After a hostage negotiation incident, it is common practice for either no debriefing to occur or a formal, administration-attended debriefing to discuss issues and possible emotional as well as, psychological stressors with the hostage negotiation team members. However, many times negotiators are reluctant to be honest in front of administrators or supervisors about their weaknesses as they feel this will lead to termination or loss of service weapon. Little is known about what effect, if any, best practice hostage negotiation after incident debriefings would have given regarding possible psychological distresses on the negotiators as well as effects on team bonding. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate whether and how after incident hostage negotiation debriefing strategies lower PTSD symptoms among hostage negotiators. The theoretical framework for this study was Kelley's followership theory. The sample was 12 negotiators from a local county negotiation team and a local city negotiation team. The research questions focused on hostage negotiator preference for debriefing strategies, honesty in debriefings in relation to stressors, opinions of the meeting's effects on dealing with trauma, and effects on team bond building. The results were that peer run, peer driven debriefing strategies are most wanted and most effective for hostage negotiators. The positive social change implications are numerous, including a more effective, more mentally fit, and closer bonded hostage negotiation team capable of saving more lives who in turn will have a healthier family life, which will resonate into the community.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 2000. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2946. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as, preliminary leaves [2-3]. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-90).

It is broadly accepted that there is a need for better security management and protocols for hostage incident management, there is currently a lack of basic empirical knowledge about the existing security management protocols with reference to existing policies, knowledge and the capability of International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) to handle hostage incidents. Many INGOs have successfully managed high-profile hostage crises, but there is still a considerable level of uncertainty about the way these crises have been solved and the way their success can be seen in relation to other crises. This study aimed to understand how INGOs prepare themselves for hostage incidents, whether policies, procedures are in place, how they manage hostage situations, and also how INGO staff are trained and prepared. The methodology adopted for this study was qualitative and comprised of indepth interviews with sixteen INGOs and ten industry experts and a review of INGO documents, policies and plans. The study sheds light on some of the less talked-about aspects for INGO security management in general, as well as preparedness and responsibility towards their staff. The study suggests that while most organisations have a level of preparedness in place, enhancing each agency’s respective policies may assist the organisation in better management. The study also found that there is a higher use of ransom payment than expected, and that there is an increasing willingness to engage external expertise to assisting in managing a hostage crisis. The study makes several recommendations that may have policy implications, including pre-deployment hostile environment training, reviewing potential cooperation between INGOs and United Nations, and the use of external resources to assist in managing a hostage crisis. It also recommends a revision of existing negotiation models, as the current models are lacking in addressing protracted hostage cases. The establishment of an accurate database of incidents to allow for improved interpretation of trends and scope of hostage cases is also recommended.

Tactical and incident commanders make decisions in the high-threat law enforcement context of hostage rescue, armed barricaded suspects, and armed suicidal individuals that can result in successful or catastrophic outcomes. This qualitative study offers more evidence—as an integral part of emerging research on education and reaching effective decisions to the current literature—by extending and detailing the decision-making process of commanders that occurs during a high-threat incident. It describes the experience and methods of making decisions in this environment. Furthermore, areas addressed by this research include learning strategies that could better prepare commanders in the processing of information, while optimizing speed and accuracy in decision-making. Particular attention was paid to the role of adaptive expertise in decision-making by understanding how mental models of recurring patterns, necessary for effective situational assessments, are created and subsequently retrieved. The purpose of this study was to explore through interviews, a survey, and focus groups how experienced tactical and incident commanders describe making decisions, and the factors impacting these decisions during events involving hostage rescue, armed barricaded suspects, and armed suicidal individuals. Participants described the necessity of having to adjust their decision-making process frequently in a high-threat situation. This process includes asking strategic questions to obtain actionable intelligence for making sound decisions when this information is not readily provided. Principal factors enabling participants to make sound decisions are good intelligence, the ability to make accurate situational assessments, and having sufficient resources. Additionally, experience as a prior team member and/or team leader, along with previous command mentoring are the key learning strategies that help or hinder participants when making decisions. A key practice recommendation resulting from this study is that command training programs should focus on adaptive decision-making and the critical aspect of determining safety and threat levels through reliable intelligence and good communication. This recommendation can benefit individual commanders, law enforcement agencies, and the communities they serve if improved command decision-making strategies result in fewer lives lost in a high-threatsituation.

Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis is applied to a cross-national data set to test two hypotheses concerning governments' hard-line response against terrorism: do hard-line responses cause more damage vis a vis event outcome and is the hard-line approach a deterrent? Six national factors are included in this analysis: economic development, economic growth rate, democratic development, leftist regime type, military regime type and British colonial legacy. Only the level of economic development, economic growth rate and leftist regime type demonstrated statistically significant relationships with the dependent variable "event frequency." Government response strength demonstrated a strong statistically significant relationship with event outcome, however, its relationship with event frequency was statistically insignificant.

Hostage/crisis negotiation has been described as a complex verbal dance between the negotiator and the subject. While one of law enforcement's most effective tools and most significant developments in law enforcement and police psychology over the past several decades, the acceptance of mental health professionals (MHP) on a hostage/crisis negotiation team is ambiguous. This study examined how mental health professionals working with hostage/crisis negotiation teams are perceived, if there is positive small group socialization within teams, whether the outcome of incidents is affected by designation of the MHP as a team member versus a consultant, and whether prior law enforcement experience influences team members' perception of the MHP. A comparative research design was utilized and data were collected from 362 hostage/crisis negotiators using the Hostage/Crisis Negotiation and Mental Health Professional Questionnaire. Independent sample t tests indicated that MHPs designated as team members scored higher on the Small-Group Socialization and Perception scales than those designated as consultants. Results indicated that MHPs with law enforcement experience were perceived more positively than those without. The type of MHP designation showed no significant effect on incident outcome. This study's outcome may produce positive social change in that the results will enhance and promote ideas and cohesion that involves the unity of the MHP and their law enforcement team members in a field that focuses in on preservation of human life in the worst possible conditions, with positive implications for the team, hostages, victims, communities, and even the individual in crisis.

No description available.

The aim of this study was to explore coping mechanisms used in acute stress situations and how these effect performance. Specifically, the aim was to study how hostage and crisis negotiators use different types of coping mechanisms to reach a positive result in negotiations. Crisis negotiations have several attributes that make them interesting to study from a coping perspective.  They regularly present high-stake situations where people’s well-being and lives can be at risk, creating a highly stressful situation for the negotiator. These situations are often very emotionally charged and the negotiator has to deal with both the emotions of the person they are negotiating with as well as their own. A qualitative method was used in the study and the data was collected in semi-structured interviews. A content analysis was carried out to analyse the material. Five categories were distilled from the material; team, internal skills, negotiation tools, physical techniques and organisation. Themes that particularly stood out were the importance of the support from the team, internal skills such as self-control and lowering physiological stress reactions by deep breathing. These were all seen as contributing to an increased performance.

It is broadly accepted that there is a need for better security management and protocols for hostage incident management, there is currently a lack of basic empirical knowledge about the existing security management protocols with reference to existing policies, knowledge and the capability of International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) to handle hostage incidents. Many INGOs have successfully managed high-profile hostage crises, but there is still a considerable level of uncertainty about the way these crises have been solved and the way their success can be seen in relation to other crises. This study aimed to understand how INGOs prepare themselves for hostage incidents, whether policies, procedures are in place, how they manage hostage situations, and also how INGO staff are trained and prepared. The methodology adopted for this study was qualitative and comprised of indepth interviews with sixteen INGOs and ten industry experts and a review of INGO documents, policies and plans. The study sheds light on some of the less talked-about aspects for INGO security management in general, as well as preparedness and responsibility towards their staff. The study suggests that while most organisations have a level of preparedness in place, enhancing each agency’s respective policies may assist the organisation in better management. The study also found that there is a higher use of ransom payment than expected, and that there is an increasing willingness to engage external expertise to assisting in managing a hostage crisis. The study makes several recommendations that may have policy implications, including pre-deployment hostile environment training, reviewing potential cooperation between INGOs and United Nations, and the use of external resources to assist in managing a hostage crisis. It also recommends a revision of existing negotiation models, as the current models are lacking in addressing protracted hostage cases. The establishment of an accurate database of incidents to allow for improved interpretation of trends and scope of hostage cases is also recommended.

Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this thesis was to study structure-property relationships in porous materials using various adapted analytical techniques and in-house instruments. The thesis is divided into two sections, and the first section of work constitutes the majority of the thesis. The first section of work deals with the theoretical versus experimental classification of sorption selectivity in porous compounds. A transiently porous metallocycle that can adsorb acetylene and carbon dioxide served as a model host for this experiment. A volumetric sorption instrument had to be constructed to carry out sorption with acetylene. Even though the metallocycle should theoretically be selective for acetylene over carbon dioxide based on single-gas sorption isotherms, this was not the case during the sorption of a mixture of the two gases. Furthermore, high-pressure single-crystal diffraction was carried out utilising an in-house environmental gas cell, and structural elucidation indicated that both acetylene and carbon dioxide coexist in a single cavity of the host. Additional complementary techniques are discussed that were used to confirm that both gases are present in a single host cavity. The techniques included infrared spectroscopy as well as high-pressure florescence and Raman spectroscopy, which had to be conducted with a specially designed pressure vessel and with adapted instrumentation. Finally, density functional theory calculations were employed to explain how host-guest and guest-guest interactions lead to the change in adsorption selectivity. It is concluded that researchers need to show experimentally that a compound is selective for the adsorption of a specific gas, because theoretical models are not always accurate. The second part of this work focuses on a fundamental study of the structure-property relationships in a porous hydrogen-bonded organic framework. The section starts off by exploring the activation conditions and thermal stability of the framework. This is followed by an exploration of a possible phase transformation or thermal expansion in the framework, but neither of these occurred. Thereafter, an extended study of the framework’s sorption behaviour with various gases is discussed. Then, a structural study of its solvated phase is used to explain the framework’s stability. Finally, a novel analytical method is introduced, and two examples are used to demonstrate why the instrument is useful in the field of supramolecular chemistry. The chapter is concluded by stating the importance these fundamental studies, as well the development of new analytical techniques. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doel van hierdie tesis was om die struktuur-afhanklike eienskappe van poreuse materiale te ondersoek. Die studie het gebruik gemaak van verskeie aangepasde analitiese metodes asook instrumente wat spesifiek vir die studie gebou was. Die werk word in twee dele verdeel, en die meerderheid van die tesis word in die eerste deel bevat. In die eerste deel van die tesis word die validiteit van teoretiese- teen eksperimentele adsorpsie selektiwiteit opgeweeg. ʼn Gasheer wat bestaan uit ringvormige koördinasie-verbindings en wat asetileen asook koolstof dioksied kan adsorbeer, dien as ʼn model gasheer vir die studie. ʼn Volumetriese sorpsie instrument was spesiaal vir die studie gebou sodat asetileen sorpsie gedoen kon word. Volgens asetileen en koolstof dioksied se enkel-gas adsorpsie isoterme moet asetileen teoreties met voorkeur geadsorbeer word gedurende ʼn adsorpsie eksperiment waarin beide gasse teenwoordig is, maar eksperimenteel was dit bepaal dat dit nie so is nie, dus is daar ʼn verandering in die gasheer se adsorpsie selektiwiteit. Hierna word strukturele data van die gasheer, onder ʼn hoë druk van die gas mengsel, versamel deur gebruik te maak van enkel-kristal diffraksie en ʼn spesiaal-gemaakde gas sel. Die strukturele data toon dat beide asetileen en koolstof dioksied teenwoordig is binne elke porie van die gasheer. Daar word dan van addisionele analitiese metodes gebruik te maak om die observasie te bevestig. Die analitiese metodes sluit in infrarooi spektroskopie asook hoë-druk fluoressensie en Raman spektroskopie wat geëis het dat ʼn spesiale druk-bestande monster houer gebou moes word en dat analitiese instrumente gemodifiseer moet word. Ten slotte was daar van “density functional theory” gebruik gemaak om te verduidelik dat die interaksie tussen die gasheer en gas sowel as die interaksie tussen twee gasse lei tot die verandering in adsorpsie selektiwiteit. Uit hierdie bevinding word die gevolgtrekking gemaak dat navorsers met meer eksperimentele data vorendag sal moet kom voordat ʼn gevolgtrekking gemaak kan word dat ʼn raamwerk selektief een gas adsorbeer. Die tweede afdeling van die werk fokus op ʼn fundamentele studie van die struktuur-afhanklike eienskappe van ʼn poreuse waterstof-verbinde organies raamwerk. Die afdeling begin deur ʼn ondersoek van die aktivering kondisies sowel as die temperatuur-afhanklike stabiliteit van die raamwerk. Dit word gevolg deur te soek na moontlike fase veranderings of temperatuur-afhanklike uitsetting van die raamwerk, maar nie een van die twee eienskappe word waargeneem nie. Daarna word die deeglike ondersoek van die raamwerk se adsorpsie vermoë met verskeie gasse bespreek. Dit word gevolg deur ʼn strukturele studie van die solvaat van die raamwerk, wat dan gebruik word om die stabiliteit van die raamwerk te verduidelik. Ten slotte word ʼn analitiese metode bekend gestel, en twee voorbeelde word gebruik om te wys hoe nuttig die metode is om ʼn kombinasie van resultate te bekom. Die hoofstuk word saamgevat deur te verduidelik hoekom dit belangrik is om hierdie tipe fundamentele studies te doen asook waarom nuwe analitiese metodes ontwerp moet word.