Crises Negotiations

The field of hostage negotiating did not develop on the front lines of police work, but, instead, in the broader political context, dealing specifically with the taking of hostages. In modern times, these events have been large-scale terrorist events, such as when terrorist took athletes hostage at the 1972 Munich Olympics. This helped hone the field of hostage negotiations, because of a belief that appropriate intervention and negotiation could yield results that save lives in the event of hostage scenarios. Of course, hostage taking, and, therefore, hostage negotiation is not a new phenomenon; people have been taking hostages for years. In fact, when one looks at how piracy worked, it becomes clear that in many instances pirates were taking and holding hostages in an effort to get ransom for them. Any kidnap-for-ransom scenario is a hostage scenario. This was so commonplace that different ranks of crewman had different...
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