Negotiations for hostages: Implications from the police experience

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Abstract
The research examines the hostage situation precipitated by a group of Hanafi Muslims in March, 1977, in Washington, D.C. This episode is used to discuss a set of highly successful hostage negotiation procedures and their implications for bargaining with political terrorists. Some hostage situations are, as was the Hanafi episode, attempts by politically weak groups to gain access to the public agenda through political theater staged before the communications media. In such cases, the granting of symbolic rewards and face‐saving mechanisms to the terrorists through the ritual of negotiation can lead to their capitulation. These procedures, however, work neither in situations where the terrorists escalate demands nor with suicide missions. The frequency of suicide missions, however, has been largely overrated. The implications from the police experience and the ritualistic and symbolic aspects of hostage taking are discussed in terms of the U.S. Department of State's policy of nonnegotiation. The research suggests that State Department policy be reevaluated in terms of the symbolic and ritualistic motivations behind much hostage taking.

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