interpersonal attraction by emphasizing even more aspects of similarity than are currently being suggested. The negotiation strategy to help the perpetrator save face corresponds directly with Erving Goffman's theoretic 3 For a review of this literature, see D. Byrne, "Att itudes and Attraction, in L. Berkowitz (ed.) Advances in Experimental Psychology, Vol. 4 (New York: Academic Press, 1969), pp. 35-89; D. Byrne, The Attraction Paradigm (New York: Academic Press, 1971). 4 'Robert A Baron, Donn Byrne, and Barry H. Kantowxtz, Psychology: Understanding Behavior (Phila.: W. B. Saunders, 1977), p. 466. 227 TABLE : : 4 INVESTIGATORS ASPECTS OF SIMILARITY Byrne^ similarity of attitudes Hewitt8 similarity of perceptions Byrne^ similarity of personalities Griffitt8 similarity of self-concept Byrne, Clore, and 9 Worchel similarity of economic status , 10 London similarity of ability 5 Donn Byrne, "Interpersonal Attraction and Attitude Similarity," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62 (1961), 713-715. J. Hewitt, "Liking and the Proportion of Favorable Evaluations," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 22 (1972), 231-235. 7 Donn Byrne, The Attraction Paradigm (New York: Academic Press, 1971). 8 W. B. Griffitt, "Interpersonal Attraction as a Function of Self-Concept and Personality Similarity- Dissimilarity," Journal of Personality and Social Psy chology , 4 (1966), 581-584. 9 D. Byrne, G. Clore, and P. Worchel, "The Effect of Economic Similarity and Dissimilarity On Interpersonal Attraction," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4 (1966), 220-224. ■^Cited in Donn Byrne, An Introduction to Personality: Research, Theory, and Application (Englewood Cliff, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974) , p. 3 4i2. 228 discussion on face-saving.-^ Goffman emphasizes the impor tance of understanding the "face" or "mask" that another person puts on and wears, so that one can better help that person to preserve, or "save", that mask from being de stroyed. Several authors agree on the usefulness of dealing with smaller issues first as a means of achieving a satisfactory 12 settlement (persuasive strategy #3), among them Cohen, 13 14 Wilmot and Frost, and Fisher. This process of "fractionating" the problem into manageable sizes is sup ported in the literature as a means of setting up a pattern of successful negotiation and of committing the opponent to yielding on "non-negotiables" by forcing him to invest time and energy into resolving many other small items. He would be less likely to break off negotiations over an impasse on one item after successfully settling seven or eight others. He will tend to become malleable. This can generally occur ■^Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1957). "^Cohen, pp. 71-73. ^Wilmot and Frost, pp. 136-13 8. ■^Roger Fisher, "Fractionating Conflict," in Clagett G. Smith (ed.) Conflict Resolution: Contributions of the Behavioral Sciences (Nortre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1971), p. 158. 229 only through the fractionation of issues. Future research might seek to look ih two directions with regard to the fractionation of conflict: 1) how many items need to be resolved before an opponent begins to feel committed to re solution? and 2) how does the element of saliency of the issues affect negotiation outcomes? For example, perhaps only one important issue, when successfully resolved, clears the way for compromise on every other issue. Or perhaps two important issues are worth the weight of eight unimpor tant issues. Further research might discover the relation between number of issues settled as compared to the impor tance of the .issues as a predictor of commitment. The factor of time alone may play a significant part in inducing commitment. Research -might seek to determine the impact of the mere passage of time in the negotiation effort as a critical element in committing the opponents to achieve a satisfactory settlement. Persuasion strategy #2 ("try to persuade gradually"), is an approach to persuasion consistent with the implica- 15 tions of social judgment theory. Predictions of persua sive effect made by social judgment theory are as follows: 1) persuasive messages falling within the listener's latitude of acceptance will facilitate attitude change, 15 Mazafer Sherif, Carolyn Sherif, and Roger Nebergall, Attitude and Attitude Change: The Social Judgment-Involve ment Approach (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1965). ____________ 230 2) if a message is judged by the listener to lie within his latitude of rejection, attitude change will be reduced or nonexistent (in fact, a boomerang effect may occur in which the discrepent message actually reinforces his original position), and 3) within the latitude of acceptance and non commitment, the more discrepent the message from the person's own stand, the greater the expected attitude change^ Borrowing from these expectations, the negotiator should be advised to place his suggestions conceptually close to the perpetrator's original position, with the goal of changing his thinking and behavior a small step at a time. While hostage negotiation theory recommends presenting both sides of the argument (persuasive strategy #5), per suasive researchers tend to be more reserved with such ad vice, in the light of research findings. Although, on the surface, it might seem that the man who presents both ;sides of the issue might seem more fair, impartial, and therefore more credible in the position he advocates, the risk of such an approach is that it invites doubt, comparison, and the chance that the opposing idea might appear more attrac tive. In one of the earliest and best known experiments on the topic, an important discovery was made. The one-sided presentation was more effective with those who were less well-educated, while the two-sided presentation had a 231 greater impact on those with more education. When previous attitude on the subject and education were considered to gether, the two-sided treatment was more effective with all except the less well-educated men whose initial attitude 16 favored the position advocated in the persuasive appeal. In other words, the less well-educated man is expected to be more affected by a one-sided message advocating a posi tion he already endorse, then hearing a two-sided message advocating that same position, or a two-sided message pre senting a position he rejects. As such, it may be that if the perpetrator is judged to be low-to-average in educa-. tion, the presentation of a two-sided message may work against the negotiator's efforts. Future research might seek to add further light.to this interesting phenomenon, and more clearly explain the impact of education (intelli gence, or other related concepts) on the processing of a one-sided persuasive appeal. In support of the two-sided argument, the negotiator can fully expect the perpetrator to be initially disposed to reject his suggestions a priori as being biased in favor of the 'police. Hfe nuist therefore work to present himself as being as impartial as possible. Related research has "^Carl Hovland, Arthur Lumsdaine, and Fred Sheffield, Experiments on Mass Communication: Studies on Social Psy chology in World War II (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1949). ________________ 23 2 shed light on how people tend to react to biased vs. im- 17 partial testimony designed to persuade. Arnold and McCroskey sought to evaluate the effectiveness of three types of testimony. The first type, called "biased," was defined as arguments presented by a person perceived to have a vested interest in the outcome for which he is ad vocating; the "unbiased" testimony was defined as being presented by one who neither stands to gain or lose by the outcome; and the final category, called "reluctant testi mony," referred to arguments presented for a position that would seem to be against the vested interests of the one presenting the message. The research findings showed that biased testimony was judged as least believable, reluctant tesimony as being second, and unbiased testimony as super ior in terms of credibility. For the purposes of the hostage negotiator, being perceived as unbiased may be a hypothetical ideal. However, by presenting both sides of the issue, he may appear to be less devious and partisan. By including "the other side of the story," he may be per ceived as presenting "reluctant testimony," which may elevate his perceived credibility above his probable ini tial position of "biased," the least credible of all. 17 William E. Arnold and James C. McCroskey, "The Credibility of Reluctant Testimony," Central States Speech Journal, 18 (1967), 97-103. 233 Finally, Deutsch's laboratory research on threats and bargaining has generated many conclusions and findings re garding the effects of threats on communication. These findings confirm police recommendations and are validated by police experience which strongly advises against the use of threat, counter-threat, or aggressive messages. Deutsch observes: In our experimental bargaining situation, the availability of threat made it more difficult for the bargainers to reach a mutually profitable agreement. Indeed, bilateral threat presents a situation so conflict-fraught that no amount of communi cation seems to have an ameliorating effect.-1 - * * While much of the communication literature harmonizes with police recommendations, at least three important areas of research offer opportunity for communicologists to con tribute substantially to the refinement of hostage nego tiation strategies and procedures. These areas are 1) fear appeal research, 2) deception detection, and 3) compliance- gaining strategies. Fear Appeal Research A massive literature has accumulated over the years with regard to the impact of what is synonymously referred 1 R Deutsch, p. 244. 234 to as "fear" or "threat" appeals. Leventhal's review of the literature is very comprehensive, uncovering apparent 19 discrepent findings. Perhaps the most plaguing is the conflict over the relative impact of high vs. low threat appeals. Some researchers have discovered that high threat 20 appeals have greater persuasive impact, while others 21 have found exactly the opposite. Intuitively, it would seem that extremely threatening, coercive messages would be more likely to evoke the response desired by the sender. For example, I would be much more disposed to surrender my car dn demand to a crazed man with a shotgun than to a belligerent nine year old toting a frizbee. How, then, is 19 Howard Leventhal, "Findings and Theory m the Study of Fear Communication," in Leonard Berkowitz (ed.) Advances in Experimental Social.Psychology, Vol. 5 (New York: Academic Press, 1970), pp. 119-186. 20 See for example P. Niles, "The Relationship of Susceptibility and Anxiety to Acceptance of Fear Arousing Communications," Diss. Yale University 1964; D. Haefner, "Arousing Fear in Dental Health Education," Journal of Public Health Dentistry, 25 (1965), 140-146; J- M. Dabbs and H. Leventhal, "Effects of Varying the Recommendations in Fear-Arousing Communication," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69 (1964), 173-181. 21 See for example I. Janis and S. Feshbach, "Effects of Fear-Arousing Communication," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48 (1953), 78-92; H. Leventhal and P. Niles, "A Field Experiment on Fear Arousal with Data on the Validity of Questionnarie Measures," Journal of Personality, 32 (1964), 459-479; I. Janis and R. Terwilliger, "An Experimental Study of Psychological Resistances to Fear-Arousing Communication," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 65 (1962), 403-410. 235 the low-threat condition established in certain experiments responsible for greater compliant behavior? The problem, in large part, can be attributed to a confusion in the conceptualization of what constitutes a threat. A clear distinction must be drawn between "threat" and other related fear appeals, for it is exclusively threat that the hostage-taker issues and with tahich the negotiator must cope. Therefore, the elements of the threat must be well understood to avoid the erroneous assumption that all fear appeals are of the same type, but only differ, perhaps, in intensity. Frost and.';Wilraot clearly distinguish between two types of fear appeals, both of which plays upon man’s anticipa- 22 tion of destructive suffering: 1) warnings and 2) threats. The warning and the threat are both predictions of negative sanctions if certain behaviors do not occur. However, warnings and threats differ in that the "threatener" con trols the outcome and personally enforces the sanctions, whereas the "warner" does not control the outcome. For example, imagine two people driving in a car. If the passenger were to turn to the driver and say "You’d better slow down or else you’re going to get a ticket," the passen 22 Frdst and Wilmot, p. 128. 236 ger would have issued a warning, since he is unable to apply the negative sanction indicated. However, if the passenger were to say "You'd better slow down or I'm going to hit you," he would have delivered a threat, since he would:be responsible for the negative sanction. The conceptual confusion over threats and warnings is undoubtedly responsible for some of the discrepent findings in the fear appeal research. For example, some researchers create warning conditions and call them threat conditions, since actually threatening subjects for the purpose of re search would be unethical. And so, what are termed "high threat" and "low threat" messages (or sometimes even more broadly termed "high fear" and "low fear"), are actually manipulations in "warning" treatments. For example, in their 1953 study, Janis and Feshbach produced high and low warning conditions by varying amounts of fear' information concerning the danger of improper dental care. In this study, and many others, subjects were warned about the negative consequences that would result if they failed to comply with the experimenter's recommendations. In no case were the subjects actually threatened. It is not surpris ing that research results have been contradictory. Fear is a complex phenomenon, and two of its catalysts, warnings and threats, cannot be considered interchangeable. The dynamics that function to make warnings successful are 237 subtle and very different from the dynamics of a successful threat. A threat's success hinges on four estimates that the receiver of the threat quickly makes in his mind: 1. Does the threatener possess the means to carry out the threat? 2. Is the threatener actually willing to carry out the threat? 3. Am I able to comply with the threat? 4. Is the punishment worse than complying? On the other hand, many questions race through the mind of the receiver of a Warning, any one of which can serve to mediate his response. For example: 1. Is the speaker correct in his assessment of the natural order of things? (If I do not believe 'him when he says it is going to rain, I may not take an umbrella." 2. Can I somehow circumvent the natural order implied in the warning? (If I don't see a police car, I may ignore my friend's warning to slow down.) 3. How serious is the punishment? (If I don't care if my hands get calloused and blistered, I may ignore my wife's warning to wear gloves while I work in the yard.) 4. How certain is the punishment? (If I have a 50/50 chance at the roulette wheel, I may ignore my 238 friend's warning that I may lose if I gamble.) 5. How soon will the punishment occur? (If I don't think I will get cancer until I am old, I may ignore the warning to stop smoking.) 6. Are the risks of complying worse than the risks of not complying? (If I dread the possible effects of too much radiation from X-rays, I may refuse to get a chest X-ray and take my chances that I might have cancer.) 7. Does the warning actually apply to me? (If my present dental hygiene routine has not brought on tooth decay, I may. ignore my dentist's warning to floss.) 8. Will the punishment affect only me or can I share it with others? (If I am warned to conserve our nation's fuel or else we will run out of it sooner, I may ignore the warning, satisfied that everyone will be in the same boat.) The point is, a person goes through a host of mental cal culations in deciding whether or not to heed a warning, considerations, thdt may not apply to a threat condition. Therefore, researchers studying fear appeals must clearly delineate the type of appeal being used, for it will un doubtedly have a substantial impact of the outcome of the experiment. 239 For the purposes of the hostage negotiator, threat research can make important contributions, specifically in discovering ways to induce resistance to threats. The ne gotiator essentially has two choices in responding to a hostage-taker's demands: 1) yield or 2) resist. So long as the negotiator selects the second option, he will face the dilemma of resisting the threat without incurring the punishment. Threat research can seek to more fully explore ways of "deflecting" threats through communication, and discover the types and strategies most likely to work with specific personality types and situations. Deception Detection The principal utility of the study of decpetion de tection for the hostage negotiator is in being able to discern a real threat from a bluff. Many times the hostage-taker issues threats during the process of the negotiation. In order to respond appropriately, the nego tiator must be able to tell with reasonable confidence whether the threat is deadly serious or just so much bluster. The state of the art in deception detection is still uncertain-, though researchers are beginning to find agree ment in certain key indicators of deception, yet many questions remain unanswered. For instance, the majority of studies of deception have involved observers who were 240 college age or alittle older. Hence, we know very little about lie detection in much older or much younger popula tions, nor do we know how skills and strategies for de tecting deception change developmentally. Secondly, researchers might use changes in the rate of a communicator's behavior as a possible predictor of de ception. Distance between communicators might be another useful clue. With regard to the spontaneous vs. prepared liar, research might probe further the difference between the response patterns, such as fluency, speech rate, speech errors, and facial cues. We know little about the kinds of behavior that may be exhibited about the person who does not know for sure whether his answer is correct as opposed to the one who is quite certain. Often people are asked to speculate about "what would you do if . . ." Are there any significant differneces in the responses of those who make an inaccur ate guess as opposed to those who correctly predict their future behavior? In short, the whole area of deception detection seems directly applicable to the needs of the hostage negotiator, and with more refinement in our present knowledge can make a valuable tool for his unique needs. 241 Compliance-Gaining Strategies Specific research might be generated to discover the application of the Marwell and Schmitt model according to personality types. The terrorist, the common criminal, and the mentally disturbed individual have been isolated as "types" of hostage-takers. Do certain strategies have more utility with certain types than' with others? It may be that political terrorists are more swayed by ppsitive and negative altercasting and positive and negative esteem, while the cornered perpetrator may respond much more quickly to promise, threat, and pre-giving methods. The disturbed individual may be more readily moved by positive and negative expertise, positive and negative self-feeling, and liking strategies. The point is , research may be directed at making specific applications to the context of the hostage-taker in discovering correlations between per sonality types and persuasive appeals. Roloff's modes of conflict resolution could be applied to the hostage crisis to determine which of the five categories (revenge, verbal aggression, regression, physical aggression, and prosocial) 23 would have the most impact. 23 Michael E. Roloff, "Communication Strategies, Re lationships, and Relational Change," in Gerald R. Miller (ed.) Explorations in Interpersonal Communication (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1976), pp. 173-195. 242 2. Police Training In addition to the work of communication scholars, the continued effort of police agencies to better train its negotiators, refine response tactics, and share the lessons of actual case studies among colleagues, will increase the chances for a peaceful resolution of hostage crises. Specifically, a four-pronged approach toward preparation and readiness will greatly advance the success rate for future negotiators. First, those police officers who are to act a negotia tors must be carefully selected for the unique demands of the job. They must possess a host Of psychological charac teristics, cognitive skills, and verbal expertise. Miron lists many of the negotiator characteristics which will enhance the chances for a successful resolution of a hos- 24 tage crisis. , ' These qualities .ihclude: 1. interpersonal sensitivity 2- cognitive complexity 3. tolerance for ambiguity 4. positive self-concept 5. low authoritariamism 6. interviewing experience 7. past experience in stressful situations q i Miron and Goldstein, pp. 93-94. 243 8. verbal skills 9. flexibility, especially under pressure 10. work history with many types of perpetrators 11. belief in the power of verbal persuasion 12. conciliation, compromise, bargaining skills 13. mature appearance 25 14. apparent rank of patrolman 15. good physical condition 16. familiarity with the ideology fo perpetrator if a terrorist is involved In order to weed out undesirable candidates as nego tiator trainees, a battery of tests entitled "The Negotia tor Selection Instrument" has been developed by Professor Murray Miron for use by the New York City Police Depart- 2 6 ment. Other negotiator selection tests have been de signed, including one suggested by Los Angeles Police Department's Director of Behavioral Sciences Unit, Dr. 27 Martin Reiser. In any case, hostage crises will be peacefully re- 2 5 To insure perpetrator that all decisions must be approved at other command levels. 2 6 Miron and Goldstein, pp. 137-166. 27 Judith Swerlmg, Susan Saxe, and Martin Reiser, "Psychological Assessment of Barricaded Suspect and Hos tage Negotiators," unpublished manuscript, December 197 5. 244 solved with increasing frequency as negotiators continue to be carefully selected from among those who apply for such training. Miron correctly notes: Almost no amount of training will overcome the deficiences of a negotiator who, especially under the stress of an actual hostage situa tion, is too anxious, too aggressive, too unskilled in problem-solving, unable to calm the perpetrator or build rapport with him. Select your negotiators with utmost care.1 Second, negotiator training must make maximum use of both persuasion research applicable to such situations and of the many case studies collected from previous experi ence. In the last ten years a vast body of knowledge has accrued through the hundreds of actual hostage cases around the world. These lessons make for valuable in struction as the trainee prepares for his role. Readings, lectures, keminars, films, and dther "passive" learning methods will play as important part in the education of the trainee. Third, "active" learning methods must play a part in the training of future negotiators. In fact, those methods that allow trainees to practice their newly learned skills, such as simulation games and role playing exercises, will help to solidify concepts and strategies previously learned in the lecture material. 2 8 Miron and Goldstein, p. 120. 245 An elaborate approach to simulation games is sponsored 29 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Through this training exercise, the IACP reproduces as realistically as possible the different types of hostage- taking situations that police response teams might en counter. Working with various police departments who request the special training exercise, the IACP team draws up the scenario, the roles (who will play "terrorist" and "hostage" and the personality profiles they are to possess), and the time and place of the incident. Although all parts are played by policemen, conditions and expected behavior of all participants adds a grim air of realism to the entire event. Different "game plan" instructions to various players makes the game both unpredictable and a valuable learning exercise. For instance, in one exercise, the "terrorist" leader, portrayed by an experienced police officer, humiliated and wore down his opponents, then "killed" six hostages before securing satisfaction to his demands for the release of a political prisoner, a million dollars in ransom, and a means of escape. The hostage-taker's stronghold was a busload of "hostages." Response teams learned, among other things, how difficult it is to assault a bus with twenty human being aboard when 2 9 Richard W. Kobetz and H.H.A. Cooper, "Hostage Rescue Operations: Teaching the Unteachable," The Police Chief, 46 (1979) , 24-27. 246 it has been wired with explosives, and what might be needed to deal with an obstinate, skillful hostage-taker having the means of destruction at his fingertips and no scruples about using them. Each completed [exercise adds to the store of knowledge about hostage-taking response procedures and of how best to provide this kind of instruction. The IACP is encouraged by the results of such training methods and will continue to experiment with new and differnet scenarios in an att tempt to keep at least on step ahead of future hostage- taker s. The point is that role-playing as a learning tool appears to have great value for negotiator training and should continue to be a part of his educational process. Finally, future negotiation efforts would benefit by the results of a thorough nationwide survey of police negotiators to discover methods of negotiation that seem to be successful, and under what circumstances certain strat egies ought to be avoided. This pooling of experience would allow negotiators already practicing in the field to share their knowledge with others in a structured, useful manner. Pertinent questionnaire items might include: 1. number of members in hostage team 2. number of years the team has been in operation 3. number of actual incidents confronted 4. number and types of hostage-takers confronted 247 5. rank order of successful persuasive strategies 6. number and reason for hostage injuries/deaths 7. number and reason for perpetrator injuries/deaths 8. number and reason for police injuries/deaths 9- perpetrator response to ignored deadline 10. original demands and eventual compromises 11. type of structure the hostage-taker commandeered 12. total amount of time the hostage crisis consumed By collecting this information, researchers would be able to start making estimates of national trends to better prepare for future crises. They could learn, for example, what type of structures are most often used for barricading, and thereby concentrate on ways to prevent hostage-taking from occuring in such a manner. The questionnaire could reveal the most generally successful negotiation approaches, and those deemed to have little utility. It could ascertain valuable information on what perpetrators have demanded and subsequently accepted, to suggest to future negotiators items of possible compromise. In short, such a survey would be an important first step in making a systematic inquiry to the reasons for negotiator successes and failures, and would arm future negotiators with the knowledge of what is going on in the field as well as what lessons he can learn from the experiences of others. 248 Long-Term Solutions: Shaping the Future The truth is, time doe not stand still. Terrorists and criminals learn from their mistakes, and in order to cope with them, new techniques and tactics must be con stantly introduced, and old techniques adjusted and re fined. While such effort is necessary, attention must be given to the implementation of techniques for completely discouraging the taking of hostages. While persuasive strategies have enjoyed noted success and popularity, this method alone is of questionable value in helping to pre vent the event from ever occuring again, by the same person or anyone else. In fact, Dobson and Payne point out in their book, Counterattack, "What might be called the psychiatric anti-terror technique has become far less fashionable. The main reason is that now terrorist groups are aware of its sublties and the most professional among them have studied the techniques and evolved ways of de feating it." Training schools for terrorists now include courses in defeating the psychiatrist in the attempts to talk them out. The short-term solutions of managing hostage crises on a case-by-case basis must eventually yield to solutions that show promise for eliminating the event altogether. "^Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, Counterattack (New York: Facts On File, 1982), p. 120. 249 By so shaping the future that hostage-taking becomes either impossible or unnecessary, law enforcement agencies will find the surest remedy toithe problem. At least five methods of discouraging hostage events have been advanced by segments of the world community in an attempt to achieve this long-term solution. The first is what has been called "target hardening," or making the likely victims of such crimes harder to get at. This method of prevention aims at fortifying potential.barricade sites or preventing potential hostage-takers from coming near it, thereby making the task of hostage-taking more difficult and unappealing. Specifically, embassies and airlines have opted for the "harget hardening" approach as their main line of defense. These two targets historically have been extremely vulnerable to such crimes, and so have taken measures to make themselves less attractive targets. The American government has spent over $100 million on improving the physical security of its embassies and other properties abroad. Government - staff are given in structions in security measures and how to reduce the risk of abduction. In addition, private businesses have been advised on ways to improve their precautionary measures. As a result, embassy takeovers have dropped, though not eliminated. The evolution of airline "target hardening" procedures 250 began in 1970, when President Richard Nixon appointed a retired Lieutenant General, Benjamin O. Davis, as Director of Aviation Security, with orders to tighten up airline security. Davis instituted passenger searches at boarding gates, a procedure that required expensive magnetic and electronic equipment, as well as the willingness of passen gers and airport authorities to cooperate with the obvious inconvenience. In 1973 the searching of all passengers became mandatory for most U.S. airports. As a result, in the next two years only nine hijacking attempts originated from U.S. airports. At the 531 airports conducting passen ger searches, only three hundred people refused to be searched and were turned away in 1973. In that same year, over three thousand people were arrested, and authorities seized over two thousand guns, thirty-five hundred pounds of high explosives, and vast quantities of knives and other 31 offensive weapons. In 1974, searchers confiscated twenty-four hundred firearms and prevented twenty-five po tential hijackings. Within ten months in 1975, 165 million passengers were screened, along with 125 million non passengers. But the number of handguns confiscated dropped to only sixteen hundred. Davis' tactics had succeeded in substantially reducing the risk of airline hijackings, at 31 Dobson and Payne, p. 61. 2 51 the price of some human dignity (since few people enjoy being searched) and increased overhead expenses to airlines and airports. For most airlines the added security and equipment costs over a million dollars a year. The Inter national Airport at Schipol, Amsterdam, reports that it employs over five hundred security people, and that the cost of security measures runs ten million dollars a year. The price of freedom. Domestic hostage-taking preventative measures could be similarly applied to other likely targets. Efforts could be made to determine the most likely victims for hostage seizures (which will undoubtedly include banks and pris ons) , to intitute procedures to make such facilities less vulnerable to attack. Although banks, for example, have developed sophisticated systems for monitoring customer activities and sounding robbery alarms, these are reaction ary rather than preventative measures. Few banks regulate traffic in and out to minimize robberies. The guards posted at the doors are often more symbol that substance. Undoubtedly, such elaborate security measures as are used at airports have been discussed for banks, but rejected on the basis of expense. Current security gaps are justified as "acceptable risk." The second long-range preventative strategy suggested as a method of remedy has found its most spirited proponent 252 in the nation of Israel. The policy is spelled out in four simple words: "We will not negotiate." The policy of non negotiation simply means that all demands will be outright rejected. The Israeli rationale is that compromise only encourages similar acts, since even a compromise solution is more of a victory for the terrorists than no solution at all. Therefore, in order to discourage the future use of such extortion, Israel believes that present perpetrators must walk away with empty hands. Only then, Israel argues, will hostage-taking become unappealing. For Israel, negotiation is only useful to gain time while counterattack forces prepare for assault. They be lieve that the extended "talk-out" technique favored by other countries rarely achieves success. They argue that the danger to the hostages and counter-terrorist forces increases the longer the seige continues, with the gunman becoming more alert, anxious, and trigger-happy as time progresses. They prefer to attack as soon as they are in a position to do so. No seige in Israel has lasted more than twenty-four hours. By overwhelming and thoroughly destroying the aggres sors, Israel hopes to eliminate the need for the expertise of "talk-out" negotiators by raising the stakes so high that future attempts will be discouraged. Although at first blush, such an approach might make sense, it comes 253 with its own set of.consequences. Hacker contends that "contrary to a widespread belief that yielding to terror ism encourages future terrorism, it is the publically announced unyielding approach that stimulates terrorists to choose their targets and victims in such a way that the terror objects cannot afford to refuse the terrorist's 32 offer." As a result, terrorist attacks against Israel have dropped in number but increased in horror. For example, in 1972 it was eleven Israeli Olympic team mem bers held hostage and later killed, and in 1974 it was one hundred Israeli children in a small school seized - twenty- one killed and sixty wounded in the ensuing assault, to name only two incidents in Israel's long battle to enforce its non-negotiation policy. Yet, even with the mounting death toll, Israel is satisfied that a hard line, non negotiation policy works be&t to prevent future attacks. Israel is not alone in its reliance on a non- ' negotiation policy. When it come to its diplomatic corp, the United States has an announced position of non negotiation for any kidnapped American diplomat. The philosophy behind this posture is that the only way to really protect its diplomats while they are abroad is to make them worthless as ransom victims. Therefore, America Hacker, p. 184. 254 quite clearly states that it will not pay any ransom for the return of a captured American, be he ambassador or private citizen. The strength of this commitment has been sorely tested, and on one occasion cost the life of the captured diplomat. On March 1, 1973, two American diplo mats were shot and killed by Palestinian terrorists in their takeover of the American embassy in Khartoum, after America refused to pay. the demanded ransom for their re lease. Nevertheless, the United States government believes that such a policy offers the best protection to its entire diplomatic corp, and that in all probability has dis couraged many other potential attacks and kidnappings. The third approach to the prevention of future hostage events is the use of force in the present crisis as an ob ject lesson and deterrent against future such crimes. Often the use of force naturally follows the previously discussed approach, that of a declaration of non-negotiation, as is the case with Israel. Yet the two methods need not be inevitably linked. The United States, for example, fre quently follows its declaration of non-negotiation with a host of suggestions for otherwise peacefully settling the crisis. The Los Angeles Police Department's Special Weapons and Tactics team (S.W.A.T.) has popularized the method of force with wh&t it calls the "3-T System": time, talk, and tear gas. Los Angeles' S.W.A.T. team is far less tolerant 255 than the New York City Police Department hostage negotia tion team. The L.A. S.W.A.T team believes in forcing the pace in seiges. It dislikes what it calls hold and stall situations. The 3—T formula calls for the S.W.A.T. team to take its time establishing containment and posting snipers. They then try to talk to the captors. If success is not forthcoming, the tear gas is introduced. If that does not work, the sharpshooters open fire, believing that if a captor is killed, his companions will lose'the will to resist. S.W.A.T. officer Dennis Tipps said, "We learned our way in the school of hard knocks. It's no good having a stand-off, you must control the situation. You learn to bargain, but let's face it,, you need a hell of a lot of 33 luck." The danger of such an approach is two-fold. First, the distinction between terrorism and counter-terrorism becomes blurred quickly as we try to eliminate terror by the use of terror. Hacker asks "is it ever feasible or legitimate to copy terrorism in order to fight terror ism?"^ But on a more practical level, over-spectacular assaults on terrorist groups can unwittingly serve the cause of the terrorists by validating their claims of being 33 Dobson and Payne, p. 66. 34 Hacker, p. 194. _____ 256 oppressed by'a wicked authority. In addition, overreaction produces on occasion a public feeling of hostility to the police who in these circumstances may seem cold, bloodless aggressors. It may very well be that the focus of police attention in trying to prevent the perpetrator from obtaining his demanded ransom is wasted energy, if the intention is to discourage future like crimes. Brian Jenkins, senior analyst on terrorism for the RAND Corporation, points to the capture record of criminals as the primary deterrent to such crimes, rather than hard-line force during the event. For example, he says that there have been only 647 kid nappings for ransom in the United States in the past thirty years, and the reason is not far to seek. "If one looks at the record of raasom payment, the ransom has almost always been paid by the family. . . . But of the 647 cases, all but three have been solved. The FBI has a better than ninety percent capture record. The conviction 35 rate is extemely high, and the sentences are harsh." Hence, the relative unpopularity of kidnapping for ransom within the United States. Nevertheless, future studies of long-term solutions 35 Judith Miller, "Bargaining with Terrorists?" in William P. Lineberry (ed.) The Struggle Against Terrorism (New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1977), p. 185. 257 could include a careful analysis of the deterring effects of force in dealing with such crimes. A study of hostage- taking incidents ending violently rather than satisfactor ily for the perpetrator might reveal downward trends for similarly staged operations. If such were seen to be the case, then the question would follow: is violence and force worth the prospects for future peace? The fourth method of prevention is the use of infil tration, spies, and surveillance of known terrorist groups and criminals to keep track of their actions, in hopes of stopping them before the crime is committed. For a number of years, the CIA and FBI kept their eye on subversive groups to keep abreast of their activities. But by the mid-19 70's Congress passed a number of measures, to restrict such "harrassment: and "invasion of privacy": 1. The Freedom of Information Act (19 74): gave greatly increased public access to classified in formation, and it was made mandatory for agencies to reply to requests for information within ten days. 2. The Privacy Act (19 74): allowed individuals to determine what records pertaining to him are col lected, maintained, used, or disseminated by government agencies. It banned the keeping of records on people belonging to revolutionary or 258 subversive groups. 3. The Levi Guidelines (19 75): issued by the then Attorney General Edward H. Levi, restricted the activities fo the FBI. It banned "harrassment" of subversive and terrorist organziations, and forbid it from making illegal entry into their premises. The FBI could only monitor organizations when it could show that the group was committing violent acts or was about to do so. 4. Foreign Intellignece Surveillance Act (1978); re quired the Executive Branch to seek warrants be fore bugging any U.S. citizen, or even a permenant resident alien, even for the purpose of national security. Previously, the powers of the President were deemed sufficient to issue such warrants for surveillance. As a result fo these rulings, the CIA and FBI were almost powerless to keep track of known militant groups. When the Hanafi sect of the Black Muslims attacked the three Washington, D.C., public buildings in 1977, and held 134 hostages for thirty-six hours, police response teams did well to unravel the crisis and talk the gunmen out. But the incident might have been prevented, including the death of one of the hostages during the takeover, had not the flow of information dried up as a result of legislation ____________ 259 that forced the withdrawal of their undercover men, who had succeeded in infiltrating the group a year before. - These measure ahve been taken to help create a freer and more open society in America, but have nonetheless lowered the nation's defenses against violent attack from subverisve terrorist groups. Future study should seriously weigh the advantages and disadvantages of such freedoms for the deterrence of terrorism. Finally, the fifth method of deterrence is the elimi nation of the need for such acts. Terrorism is an act of desperation, of last resort, not of preference and desire. As such, it is employed only after every other conceivable means of resolving dilemmas have failed. Risking one's life in a deadly gamble of coercive intimidation is at tempted only when the threat of violence seems to inspire action. Theoretically, if earlier attempts at conflict resolution had been successful, the crisis would not have escalated to the point that violence must act as arbitra tor. But tragically, when one side feels that the process of change moves too slowly, that justice is not served, or that opponents seem to hide behind empty words, the moti vation to invoke the sword becomes powerful. This deadly chain of events could be short-circuited through communi cation, compromise, and a sincere desire to satisfy the interests of all parties. 260 Undoubtedly, this method of deterrence may seem the most idealistic and, hence, the most unrealistic, but it is perhaps the only one that strikes at the root of the prob lem to provide the most lasting remedy. When the need for terrorism is gone, the activity will cease. Therefore, it must be the continued study of governments to maintain and cultivate nonviolent methods of conflict resolution, be they courts with the time to listen, power to act, and desire to assist, legislative councils that will hear the cries of its oppressed and move to relieve that suffering, or international bodies prepared to enforce compromise solutions among the community of nations so that frustrated groups need not turn to war as the final answer. All parties must be encouraged to pursue resolution through discussion, and those vehicles for resolution must be appealing, impartial, and demonstrate that they work. This threat to society can only truly subside when remedies for its woes are carefully designed, actively promoted, and consistently utilized. We cannot continue indefinitely to treat symptoms and ignore the causes of our ills. A final Word It is the view of this author that communication can be invaluable in resolving most of the social problems of man, especially when all concerned are determined to avoid 261 the trap of settling disputes on the basis of who is the strongest rather than who is right. As a method of re solving hostage confrontations, communication has been shown to be humane, effective, and instrumental in estab lishing a climate of calm and reason. Opinions vary widely as to the usefulness fo the"talk-out" approach, particularly when so much has been written and made public about police persuasive strategies. As they say, when your opponent knows your strategy, it is no longer a strata egy. For some, this one-time panecea for all hostage crises has fallen into disfavor. For others, through sophistication and refinement, it remains an effective and necessary tool for the settlement of human conflicts. Over two thousand years ago Aristotle put it best: If a man be disgraced because he cannot defend himself with his body, how much more ought he be disgraced if he cannot defend himself with words, for words are more distinctive of man than brute force. 262 BIBLIOGRAPHY "Air Traffic Controllers Set a Walkout date." Business Week, 3 August 1981, pp. 25-26. Albin, Rochelle Simmel. "Researcher Examine Terrorist Psychology.” New York Times, 20 November 1979, Sec. Ill, pp. 1, coT^ T"I "America’s Menacing Misfits." 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Rapoport, Anatol. Fights, Games, and Debates. Ann Arbor: Unviersity of Michigan Press, 1960. Reich, Walter. "Hostages and the Syndrome." New York Times, 15 January 1980, Sec. I, pp. 19, col. 1. Reiser, Martin. "The Use Of Suggestibility Techniques in Hostage Negotiations." Paper presented at the Western Psychological Association Annual Meeting. Los Angeles, 9 April 1981. Rice, Berkeley. "Between the Lines of Threatening Mess ages." Psychology Today, 15 (1981), 62. Roloff, Michael E., in Gerald R. Miller ed. "Communication Strategies, Relationships, and Relational Change." Explorations in Interpersonal Communication, Beverly Hills', California: Sage Publications, 1976 . Schell, Jonathan. The Fate of the Earth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982. Schelling, Thomas. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, Massachuettes: Harvard University Press, 1960. Scully, John A. Lt. "Hostage Negotiations." FBI Law En forcement Bulletin, 43, (1974), 11. Sherif, Mazafer, Carolyn Sherif, and Roger Nebergall. Attitude and Attitude Change: The Social Judgement - Involvement Approach^ Philadelphia: Saunders, T965. Sillars, Alan L. "The Stranger and the Spouse as Target Persons for Compliance-Gaining Strategies: A Sub jective Expected Utitlity Model." Human Communication Research, 6, no.3 (1980), 265-279. Stone, P. D. Dunphy, M. Smith and D. Ogilvie ed. The General Inquirer: A Computer Approach to Content Analysis. Cambridge, Massachuettes: MIT Press , 1969. 270 Strentz, Thomas. "Law Enforcement Policy and Ego Defenses of the Hostage." FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 48 (1979), 8. Swerling, Judith, Susan Saxe, and Martin Reiser. "Psy chological Assessment of Barricaded Suspect and Host age Negotiators." Behavioral Sciences Unit, Los Angeles Police Department, 197 5. Thompson, Suzanne C. "Will it Hurt Less If I can Control It?" Psychological Bulletin, 90 (1981), 89-101. Time, 109 (1977) , 20. Watzlawick, Paul. How Real is Real? New York: Vintage Books, 1976. Wellins, Mike. Personal Interview. 9 September 1982. Winfrey, Carey. "Hanafi Seizure Gains New Debate On Press Coverage of Terrorists." New York Times, 19 March 1977, Sec. I, pp. 33, col. 1. 271 APPENDIX A Negotiator Checklist 272 NEGOTIATOR CHECK LIST What: A. What Occurred (Emotional Dispute) (Crime i.e. Robbery) (Political Terrorism) B. Time of Occurrence: Date Day ..Time 9 C. Who called Police Department: D. Time notified: Date Day Time 9 E. From Where: Scene: S.H. Telephone 9 F. Injuries: Yes No Describe: 1. Hostages 2. Police Dept. 3. Perpetrator 4. Other G. Contact with Suspect: 1. When. 2. How. 3. By Whom. 4. Anything Promised. H. Contained (P. D. Deployed) I. Weapons (What) 1. Verified J. Number of Suspects ; K. Number of Hostages ; Where: Location A. Suspects. B. Hostages. C. Police. D. Floor Plans (Separate Sheet) E. Containment (Separate Sheet) F. Observation Posts (Number on sheet) G. Ingress-Exists (Indicate on sheet) H. Telephones (Indicate on sheet) 273 Communication: (How) (Radio (Frequency) Telephone, Field Phone) A. Police to Police (Frequency) _____ B. Police to Suspect Bullhorn Face to Face Tele.# _________ C. Command Post to Oper. Sect. SUSPECT AND HOSTAGES Who: Suspect (s) Number (use additional pages if needed) 1. Tentative I.D. Name or Numerical Designation. 2. Description (Physical § Clothing) 3. Photo? 4. Record Check 5. Psychological Profile 6. Medical Profile 7. Other facotrs: Input from family, friends Behavior with: a) Alcohol b) Drugs c) Attitude 8. Life Support a) Food b) Excretions c) Medication 274 Other: Deadlines: 1st When given 2nd 3rd Time For what Results Timed Mechanisms (vaults, alarms, lights, etc.) Reasons: (stated where appropriate) First Officer: Arresting Officer: Command Post: Telephone # 9 Operation Sec. Tele. # 374-5580 and 9 Time § Who notified: 9 275

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Creator Richardson, Larry Kirk (author)

Core Title Communication strategies in barricade-hostage confrontations: Theory, research, and police experience

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication Arts and Sciences

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, criminology and penology,Speech Communication

Language English

Advisor Sereno, Kenneth (committee chair), Hecht, Michael (committee member), Knirk, Frederick (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-703131

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Identifier DP22377.pdf (filename),usctheses-c17-703131 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier DP22377.pdf

Dmrecord 703131

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Richardson, Larry Kirk

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Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

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