response, Congress passed a law making it a federal crime to kidnap and transport a victim across state lines. From that point forward the FBI aggressively investigated kidnapping for ransom in the United States and did much to make this a fairly rare crime today. Through the years the FBI developed significant expertise and capabilities in working these cases. Sophisticated electronic, airborne, and ground surveillance and tracking make this a crime with small prospects for success. As a result, while kidnapping for ransom has become a scourge overseas, for the most part criminals in the United States have moved on to different crimes. (Of course, women and children continue to be abducted by sexual predators, not as hostages but as “homicides to be.”)
When I arrived at Quantico the FBI’s negotiation training tended tofocus largely on classic hostage situations, in which a perpetrator holds someone against their will in order to compel a third party, usually the police, to do something (or abstain from doing something). During a class Fred Lanceley and I led in Oakland, California, for local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, Fred asked our group of thirty-five experienced hostage negotiators how many had dealt with such a classic bargaining situation. Not one hand went up.
Then he asked how many students had negotiated an incident in which a hostage taker was in emotional crisis and had no clear demands, and every hand went up.
We were both surprised, though we had felt all along that such emotionally driven incidents, not bargaining interactions, constituted the bulk of what most police negotiators had to deal with. Right then, Fred and I realized that the need was not so much for training in quid pro quo bargaining but for the skills needed in crisis intervention situations, with a heavy dose of active listening. Our students needed to learn the slow and patient communication skills that could defuse the kinds of situations they were most likely to face. When we returned to Quantico, I pitched my boss on revamping our negotiation training curriculum. He agreed, and I set out to redo the program, putting more emphasis on how to deal with individuals under extreme emotional stress.
The core of the new curriculum consisted of specific active listening skills first developed by the counseling profession. In brief, this entails creating positive relationships with people by demonstrating an understanding of what they’re going through and how they feel about it. By applying this approach, the negotiator can demonstrate empathy and show a sincere desire to better understand what the individual is experiencing. We know that people want to be shown respect, and they want to be understood. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make. The positive relationship achieved through this interaction then sets the stage for the negotiator to exert a positive influence over others’ behavior, steering them away from violence. The skills boil down to restatement of contact and reflection of the captor’s feelings. Increased use of these techniques would have dramatic results.
I sent my new ideas to the fifty-six field offices for input, and incorporated their feedback into the final product, an extensive binder filledwith hundreds of new and improved slides. This was probably the most impactful thing I did at the FBI. In those days your local police department depended on its local FBI office for training, which occurred on an entirely ad hoc basis. Now, for the first time, there was a precise, standardized, detailed approach to handling emotionally driven cases. The manual also covered every other aspect of the negotiation process. If you had a siege situation and the media became involved, you could find out what to do. It provided guidance for dealing with family members outside the crisis site. Most important, the manual identified specific active listening skills that could be easily
When I arrived at Quantico the FBI’s negotiation training tended tofocus largely on classic hostage situations, in which a perpetrator holds someone against their will in order to compel a third party, usually the police, to do something (or abstain from doing something). During a class Fred Lanceley and I led in Oakland, California, for local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, Fred asked our group of thirty-five experienced hostage negotiators how many had dealt with such a classic bargaining situation. Not one hand went up.
Then he asked how many students had negotiated an incident in which a hostage taker was in emotional crisis and had no clear demands, and every hand went up.
We were both surprised, though we had felt all along that such emotionally driven incidents, not bargaining interactions, constituted the bulk of what most police negotiators had to deal with. Right then, Fred and I realized that the need was not so much for training in quid pro quo bargaining but for the skills needed in crisis intervention situations, with a heavy dose of active listening. Our students needed to learn the slow and patient communication skills that could defuse the kinds of situations they were most likely to face. When we returned to Quantico, I pitched my boss on revamping our negotiation training curriculum. He agreed, and I set out to redo the program, putting more emphasis on how to deal with individuals under extreme emotional stress.
The core of the new curriculum consisted of specific active listening skills first developed by the counseling profession. In brief, this entails creating positive relationships with people by demonstrating an understanding of what they’re going through and how they feel about it. By applying this approach, the negotiator can demonstrate empathy and show a sincere desire to better understand what the individual is experiencing. We know that people want to be shown respect, and they want to be understood. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make. The positive relationship achieved through this interaction then sets the stage for the negotiator to exert a positive influence over others’ behavior, steering them away from violence. The skills boil down to restatement of contact and reflection of the captor’s feelings. Increased use of these techniques would have dramatic results.
I sent my new ideas to the fifty-six field offices for input, and incorporated their feedback into the final product, an extensive binder filledwith hundreds of new and improved slides. This was probably the most impactful thing I did at the FBI. In those days your local police department depended on its local FBI office for training, which occurred on an entirely ad hoc basis. Now, for the first time, there was a precise, standardized, detailed approach to handling emotionally driven cases. The manual also covered every other aspect of the negotiation process. If you had a siege situation and the media became involved, you could find out what to do. It provided guidance for dealing with family members outside the crisis site. Most important, the manual identified specific active listening skills that could be easily
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