Hostage Crises9
Although hostage crises occasionally are international or political or sometimes occur in prisons, most involve domestic incidents, suicide attempts, and barricaded suspects.
They occur almost daily in large urban areas such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. Incidents in which the FBI is involved occur about once a week. Wealthy businessmen are perpetually at risk in some countries, and hostage taking was a common feature of the war in Iraq, but declined and became more sporadic as the new Iraqi government began to take shape.Negotiation is possible only if the hostage taker has some demands and wants to survive. The perpetrator must see the negotiator as someone who can hurt but is willing to help him, and as the only alternative to a police assault. The authorities must isolate the incident physically and must control all communication with the hostage taker. Finally, there must be time to negotiate (FBI 1985).
Hostages can go through five distinct psychological stages beginning with fear. Those who survive this stage, which usually passes quickly, enter a second stage characterized by disbelief akin to that of the bride who spills red wine on her dress fifteen minutes before the ceremony. The third stage is acceptance of the situation combined with hope for quick resolution. Defense mechanisms begin to emerge that vary with the personality of the hostage. Arguing, complaining, threatening, and resisting are not conducive to survival. Withdrawal can be: one elderly woman caught in a 20-day hostage incident on a commuter train in Holland awoke periodically to comment that the train seemed unusually slow “today.” Successful defense mechanisms include humor (if kept to oneself), fantasy (writing a book or planning a house in one’s head), observing with a view toward later testimony, and rational analysis of the predicament including a plan in the event of a police assault with a lot of shooting.
In general, age, education, spiritual outlook, daily experience of stress, and ability to socialize correlate positively with survival.If the crisis drags on, hostages enter a fourth stage in which they tend to become angry, not at their captors, but at the authorities for failing to rescue them. This drives hostages and hostage takers together, sometimes leading to the “Stockholm Syndrome.” It takes its name from a 1973 incident in a bank after which a hostage married a hostage taker. Patty Hearst is perhaps a double victim in that she not only seems to have joined the SLA that took her hostage, but married the bodyguard assigned to protect her afterwards. Hostage negotiators have evolved a number of devices to elicit the Stockholm Syndrome, as it reduces dangers to hostages. Sophisticated hostage takers have devised counter-tactics, such as putting bags over the heads of hostages, a method seen during the Iranian hostage incident.
Successful resolution often leads to a fifth stage akin to post-trauma anxiety, manifesting itself in nightmares, gastrointestinal disorders, depression, survivor guilt if a hostage died in the incident, and paranoia. A 1979 ABC-TV special on hostage situations ended with Gerard Vader, a hostage in one of the train hijackings in the Netherlands in which his seatmate was murdered, saying over the closing credits, “Once you are an hostage, you always are an hostage.”
Police crisis teams for hostage situations have three main elements. Regular police form an outer perimeter to isolate and contain the incident site. A Special Weapons and Tactics team [SWAT] posts snipers and prepares an assault should it become necessary. A negotiation team consists, minimally, of a spokesman and a supervisor. In large cities, hostage teams consist of multi-lingual specialists with individuals who are as representative as possible of the larger population.
The overriding goal is to save the hostages, but the usual practice is to downplay their importance so that threatening or harming them is less advantageous.
One of President Carter’s big mistakes in handling the hostage crisis in Iran was promising not to leave the White House until it was resolved, in effect making his presidency a hostage as well.This differs strongly from George Shultz’s handling of the arrest by Iran of Wall Street Journal correspondent Gerald Seib as an Israeli spy although the Iranian government itself had invited him to Teheran. In a strategy that resulted in Seib’s release in two days, Shultz (1993) advised that:
making a gigantic public issue just raises the value of the hostage in the eyes of the terrorists…[who] take hostages so they can, in effect, sell them for changes in US policy, for changes in American behavior, for arms, for money, for the release of terrorists in prison in the west. If we make such deals, or if we convey an attitude that there’s nothing in this world we won’t do to see that he is free, we will only prolong his captivity by raising his value… The right strategy is first to avoid giving the impression that Seib is a valuable property and second to make clear that this action is going to cost Iran more than it can possibly hope to gain.
Hostage negotiators concentrate on calming things down and building relationships. They speak quietly and stay positive and upbeat. They never set deadlines and ignore or divert attention from any set by the hostage taker. They portray themselves as having links to authority but unable to make decisions, so that no demand can be satisfied instantly. To head off demands to talk to someone with authority, the negotiator is likely to portray him as favoring an immediate assault that only the negotiator can prevent.
Negotiators rarely make offers or ask hostage takers what they want. They wait for the hostage taker to make a demand because having to ask for something reduces power. Every demand is taken seriously no matter how silly or trivial it might seem. Among the reasons for doing so are the hypersensitivity of many hostage takers and the opportunity each demand gives to develop a relationship.
Demands are negotiated to obtain something in return—even a promise to calm down—before being satisfied. Concession timing is an effective device for gaining control and preventing perpetrators carrying out threats.Negotiators must respond to demands quickly without refusing or denigrating them, and must not say no directly. This often is possible by reiterating the demand in more ambiguous terms (e.g., the hostage taker asks for a million dollars by noon; the negotiator responds by saying “you need some money soon”) or breaking it down into components and focusing on just one component for discussion. This helps turn the demand toward negotiation and conveys the message that the hostage taker needs to reduce his demand.
Food, drinks, and cigarettes are common demands. Perpetrators and hostages receive the same food, in equal portions or in bulk to reduce chances of argument and to promote cooperation. The ideal drink is cold, bland, decaffeinated, non-alcoholic, low in sugar, and slightly salty. Food, drinks, and cigarettes are provided in the smallest possible quantities, to reduce the time before they must be negotiated again. Nothing ever is drugged, the likelihood being that the hostage taker will first try everything out on his victims. Demands for access to the media can be helpful or harmful in resolving incidents so are negotiable.
It is desirable to keep the hostage taker in place, but demand for an escape vehicle is a common element of hostage negotiation. Hostage negotiators will try to use it to open other issues, and often will go into details intended primarily to draw out the negotiation and wear down the hostage taker. Reduced charges, a fair trial and legal representation can be negotiated. Although legally unenforceable,10 authorities try to adhere to agreements reached. Failure to do so makes future negotiations almost impossible because there is an effective underworld grapevine.
Providing weapons, release of prisoners, and exchange of hostages are non-negotiable.
Even talking about weapons gives the hostage taker a feeling of power that is undesirable. Drug addicts tend to use substances that produce paranoia, psychotic episodes, reduced rationality, and violence, all undesirable. Exchanging hostages interrupts the development of the Stockholm syndrome and enhances the hostage takers feeling of power. Replacing hostages with a police officer tends to involve the police emotionally in the problem, also counterproductive.One of the tasks of the incident supervisor is to monitor the negotiation. Not being directly involved in the conversation, he is more able to judge progress. Figure 10.1 lists some of the indicators that the situation is improving (Soskis and Van Zandt 1986) or deteriorating (Strentz 1994).
Hostage negotiations have come a long way since the mid-1970s when they were left to the officer on the scene and a SWAT team. Eighty percent of hostage incidents so handled ended with people wounded or killed, which motivated the shift toward negotiation (Schlossberg 1979). Doctrine, practice, training, research, and theory have all evolved rapidly since then. Training now includes analysis of suspect needs and personality, communication and listening skills, criteria for assault, critical distinctions by type of incident, handling suspect demands, policy and warranted deviations, progress indicators, special equipment, stress management, and team formation and management (FBI 1992). More often than not negotiation has proved successful in hostage situations, but they remain highly dangerous and stressful and do not always end happily.