Measuring the impact of hostage negotiations in the U.S. criminal justice system, 1985

The present study measures the impact of hostage negotiation training among law enforcement officers. The controlling variables are: (a) the mode of their initiation in the area of hostage situations; and (b) the number of hostage situations that a given officer has participated in during the year 1984. One hundred respondents were drawn at the national level , but only sixty-eight responses were received. The data collection was done through mailed questionnaires. The study employed the discriminant and Pearson's correlation analyses at its inferential level. The study found that as the officers' mode of initiation to receive hostage negotiation training shifts from 'psychological testing' to 'volunteer', they tend to receive special training for hostage situations. A significant negative relationship was observed between the number of hostage situations that a given respondent has participated in during the year 1984 and (a) department on-going training programs for hostage situations, and (b) respondent's feelings on the adequacy of the training. Thus, volunteers have more positive attitudes toward hostage negotiation training than the other groups (whose mode of initiation was in the following areas: board interview, special training, experience in actual cases, appointment from rank, psychological interview, and psychological testing). In addition, those who had the facility of offering hostage negotiation training in their departments could participate more often than others