Testing the Role Effect in Terrorist Negotiations

Here's another great academic paper from Paul J. Taylor. This time he teamed with William Donohue (another great researcher/academic) to write Testing the Role Effect in Terrorist Negotiations (International Negotiation, 8, 527-547). .

Some important snippets and findings from the article:

•  Religious fundamentalists showed greater levels of aggressive strategies than both nationalist-separatist and social revolutionary terrorists

• Consistent with predictions, the data presented in Table 2 indicate that the use of power and affiliation behaviors by terrorists have quite different associations with the degree that authorities capitulate. Of the power-orientated strategies, violently controlling hostages, damaging the building or aircraft, and extensively using weapons were all associated with lower levels of concessions from the authorities. The exception to this trend was the correlation for the Demand scale, which suggested a positive relationship between making more demands and concessions by the authorities. 

• Regarding the prominence of role identity, when compared to nationalist-separatists and social-revolutionaries, the terrorists with a religious ideology typically used more aggressive strategies

• Religious terrorists engaged in very little affiliative behavior compared to nationalist-separatists and social-revolutionaries. This unwillingness to engage in normative interaction illustrates the religious terrorist’s lack of interdependence with the system they are attacking and their determination to achieve a set of goals without giving consideration to alternatives (Silke 2003). 

• Perhaps the most significant implication of these findings is... when the lower-power party (i.e. the terrorist) engaged in extreme aggression, the higher-powered authorities quickly reciprocated with tactical attempts to resolve the dispute.

I encourage you to read the full article [HERE]. 

UK police start review of Sydney siege

(AAP)- A team of top UK police with expertise in counter-terrorism, hostage situations and firearms has arrived in Sydney to review how local officers responded to the Lindt Cafe siege.

...Hostages and law enforcement officers involved in the incident will be among witnesses called to give evidence and the UK officers are also expected to give evidence about their review.

Read the full article [here]. 

Beyond Bombings: The Islamic State in Southeast Asia

Note the importance of the tactics being used includes hostage-taking and kidnapping:

On 30 June 2015, a Malaysian court convicted a man and his son for fighting with ISIL and planning terrorist incidents at home. But it was not a wave of bombings they were plotting, but rather the kidnapping of politicians.  While hostage taking, executions and barricade style attacks garner less concern from security services than bombings, this is potentially an important development at both the tactical and strategic levels for Southeast Asian militants.  If we are to understand the real impact of ISIL on Southeast Asian militancy, it is this.

Hostage taking has become the face of ISIL terror in the Middle East....

Read more [HERE].

Verbal Communication & Text Messaging in Crisis Negotiation

ABSTRACT:

While the use of mobile phones and text messaging has made it easier for hostage negotiators to communicate with other law enforcement personnel in crisis situations, little research has examined how text messaging could be used to communicate with the perpetrator. The purpose of this preliminary, qualitative study was to explore the similarities and differences in communication patterns of two hostage negotiations, one that took place verbally and one that occurred through text message. 

Both transcripts were analyzed using the Crisis Communication Rating Scale (CCRS), a behavioral coding system developed by McClain (2004). The study provided initial insight into several important similarities and differences between the modes of communication. First, the hostage negotiator relied heavily on the use of personal and situational disclosures to resolve the situation, regardless of the mode of communication. 

Additionally, both the hostage negotiator and barricaded suspect used reflective statements more frequently when they were able to communicate verbally. Lastly, when communicating through text message, the hostage negotiator used persuasive statements more frequently, while the barricaded suspect used expressive statements of anger more frequently. Possible implications for training and practice are discussed. 

Full paper [HERE]. 

In This Corner: The Conflict Paradox

IN THIS CORNER: The Conflict Paradox

By Lynne Kinnucan  

With his newest book, The Conflict Paradox, Dr. Bernie Mayer joins the likes of Aristotle, Voltaire, Chesterton and Escher in their fascination with paradox: the contradiction that is not.

The Conflict Paradox is a book infinitely rich in its variety, worth reading again and again as the reader’s understanding grows and reshapes itself in interaction with it.  However, it is a disaster if you are the sort of person who underlines the important parts of a work. My own copy looks like it went through the printer backwards and forwards.

Dr. Mayer’s goal in writing the book was to “challenge the fundamental way we think about conflict itself.” And he has done it.  Focusing on the “polarized, bifurcated view we take of conflict,” he notes that the more aggressive the conflict, the more we are apt to regress to primitive, oppositional thinking, and from there to greater conflict. With a deeper understanding, we can see that the assumed polarizations are not only part of each other but, in fact, need each other to be complete (think DNA strands). 

 The book is structured around the seven core dilemmas posed in any conflict:

NYPD Hostage Negotiators On How To Persuade People: 4 New Secrets

 

I’m pretty sure I just heard a gunshot. And that means she’s dead.

 

Hold on, I guess I better back up and explain…

A 911 call came in. A domestic dispute turned into a hostage situation. The perpetrator has a gun on his wife and child.

ESU (Emergency Services Unit, basically, the SWAT team) arrived, as did 4 NYPD hostage negotiators. And me.

We stacked up outside the door to the apartment. But things were not going well. Shouting between the husband and wife was preventing Liz, the lead negotiator, from making much headway. She repeated her question:

“Is Erin okay?”

The perpetrator screamed back, “You’re taking her side because you’re a woman!”

Chris, one of the other negotiators hands her a post-it note: “Should we swap in a male negotiator?”

Liz considered it, then replied to the perpetrator:

“But I’m talking to you, Grant, not her.”

This seemed to calm him down. Chris nodded and crumbled up the post-it note.

Read more from the popular blog by Eric Barker (it's a must read) [HERE].

NYAHN 1 Day Seminar

The New York Association of Hostage Negotiators and the Canadian Critical Incident Inc. are excited to present a one day seminar Tuesday, March 1, 2016 located at the Marriott Niagara Falls Ontario (more info to follow on hotel pricing and location). 

This seminar is a must for Incident Commanders, Tactical Officers and Crisis Negotiators to enhance their knowledge and skills in dealing with the radicalized home grow extremist.

Talk the talk: negotiation with Somali pirates

“Somali pirates can be clever, aggressive negotiators and they are quick to take advantage if they see weakness,” says Mr Edwards.

“You have to be robust, but at the same time you have got to show that you understand how the negotiation process works.”

In agreeing the price of exchange and executing the deal, there is a world of pitfalls and subterfuge. And after five years of dealing with hijackings off the Somali coast, Leslie Edwards has learnt nearly every pirate trick in the book.

These days, whenever the former British Army officer is called in to negotiate a ransom, he brings a checklist of “pirate tactics” with him.

So far he has counted 37 different ruses and manoeuvres. Some are more sophisticated than others, but all are designed to strike fear into the ship owners he works for and, ultimately, drive up the price paid.

Read more from the Telegraph.co.uk [HERE]

Negotiating With Terrorists: The Price of Making Deals

How To Negotiate With A Terrorist Organization

This is from earlier in the year but worth listening to anyway to get insight on negotiation strategies regarding ransom and terrorist incidents.

Enjoy:

(Via HereAndNow.WBUR.org) Nigerian officials believe the nearly 300 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram have been split up and sent out of the country.

Hostage negotiators will be among the team of experts the U.S. is sending to Nigeria to help find them.

Clint Van Zandt is the FBI’s former chief hostage negotiator and he tells Here & Now’s Robin Young that the U.S. negotiators must first locate a Boko Haram member with authority to broker a deal.

Van Zandt says then they will advise on any ransom demands and most likely negotiate through a third party, like a family or company.

WSHNA 2016 Conference

WESTERN STATES HOSTAGE NEGOTIATORS’ ASSOCIATION

WSHNA is on Facebook or www.wshna.com

Next Conference - April 24 to April 27, 2016

Riverhouse Hotel & Convention Center, Bend, Oregon

PRESS RELEASE

The Western States Hostage Negotiators' Association (WSHNA) is excited to announce

their 30th Annual Training Conference and host to the Annual Meeting of the National

Council of Negotiation Associations (NCNA).

April 24, 2016 to April 27th, 2016 at the Riverhouse Hotel &

Convention Center, Bend, Oregon

Full information at www.wshna.com. WSHNA is also on Facebook under our full name.

Our web site includes presenter information, hotel information, and on-line registration

and payment.

The goal of the association is to develop in members a higher degree of proficiency in the

performance of their professional duties. The association shall provide training for members,

and the association shall act as a resource and conduit for information sharing.

WSHNA depends upon your involvement as a member to accomplish these goals. WSHNA

represents police & corrections crisis negotiators from Alaska, British Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho,

Montana, Nevada, Oregon, & Washington.

WSHNA is recognized as a tax exempt, non-profit organization, 501(c)(3), by the Internal

Revenue Service and Washington State. Tax numbers are available upon request.

Conference Contact Information

Sgt. Dan Ritchie, dritchie@bendoregon.gov

Organizational Contact Information

Bruce A. Wind, Director of Communications

2416 46th AVE SE, Puyallup, WA 98374-4181

email at bawind@comcast.net (preferred) or 253-446-6119

Crisis Negotiation- The Court Case That Decided How It Should NOT Be Done

For new negotiators and old, this paper is worth reading. It give a full overview and the long-term impact it had with crisis and hostage negotiations in the U.S.

It's a "must read" for those who want to understand how and why law enforcement crisis/hostage negotiation procedures were created. 

Case History: Downs v. United States 

Tomas C. Mijares, PhD Jay D. Jamieson, PhD

The tragic consequences of inexperience, lack of an established base of knowledge and training, combined with poor situational judgment during a hostage incident in 1971, resulted in significant changes in the application of the Federal Tort Claims Act to allegations of negligence on the part of crisis negotiators. The incident, as a glaring example of everything not to do in a hostage event, has influenced the subsequent development of fundamental knowledge, training, and skills for police crisis negotiations.

Read the full paper [HERE].

Negotiations & The Paris Terrorist Attack

The bullet-riddled shield used by police in the final assault on the Bataclan bombers

Terrorists holding 20 people hostage in the Bataclan concert hall spoke to police negotiators five times on a mobile phone before officers finally stormed their hideout and brought the siege to an end.

Timeline Snippet

10:15 p.m.

Elite RAID anti-terrorist police arrived at the theatre to find darkness and silence broken only by the sound of mobile phones ringing unanswered in the pockets of the dead and the survivors pretending to be dead.

“When we went in, it was really dark. There were dozens of bodies lying on top of each other on the ground, the dead, the injured, the survivors who were pretending to be dead,” a policeman identified only as Jean told the TF1 television channel.

“It was like Dante’s Inferno,” another officer told Le Monde. The smell was unbearable, the silence appalling, he said....

23.15

Having checked the upper floor, the police came to one last door, behind which they thought the remaining bombers were holed up. A voice came from the other side of the door – a hostage who had been sent as an intermediary.

“He shouted out that the terrorists were there and that if we opened the door they would blow everything up,” said Jean.

Behind the door, the terrorists were inflicting mental torture on their 20 hostages. One of them, Sebastien, who has since emerged as a hero after pulling the pregnant woman hanging from the windowsill to safety, said: “They asked us if we agreed with them. I'll let you imagine the lingering silence of that moment. The most timid nodded their heads and the most daring said 'Yes.'

"They asked us to serve as look outs, to yell at the police to stay back and that if not they would blow up their explosive vests.”

French fire brigade members aid an injured individual near the Bataclan concert hall following fatal shootings in Paris  Photo: REUTERS

11:27 p.m.

The terrorists agreed to give the police a mobile phone number and at 11.27pm the first contact was made. A specialist negotiator, who had also spoken to Coulibaly during the Hyper Cacher siege, asked for their demands.

“They didn’t want to free the hostages. They said get out or we will shoot and we will decapitate the hostages,” said Jean. They also said they would throw a body out of a window every five minutes.

Over the next 50 minutes four more calls were exchanged, but the negotiations led nowhere.

Read more from the telegraph.co.uk [HERE]. 

The 5 Core Skills Of Hostage Negotiators

The goal in law enforcement crisis situations where crisis and hostage negotiators are being utilized entails influencing a behavioral change in someone in order to gain voluntary compliance. Although initially this statement might sound jargon-filled, it simply means using a set of skills to get a person to stop acting the way he or she currently is and getting that person then to act the way you want them to.

The following are the core skills taught in initial law enforcement crisis and hostage negotiation courses across the world. Although you as the reader most likely will never be negotiating with someone threatening suicide on the ledge of a bridge or claiming if their demands are not met they will take someone’s life, you deal with your own crisis situations daily. This ranges from decision-making strategies at work, giving directives to employees, making a sales pitch, negotiating terms of a contract (a house for example), and determining financial and budget plans.

The unifying factor is in crisis situations a person’s actions are being dictated by their emotions at the detriment of rational thinking. Therefore, an effective crisis negotiator seeks to reduce the negative emotions that are dictating the person’s actions and bring back a more rational thinking process by employing the skills below.

The skills are active listening, using time, demonstrating empathy and building rapport, influencing the other person, and the concept of control. Each skill is further discussed [HERE].