"Through Me You'll Live": Impasse vs. Identification in Hostage Negotiation

Abstract

Investigatges police culture among Chicago (IL) Police Dept hostage negotiators & SWAT (Special Weapons & Tactics) team members, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork including observation & interviews. Hostage negotiators are presented with the difficult task of containing inflamed situations, reducing the danger to police & bystanders, preventing media contamination of the event, & convincing the hostage taker to surrender. These goals are achieved in a complicated process of changing the hostage taker's motive so that the drama is redirected away from tragedy. Since hostage takers exclude themselves from society, it is up to the negotiator to convince these individuals to reenter by identifying themselves with the society. This is made more difficult because many hostage takers are intent on playing out predetermined narratives they have consumed from the mass media. Success is achieved by making human contact with hostage takers, establishing a common ground, & offering them a pathway out of the media-dictated model of impasse. D. Ryfe