WE. ARE. SORRY.
But let us not grovel. We must be humble and admit mistakes, inefficiencies and stupid thoughtlessness. We must take it on the chin as a people, but we must not grovel on the ground. Let us show in concrete that we want to make things right but we must not allow anyone to walk all over us. Hate statements and tit-for-tat accusations that hark back to wrongs committed in the distant past will not help heal wounds.
There has been a hurricane of morning-after opinions and analyses, a lot of blame throwing, mea culpas, prayers, acts of reparation, expressions of sympathy from all sides. But the fact remains: there is no name for the pain of the families who lost loved ones in the tragedy that happened on our soil.
In my desire to know more about hostage crises, I surfed the Internet and found an article written by Sergeant Kevin Curreri in The Journal for Women and Policing published by the Australasia Council of Women and Policing. The title of the article is “Women and Crisis Negotations.” Curreri is the state negotiator training officer of the Queensland Police Service.
Curreri writes that in the 1970s the New York Police Department developed the idea of hostage negotiations by using detectives who had the “gift of gab” to deal with hostage takers. Negotiators are persons who deal with persons described as “being in crisis,” which refers not just to hostage takers but to suicidal ones as well. (In the Philippines we’ve had lots of the latter climbing on billboard structures.) And so the words “crisis negotiation” have replaced “hostage negotiation.”
In Queensland, Curreri says, invitations for applications for the negotiators’ course are made about every two years. Applicants are short-listed based on experience, referrals and demonstrated aptitude. They are then psychometrically profiled and interviewed by the occupational psychologist of the police’s Negotiator Training Team. Their communication ability during stress are assessed.
Curreri says that at one time, when calls for applications were made, 179 applied. Only 15 were chosen. They attended a four-week, live-in course to train in the negotiation process and then were sent to the field to work with experienced negotiators for 12 months.
There are several basic principles that a negotiator should bear in mind. One is that the negotiator’s basic function is to modify another person’s behavior through verbal communication. To do this, the negotiator must gain influence over the subject.
There are two types of influence: the hierarchical and the personal. Hierarchical refers to a person exerting influence by his or her standing in society. Personal is more difficult and takes time.
Active listening and demonstration of empathy are keys to influence. “We attempt to show the subjects that we have heard not only what they are saying, but how they feel about the situation they are in. We then attempt to demonstrate … that we are trying to understand what it must be like to be in their shoes. Demonstration of empathy assists in establishing rapport or trust.”
Once rapport has been established it becomes easier for the negotiator to exert personal influence on and modify the subject’s behavior. Curreri emphasizes that employing negotiation techniques instead of automatically resorting to a tactical resolution significantly reduces the chances of injury to persons and minimizes civil liability. However he recognizes that not every incident will result in a peacefully negotiated end.
Still, negotiators could assist the tactical teams in gathering intelligence and maneuvering the subject to a position most conducive to a tactical resolution. I think Curreri means the application of force.
Curreri thinks more women should be involved in crisis negotiations. There are diverse communication styles and practices in the two gender groups, among them conversational skills. Women, Curreri says, tend to approach sharing information, listening, making decisions and handling conflicts and disagreements differently than men do. He cites Deborah Tannen who suggests in her book “You Just Don’t Understand” that men enjoy giving info as a way to show expertise while women like sharing info to build relationships. Men do “report talk” while women do “rapport talk.”
Women share information to help others gain the same level of knowledge as they have, equalize the playing field and build rapport. Tannen says that men frequently interrupt and compete for airtime while women wait to speak until others are heard. There.
Curreri adds that women can use a subject’s gender biases to achieve a result. Women could be seen as less threatening and thus lower a subject’s defenses. As in, “It’s okay to be afraid. I promise I won’t hurt you.”
But Curreri points out that there are certain occasions when women negotiating may be counterproductive because of cultural and religious biases. “We must recognize that as negotiators our goal is to achieve behavioral change in the subject person through verbal communication.” In some cases, where women may be the cause of a subject’s problems (as in the case of heart-broken male suicidals who hold their kids hostage), women negotiators would not be the best choice.
But there are many incidents when women may be able to exert influence, personally or hierarchically. In the case of hostage taker and dismissed cop Rolando Mendoza, the intervention of his brother and fellow cop worsened the situation.
Would his mother or wife have done better?
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