Hi, need to submit a 1500 words paper on the topic Hostages. The subject has developed as the most significant development in police psychology and law enforcement over the past several years. Vecchi,

Hi, need to submit a 1500 words paper on the topic Hostages. The subject has developed as the most significant development in police psychology and law enforcement over the past several years. Vecchi, Hasselt, and Romano (2005) note that law enforcement agencies have been adopting negotiation strategies regarding their response to hostage/barricade situations, personal crises, kidnappings, and other incidences that critical since they came into being in 1973 after being introduced by New York City Police Department. This trend was preceded by the debacle of the 1971 Attica, New York riot of prisoners and Israeli athlete’s killings during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich Germany (Romano, 2002). Since then, several negotiation strategies have been developed for application in hostage situations, mainly based on problem-solving methods to respond, resolve, and management of these incidences. The objective of this paper is to analyze a hostage negotiation scenario that is family-domestic in nature.

Part 1

Hostage vs. Non-hostage Situations

Vecchi, Hasselt, and Romano reveal that significant confusion exists currently concerning the difference between a hostage and non-hostage situations (2005). They term hostage situations as those which involve taking an individual or group of person’s captive for tangible or “instrumental” reasons in which the suspect needs authorities or the police to meet certain demands (such as money, ransom, transportation, etc). Under these events, the person taken captive is used as a means to achieve certain substantive goals (Strentz, 1986).

This scenario has been common with the terrorist groups. For instance, the Al Shabaab terrorist groups based in Somalia have been taking foreign nationals hostage on their territorial waters for the purpose of getting a ransom, and money in exchange for their release. In a non-hostage situation, an individual or group of people are taken captive for “expensive or intangible reasons. Under such situations, the suspect does not need the police or authorities (Vecchi, Hasselt, and Romano, 2005). Here the captive is held by a suspect who is in a highly emotional state such as jealousy, anger frustration among others, and usually as a homicide-to-be or victim. Vecchi, Hasselt, and Romano (2005) give an example of one’s spouse captive due to an extramarital affair.