Negotiation concepts for commanders

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, Jan, 1999 by Gary W. Noesner

Nonhostage Situations

In contrast to hostage situations, in nonhostage incidents, individuals act in an emotional, senseless, and often-self-destructive way. Unable to control their emotions in response to life's many stressors, they are motivated by anger, rage, frustration, hurt, confusion, or depression. They have no clear goals and often exhibit purposeless, self-defeating behavior. Such individuals have either no substantive or escape demands or totally unrealistic demands for which they would have no reasonable expectation of fulfillment. Disgruntled employees, jilted lovers, rejected spouses, aggrieved individuals, idealistic fanatics, individuals with mental illness, and others with unfulfilled aspirations who feel that they have been wronged by others or events fall into this broad category. Their displeasure at their circumstances places them in acute stress and disrupts their ability to function normally. Angry, confused, and frustrated, they may express their anger and vent their frustrations by undertaking actions that bring them into conflict with law enforcement.

During nonhostage situations, individuals barricade themselves or hold others against their will, not to gain leverage over police to achieve a specific goal but to express their anger over events or at the individual they hold. In such cases, the person being held technically is not a hostage, used to secure fulfillment of a demand, but a victim whom the subject contemplates harming. Subjects holding victims, with whom they typically have a prior relationship, usually have no substantive demands because they neither need nor want anything from the police. What they want is what they already have, the victim. In these cases, the subject typically will tell police, "Go away," "We don't need you or want you here," or "This is none of your business." The potential for homicide followed by suicide in many of these cases is very high. Indeed, when loss of life occurs during a crisis incident, it most often happens during a nonhostage event. Subjects are clearly in crisis, and the police must respond to them in a careful and thoughtful manner.

Crisis negotiation teams have learned that to effectively intervene in nonhostage incidents, they first and foremost must demonstrate patience and understanding. Negotiators buy time while being non-threatening and non-judgmental and avoiding all actions that may escalate the confrontation. Subjects frequently distrust police motives and manifest high levels of paranoia. They often exhibit hypervigilance and hypersensitivity to police movements and may overreact with violence to the slightest provocation. Thus, in contrast to hostage events, the police should handle nonhostage incidents using a low-profile containment scheme that is less confrontative and demonstrates peaceful intentions. This serves to avoid provoking undesirable responses from the subject.

By applying active listening skills, the negotiation team properly pursues a strategy that attempts to lower subjects' emotions, defuse anger, and return the subjects to more rational thinking. The negotiator works toward building trust and rapport by demonstrating understanding of and concern for subjects. Negotiators should specifically demonstrate through word and expression that they understand the issues that are important to or bother subjects (their stories) and how subjects respond to those issues (their feelings).(4) After establishing a trusting relationship, negotiators then can attempt to introduce nonviolent problem-solving alternatives that steer subjects toward a peaceful outcome. This approach has enabled the police to defuse even the most volatile incidents.