Hostage Negotiations and Crisis Intervention, Phase I and II (Pierpoint)

Instructor: Brandon Pierpoint

Duration: 4.5 Days

Professional Development Hours: 40 PD hours

Cost: $675.00

Course Overview

This comprehensive 40-hour training program provides law enforcement professionals with essential skills in hostage negotiation and crisis intervention. The course runs for four full days from 8:00am to 4:00pm local time, with the final day concluding at 12:00pm local time. The remaining training hours include a tested assessment component. Students should expect evening homework assignments covering case law review, current incident analysis, and scenario scripting throughout the week.

Course Content and Topics

Introduction and Orientation: The course begins with instructor and student introductions, an overview of the curriculum, historical context of negotiation practices, and review of provided materials and recommended readings presented through lecture format.

Required and Suggested Equipment: Participants learn about essential equipment necessary for hostage and barricaded subject responses, including hostage phones, response vehicles, ballistic protection, identification apparel, fiber optic cameras, listening devices, and tactical radio channels. Instruction combines lecture and PowerPoint presentations.

Fundamentals of Hostage Negotiation: Students study general theoretical concepts encompassing the three types of response incidents, rationales for law enforcement negotiation, emotional versus rational considerations, incident management, hostage-taker and hostage profiles, negotiator selection criteria, and time management strategies. This section uses lecture, PowerPoint, and video formats.

Active Listening Techniques: Participants develop proficiency in listening methods specific to hostage and crisis situations, learning to restate and paraphrase messages to confirm accurate understanding. Instruction employs lecture, PowerPoint, and video presentations.

Mental Health for Negotiators: This segment examines the psychological dimensions of crisis negotiation, addressing irrational and inappropriate behaviors, personality disorders, and mental illnesses commonly encountered during negotiations. Lecture, PowerPoint, and video formats are utilized.

Bunches of 5: Students develop collaborative materials for their agencies by brainstorming and creating preplanned responses to anticipated concerns and demands.

Suicide Intervention: The course introduces students to the emotional drivers of suicidal behavior, characteristics of major depressive disorder, and suicide risk assessment procedures.

Situation Boards: Instruction covers information and intelligence management during incidents, emphasizing accurate transcription of incoming data through lecture, PowerPoint, and video presentation.

NOC Protocol: Students learn to establish and organize a Negotiations Operations Command, understanding each team member's function and the critical importance of information sharing. Lecture, PowerPoint, and video formats are employed.

Third Party Intermediaries: Participants receive instruction on when and how to appropriately utilize third party intermediaries in negotiations through lecture, PowerPoint, and video formats.

Tactical Role of the Negotiator: This section examines the interrelationship between tactical teams, negotiators, and incident commanders, emphasizing necessary interagency cooperation during hostage situations through lecture, PowerPoint, and video presentations.

Managing Demands: Students explore strategies for handling hostage-taker demands, identify non-negotiable demands, and learn tactics to soften or reframe demands. The course also addresses managing deadlines set by hostage-takers through lecture, PowerPoint, and video instruction.

Stress Management: Participants examine stress effects on hostage-takers, hostages, and negotiators, developing coping strategies and exploring the Yerkes-Dodson Principle relating stress to performance. Instruction uses lecture, PowerPoint, and video formats.

Teaching Methods

Throughout the course, scenarios are integrated to provide practical application of concepts. Daily discussions examine case law and current incidents. Evening homework assignments require students to review case law, analyze recent incidents, and script various scenarios, contributing to the total 40-hour course requirement.