The Hostage and Crisis Negotiation's Training Laboratory

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper describes the development of a Hostage Negotiations Training Laboratory designed as a state-of-the-art learning center, and to be used as a vital part of the current Basic, Intermediate, Advanced and in-service training which negotiators now receive. Such a laboratory provides multiple opportunities for negotiator trainees, at their various levels of expertise, to practice basic communications and negotiations skills learned in class. This is accomplished under the guidance and supervision of the class instructor, Laboratory Director, and other experienced negotiators. Students are able to work, either as a member of a team or individually, on preprogrammed hostage and barricade crisis scenarios which have been developed based on actual situations occurring in the field. They are given basic information on a specific scenario which allows them to initiate contact and begin negotiations with actual role players representing themselves as hostage takers or barricaded subjects. Over a pre...