The Elements of Police Hostage and Crisis Negotiations

Critical Incidents and How to Respond to Them

James L Greenstone

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136614651
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

Run a safe and successful crisis negotiationfrom start to finish! The Elements of Police Hostage and Crisis Negotiations: Critical Incidents and How to Respond to Them reduces the negotiation procedures for hostage, barricaded, and suicide incidents to their basic elements, providing quick and easy access to the information you need-from the initial call-out to the final debriefing. Based on field-tested principles proven to work, the book also includes newly developed and highly specialized techniques for more experienced negotiators. Author James L. Greenstone provides a user-friendly, step-by-step guide to the intervention and negotiation process that will help you get the job doneright. Designed for day-to-day, on-the-scene use, The Elements of Police Hostage and Crisis Negotiations is a practical handbook for experienced professionals and novices that can also be used as a supplementary textbook for criminal justice, crisis intervention, and psychology coursework. Each chapter contains useful checklists, procedural notes, tables, strategy worksheets, and forms, and the book includes special indices for quick reference in addition to a traditional index. Dr. Greenstone, a police mental health consultant and psychologist who served as Director of the Psychological Services Unit of the Fort Worth Police Department in Texas, uses a simple and direct format that emphasizes procedures, action and results, leaving theoretical discussions for another time and place. The book examines the negotiation process from start to finish, including preincident preparations, first response responsibilities, responding to the call-out, arriving at the scene, preparing to negotiate, making contact, preparing for the surrender, post-incident tasks, preparing equipment, and more. Topics covered in The Elements of Police Hostage and Crisis Negotiations include:

• legal considerations
• telephone surveillance guidelines
• the Stockholm Syndrome
• working with S.W.A.T. and Tactical Emergency Medical Support
• dealing with the media
• recognizing red flags
• the issues of suicide
• debriefing the hostage team
• the 150 laws of hostage and crisis negotiation
• and the 10 most serious errors a negotiator can make

The Elements of Police Hostage and Crisis Negotiations: Critical Incidents and How to Respond to Them is a practical guide that's equally effective in the field, in training, and in the office.

Chapter 1

Preincident Preparation

SELECT NEGOTIATORS

Initial selection of negotiators can be done in more ways than are provided here. The importance of selection can be found in the procedures that are used to ensure that those who can function most effectively as negotiators are selected. How this is accomplished may vary from team to team, but remains at the core of the process. Random selection of negotiators cannot hope to provide the same level of excellence and psychological readiness as a well-developed procedure. In addition, well-defined procedures may serve to increase the credibility of the team in the eyes of other officers. Current negotiations team members can and should be involved in the selection process. Because all members of a negotiations team must work together very closely, unanimity among current members is important when deciding on new team members.

ESTABLISH SELECTION TIMELINE

Appropriate time should be allowed for each of these steps that are used by a specific team. More time will be needed for certain steps, while less will be needed for others. The first step for any team contemplating selecting team members is to decide what specific steps they want, or need, to use to accomplish their goal. Remember that the goal of a selection procedure is to acquire for the team the best negotiator candidates that are available.

Suggested Timeline and Selection Procedures

1. Write letter of interest and intent. Post the position appropriately according to departmental directives and policies. Ask that those interested reply by a certain date by letter or memo.
2. Review of applicant's letter by the hostage negotiations team. You may find it helpful to have a letter from the candidate's immediate supervisor, also. This will tell you more about the candidate, and it will also tell you if the immediate supervisor will support his or her activity on the team if selected.
3. Hostage negotiations team interviews. Those whose letters were found to be acceptable should be invited for individual interviews by members of the team.
4. Hostage negotiations team votes on continuing with candidate. After the interview, decide with which candidates the team would like to continue in the selection process. A unanimous vote of the team is better than a majority vote. All team members must work together closely.
5. Psychological testing is done. Consult with your police psychologist. Also, see what other teams in your area are doing in this regard. Although selection can be done effectively without this step, psychological testing provides an important dimension that may not become apparent to the team except after much involvement with the selected individuals. Psychological testing by someone familiar with using tests for this purpose will save you much time in the long run.
6. Assess the candidates. Put each continued candidate through an actual negotiations situation. Face-to-face or on the telephone will work nicely. Although the team should not expect the candidates to know all about negotiations, their reaction to the simulation will tell you much about how they might function once trained. Be sure that the actors put the candidates under a reasonable amount of stress in order to monitor their reactions.
7. Team holds final acceptance vote. Unanimity seems to work best, since everyone has to work with this person at some time and in some circumstances.
8. Approval by SWAT commander, chief of police, and others in administration as needed. This will vary from department to department. Check your policies.
9. Welcome ceremony for new negotiator(s). In conjunction with monthly meeting or training days? A formal welcome of some kind is good for team morale, and good for the sense of team identity that must be fostered in the selectee.
10. Issue gear to new negotiator. Award negotiator bar. Do this soon so that the new negotiator will be ready. Be sure to set the selected individual up for formal hostage and crisis negotiations training as the need dictates.
    

USE THE DECISION TREE

Based on these selection procedures, our decision tree may help in getting through the process. See Figure 1.1.

DEVELOP GENERAL ORDERS AND STANDING OPERATING PROCEDURES

The following are offered as examples of departmental general orders (GOs) and standing operating procedures (SOPs) for hostage and crisis negotiations operations. In most cases, general orders should be concise and limited. On the other hand, SOPs can be utilized to provide the specific details for such operations. GOs and SOPs should not be regarded as synonymous. Each has a purpose and these should not be confused.

Example of General Orders

TO: Chief of Police

FROM:

DATE:

SUBJECT: General Orders: Hostage and Crisis Negotiations Team Policy and Procedure

The primary goal in a hostage situation is to preserve the lives of all of those involved.

1. In all hostage situations, the ranking officer or supervisor on the scene shall be in command. This shall be the only person who can authorize the discharge of weapons except in emergency, self-defense situations.
2. The officer in charge shall immediately establish communications with others at the scene and with the dispatcher.

FIGURE 1.1. Decision Tree for Selecting New Team Members

3.The captain of the affected division shall be required to respond to any hostage situation.

4.Negotiators will not be commanders or in ultimate decision-making positions. Commanders and ultimate decision makers will not be negotiators.

5.A public information officer will be used to interact directly with the media after consultation with the incident commander.

6.The hostage negotiations team will be activated at the same time as the SWAT section is activated unless deemed inappropriate. Notification procedures for the hostage negotiations team will be the same as the notification procedure for the SWAT section. The hostage negotiations team and/or individual members of the hostage negotiations team will not be activated without activation of the SWAT section unless the situation requires only negotiators without the need for SWAT. The initial officer in charge at the scene of a hostage or barricaded incident prior to the arrival of the SWAT section and the hostage negotiations team shall use all reasonable means to establish a perimeter, stabilize the situation, and cause the SWAT section to be notified immediately.

7.Access will be restricted during hostage incidents to both the command post and to the hostage negotiations center. Guards will be posted, as necessary, to ensure compliance.

8.Deadlines will not be imposed on the hostage negotiations team by the on-scene commander, the Chief, or the “decision maker.”

During mobile hostage situations, the following guidelines will be utilized:

1. The ranking patrol supervisor on the scene shall be in full command until properly relieved.
2. The ranking supervisor at the appropriate field operations division office shall be responsible for coordinating field and headquarters police activities.
3. The ranking supervisor in command at the scene shall be responsible for deciding if barricades shall be used and shall ensure that only the minimum number of patrol units required for this type of call are dispatched.
4. No other units are to be dispatched without approval from the person in command in the appropriate field operations division office. Specialized operations, such as air support, shall be utilized at the discretion of these persons.
5. If jurisdictions change during the course of this action, only the authorized number of patrol units may participate.
6. Once the mobile hostage situation becomes stationary, officers will secure the perimeter, and negotiators will attempt to negotiate the release of hostages....

Table of contents

• Cover
• The Elements of Police Hostage and Crisis Negotiations
• The Haworth Press
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• About the author
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Thoughts on Negotiation
• Chapter 1. Preincident Preparation
• Chapter 2. First–Response Duties
• Chapter 3. Callout Responsee
• Chapter 4. Arriving on scene setting Up
• Chapter 5. Preparing to Negotiate
• Chapter 6. Making Contact and Beginning Negotiations
• Chapter 7. Preparing for the Surrender
• Chapter 8. Postincidet Tasks
• Chapter 9. Attendting to Special Issues
• Chapter 10. Specific Isseus Relating to Suicide
• Chapter 11. Developing Negotiator Survival Skills
• Chapter 12. Learning and Using Effective Communication Skills
• Chapter 13. Planning and Preparing Equipment
• Chapter 14. Heeding the Laws of Hostage and Crisis Negotiations
• Appendix I. Useful Forms and Illustrations for the Negotiator in the Field
• Appendix II. Practice Using Negotiations Exercises
• Appendix III. The Hostage and Crisis Negotiator’s Training Lab
• Appendix IV. Additional Reference Materials
• Biblography
• Index