Human Behavior

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UNIT 1

NATURE OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR


Introduction

Crime committed by man has an explanation socially, morally, and psychologically. More importantly, the
psychological and social aspects are considered by criminologist in addressing the problem of crime and determining their
cause. In this guidebook a compendium of the important topics to be discussed are included. Since the guidebook is for
student use, the student must seek the guidance of the teacher for better understanding of the topics herein.

Basic Concept

Human behavior is the study of human conduct; the way a person behaves or acts; includes the study of human
activities in an attempt to discover recurrent patterns and to formulate rules about man’s social behavior.
Modern Criminologists regard crime as social phenomenon: meaning – an individual’s criminal behavior could be
attributed directly or indirectly with his experiences and interactions to his social environment. Thus, one’s knowledge of
human behaviors will give him better understanding as to the causes of normal and abnormal behaviors which eventually
lead to criminal behaviors.

Definition of Terms:
 Behavior - any act of person which is observable; any observable responses of a person to his environment; manner
of ones conduct.
 Attitude - position of the body, as suggesting some thought, feeling, or action; state of mind, behavior, or conduct
regarding some matter, as indicating opinion or purpose; internal processes.
 Human Behavior - the acts, attitudes and performances of flesh and blood individuals according to their
environment; properly the subject matter of psychology.
 Psychology - the science that studies behavior and mental processes.
 Personality - that which distinguishes and characterizes a person.
 Character - the combination of qualities distinguishing any person or class of persons; any distinctive trait or mark,
or such marks or traits collectively belonging to any person, class or race.

Psychology and Criminal Behavior

Psychology – is the totality or sum of all actions, attitudes, thoughts, mental states of a person or groups of
persons, it is the science dealing with the mind of human being including animal behavior.

Individual Differences:
No two people are alike.
Men differs from women - qualitative differences; and physical differences
People differ from day-to-day activities.
Nature of Differences:
1. Physical
2. Ability/Skill
3. Personality
4. Intelligence

Application of Psychology in Law Enforcement


1. Psychology in public relation
2. Psychology in investigation
3. Psychology and group control
4. Psychology and alcoholics
5. Psychology and the courts
6. Psychology and crime

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Psychology and Common Sense
Psychology is worthy of particular attention. Moreover, a deeper understanding of the psychological principles
and their application to the field of law enforcement would indeed be of assistance to police officers. Most successful
police investigators attribute their achievements on their practical knowledge of psychology.

Psychology is the science pertaining to the mind, the sum of all human actions, attitude, thoughts, and mental
states. It covers common sense and the development of the ordinary good senses. It examines existing facts of a problem
before a conclusion is drawn, it uses scientific method and therefore judgment is suspended until all facts had been
analyzed.

Common sense is the commonly health notion where truth is not dependent on judgment which is based purely on
observations, thus it lacks the organization of thoughts and jumps to conclusion immediately. Microsoft Encarta regards
common sense as synonymous to good judgment. Further, Microsoft Encarta defines it as sound practical judgment
derived from experience rather than study.

This is to show that what often passes for a commonsense conclusion concerning behavior is not always true, and
that the science of behavior has as one of its goals the elimination of widespread misconceptions and wrong judgment.
Thus, it is our responsibility to further advance our knowledge so that we can replace myths with facts and learn to
recognize errors (Wicks, 1974).

Both are of course useful in understanding criminal behavior because they provide the opportunity to reflect on
how it affects the person’s present view of life.

Evolution of the study of human behavior:


1. Homer - the author of Iliad and Odyssey who described HD as the modern sense of breath or sign of life.
2. Socrates and Plato - described HD as having two parts:
a. the rational part - capable of unraveling the meaning of life and understand ideal form; to make clear the
meaning of life and/or draw conclusions.
b. the irrational part - participate in imperfect form; the inability and/or lack or reasoning, sometimes termed as
unreasonable; mostly deals with the emotion.
3. Aristotle - described HD as the principle of life; quality or essence of that distinguishing the living from non-
living.

Attributes or Characteristics of Behavior


1. Overt behavior – behaviors that are observable.
2. Covert behavior – those that are hidden from the view of the observer.
3. Simple behavior – less number of neurons are consumed in the process of behaving
4. Complex behavior – combination of simple behavior
5. Rational behavior - acting with sanity or with reasons
6. Irrational behavior – acting without reason/ unaware
7. Voluntary behavior – done with full volition of will.
8. Involuntary behavior – bodily processes that goes on even when we are awake or asleep.

Aspects of Behaviors
1. Intellectual Aspect – way of thinking, reasoning, solving problem, processing info and coping with the
environment.
2. Emotional Aspect – feelings, moods, temper, strong motivational force with in the person.
3. Social Aspect – people interaction or relationship with other people.
4. Moral Aspect – conscience, concept on what is good or bad.
5. Psychosexual Aspect – being a man or a woman and the expression of love.
6. Political Aspect – ideology towards society/government.
7. Value/ Attitude – interest towards something, likes and dislikes.

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Distinction of Molecular Behavior from Molar Behavior:
Molecular behavior refers to such things as isolated muscular movements or glandular secretion or to the
movements of the nerve cells or muscles. Molar behavior on the other hand refers to the behavior organized into
meaningful sequences or patterns into activities that satisfy the organism’s needs, bring it closer to its goals or help to
avoid danger.

Three Levels of Behavior


1. The Vegetative - responsible for nurturing and reproduction, mostly found in plants; in human beings, for food
and reproduction.
2. The Animal - movement and sensation, mostly the use of the senses and sex drives.
3. The Rational/Psyche/Human - values and morals, reasons and the will (purpose and freedom).

Five Elements of Human Behavior


1. Vegetative power
2. Sensitive power
3. Estimate power - memory and imaginative power (optionated)
4. Common sense - qualities and/or sound practical judgment
5. Will and interest

Three Faculties of Man


1. Will - the power of conscious deliberate actions; the faculty by which the rational mind makes choice of its ends
of action, and directs energies in carrying out its determinations.
2. Intellect - the faculty of power of perception or thought; or power of understanding.
3. Soul - the rational, emotional, and volitional faculties in man, conceived of as forming an entity distinct from,
often existing independently of his body; the emotional faculty of man distinguished from intellect.

Instinct - innate (biological - unconscious); life (sexual wishes)


- pleasure principle (libido) or love instinct (Eros); death (aggressive and embarrassment)
- thanatos (death wish or love of death)

Libido - the instinctual craving of drive behind all human activities, especially sexual, the repression of which leads to
neurosis.

Goals and Objectives of Studying Human Behavior


1. To describe behavior whether normal and acceptable norms or its abnormal and a deviant behavior.
2. To identify factors that can predict behavior, e.g. depressed, unrealistic and unreasonable.
3. To understand and explain by identifying causes that bring about certain effects, assemble them which are
common facts or gather facts and define principles.
4. To control and change behavior as a result of the prediction.

Application: Solution to existing problems in the society.


1. Reduce crime rates (crime prevention and suppression)
2. Improve educational techniques (research studies)
3. Treat persons with mental disorders and emotional imbalance or with emotional problems.

Approaches in the study of Human Behavior


1. Neurological - emphasizes human actions in relation to events taking place inside the body, especially the brain
and the nervous system.
2. Behavioral - focuses on those external activities of the organism that can be observed and measured.
3. Cognitive - concerned with the way the brain processes and transforms information in various ways.
4. Psychoanalytical - emphasizes unconscious motives stemming from repressed sexual and aggressive impulses in
childhood.
5. Humanistic - focuses on the subject’s experience, freedom of choice and motivation toward self-actualization.

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Assessing Human Behavior (Measures)
1. Descriptive Method (describing the behavior)
a. Naturalistic observation - observes the behavior in the natural setting of the person’s background, e.g. home,
school, church, etc.
b. Systematic observation - making use of the adjective check lists, e.g. skills rating (inventories and
questionnaires) test given by the guidance counsel.
2. Clinical Method - diagnose and treatment of serious emotional or mental disorders or disturbances.
3. Experimental Method - relationship between variables by way of experimental (laboratory). Specimens are
required for comparison and for contrast.
4. Statistical Method - making use of researches that were conducted; measures of central tendencies, mean,
median, mode tests; (the use of the Uniform Crime Report (UCR))

Determinants of Behavior
1. HEREDITY – genetic inheritance
2. ENVIRONMENT – socio-cultural inheritance
3. SELF – fundamental functioning of the self structure that we make about ourselves and our world. These
assumptions are based on learning and of three kinds:
a. Reality assumptions – assumptions about how things really are and what kind of person we are.
b. Possibility assumptions – assumptions about how things could be, about possibilities for change,
opportunities and social progress.
c. Value assumptions – assumptions about the way things ought to be, about right and wrong.

The Two Basic Factors Affecting Behavior


The questions on why do people become heterosexual and others homosexuals, some are alcoholics, some are law
abiding and others are criminals, some are well adjusted and others mentally ill? What will enable us to understand these
extremes of behavior?

The answer to these questions requires the study and understanding of the influences of HEREDITY and
ENVIRONMENT.
A. Heredity/Biological Factors (nature) - are those that explained by heredity, the characteristics of a person acquired
from birth transferred from one generation to another. It explains that certain emotional aggression, our intelligence,
ability and potentials and our physical appearance are inherited.
Or the pre-arranged patterns as a result of a process of transmission of genetic characteristics from parents to the
offspring, includes the influences present in the reproductive cells prior to the time of conception.
It influences all aspects of behavior, including intellectual capabilities, reactions, tendencies and stress tolerance.
This will also explain the conditions that genes, diseases, malnutrition, injuries and other conditions that interfere with
normal development are potential causes of abnormal/criminal behavior.
It is the primary basis of the idea concerning criminal behavior, the concept that “criminals are born” - Theory of
Atavism - born criminal.
It also considers the influences of genetic defects and faulty genes, diseases, endocrine imbalances, malnutrition
and other physical deprivations that can be carried out form one generation to another.

B. Environmental Factors (nurture) – refers to anything around the person that influences his actions. Some
environmental factors are:
1. The family background is a basic consideration because it is in the family whereby an individual first experiences
how to relate and interact with another. The family is said to be the cradle of personality development as a result
of either a close or harmonious relationship or a pathogenic family structure: the disturbed family, broken family,
separated or maladjusted relations.
2. The influences of childhood trauma, which affect the feeling of security of a child undergoing development,
processes. The development processes are being blocked sometimes by parental deprivation as a consequence of
parents or luck of adequate maturing at home because of parental rejection, overprotection, restrictiveness, over
permissiveness, and faulty discipline.
3. Pathogenic family structure – those families associated with high frequency of problems such as:
a. The inadequate family – characterized by the inability to cope with the ordinary problems of family living. It
lacks the resources, physical or psychological, for meeting the demands of family satisfaction.

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b. The anti-social family – those that espouses unacceptable values as a result of the influence of parents to
their children.
c. The discordant/disturbed family – characterized by unsatisfaction of one or both parent from the
relationship that may express feeling of frustration. This is usually due to value differences as common
sources of conflict and dissatisfaction.
d. The disrupted family – characterized by incompleteness whether as a result of death, divorce, separation or
some other circumstances.
4. Institutional influences such as: peer groups, mass media, church and school, government institutions, NGO’s,
etc.
5. Socio-cultural factors such as war and violence, group prejudice and discrimination, economic and employment
problems and other social changes.
6. Nutrition or the quality of food that a person intake is also a factor that influence man to commit crime because
poverty is one of the many reasons to criminal behavior.

Further, environment as factor affecting behavior pertains to all conditions inside and outside of an organism that is
in any way influence behavior, growth, development of life process.
1. Physical environment (external forces) - all things in this world that affect man directly and stimulates the sense
organs; social environment are physical influences steaming from outside contact with other people.
a. Primary Social Group
1) Home
2) neighborhood, etc.

b. Broader Social Group


1) School
2) Church
3) CJS

2. Internal Environment - the immediate environment within which the genes exist and function.
a. biological condition of the body
b. exist in the intercellular and extracellular

Note: Heredity and environment become so inextricably joined in producing growth and development, it becomes
impossible to segregate the influence of these two factors.

WILLIAM JONES (Psychologist) stated that minds inhabit environment which act on them and which they react.

NOTE: Personality is a social phenomenon which is unique in every person. Personality is influenced more by
reactions of other people to us, and by our reactions to other people than by any factor ...... the face, voice, hands, feet,
etc., in which we employ these various characteristics in relation to other people will determine what others think of
us. And their reactions to us, insofar as we are sensitive to them, will influence the opinions we hold concerning our
own personality.

Factors influencing evaluations of Behavior


1. Social Values - may influence concepts of mental health and mental illness like a person’s vocational achievement
may be valued highly but he may be inadequate when judged in relation to his family relationships and outside
interests.
2. Different standards set by individual social groups for judging whether behavior is healthy or unhealthy, varies
with time, place, culture, and expectations of the social groups.
3. Incomparable frames of reference used by individuals, as by members of one’s primary group to evaluate
behavior. The individual may compare his feelings and behavior with how he thinks others feel and behave, or
with how he felt and behaved in the past. Psychiatrists tend to evaluate behavior according to the particular
school of thought which each one follows. The focus of evaluation may influence either a diagnosis of mental
illness, reaction to a crisis situation, or a specific defect in personality functioning. Treatment approaches revolve
around the diagnosis based on behavior evaluation.

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Mental Health and Mental Illness
It is difficult top define mental health and mental illness because these concepts are for the most part culturally-
determined and are defined differently in different parts of the world. Behavior that might be considered as abnormal or
mentally-sick in one culture may be accepted and encouraged in another culture. Generally, however, when a person’s
behavior is adaptive to his environment, we say that he is healthy, and when his behavior is maladaptive, we say he is ill.

Evaluation to one’s individual mental status


1. Attitude toward the individual self - This involves aspects related to a person’s self-awareness, acceptance,
confidence, level of self-esteem, sense of personal identification in relation to role, groups, other people, sex,
vocation, strengths and weakness, etc.
2. Growth, Development, Self-actualization - What a person does with her abilities and potentialities are considered
important. Her involvement in outside interests and relationships, concerns with an occupation or ideas, and her
goals in life are considered.
3. Integrative Capacity - Psychoanalyst view this concept as meaning a balance of psychic forces - the ID, EGO,
SUPEREGO. The core of this concept is the utilization of all processes and attributes in a person for the
unification of personal functioning and also the ability to tolerate anxiety and frustration in stressful situation.
4. Autonomous Behavior - The individual’s ability to make his own decisions and react according to his own
convictions regardless of outside environmental pressures, and acceptance of responsibility for his own actions.
5. Perception of Reality
6. Mastery of One’s Environment - The ability to adapt, adjust, and behave appropriately in situations and in
accordance with culturally approved standards so that satisfactions are achieved in love, work, play and
interpersonal relations is involved here.

PERSONALITY - Totality of a person.


Sigmund Freud (Father of Psychoanalysis), revolutionized the thinking of the profession on mental illness,
personality development or personality disorders with his psychoanalytic theories. He postulated that the mind consists
roughly of three overlapping divisions.
1. The conscious is that part of the mind which is immediately focused in awareness.
2. The pre-conscious is that part of the mind which can be recalled and brought to awareness at will.
3. The unconscious is the reservoir of memories, experience and emotions that can be recalled. They are out of the
individual’s awareness.

Three Components of Personality


1. ID - the unconscious part of the personality which serves as the reservoir of the primitive and biological drives
and urges. It is that part of the personality with which we are born. ID is the animalistic self.
Libido - pleasure principle; instinctual craving especially sexually.
2. Ego - the mediator between the ID and the superego.
It refers to the developing awareness of self or the “I”. It is also known as the integrator of the personality; the
part that interacts with the outside world, partly conscious and partly unconscious. As the ego develops the reality
principle supersedes or operates in concert with the pleasure principle in guiding the behavior. The adaptive
functions of the ego are the defenses against anxiety.
3. Superego - the socialized component of the personality. It is the authoritative or parental direction which becomes
incorporated into the personality as the censoring force or “conscience”. It begins primarily by accepting early in
life of the standards of the persons who are most important to the child, and it is first evident when the child feels
within himself that his behavior is right or wrong. If the ego contemplates violation of the superego’s code,
anxiety results; if the person acts on the contemplated violation despite the anxiety, guilt feelings result. a very
strict superego usually leads to the development of a rigid, compulsive, unhappy person. A weak defective
superego permits a person to express hostile and anti-social striving without anxiety or guilt.

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OEDIPUS COMPLEX
Stage when young boys experience rivalry with their father for their mother’s attention and affection. The father
is viewed as a sex rival. This conflict is resolved by the boy’s repression of his feelings for his mother.

Stages of Human Development

There are four primary theories of child development: psychoanalytic, learning, cognitive, and sociocultural. Each
offers insights into the forces guiding childhood growth. Each also has limitations, which is why many developmental
scientists use more than one theory to guide their thinking about the growth of children.

A. Psychoanalytic Theory

At the end of the 19th century, Austrian physician Sigmund Freud developed the theory and techniques of
psychoanalysis; it formed the basis for several later psychoanalytic theories of human development. Psychoanalytic
theories share an emphasis on personality development and early childhood experiences. In the psychoanalytic view, early
experiences shape one’s personality for an entire lifetime, and psychological problems in adulthood may have their origins
in difficult or traumatic childhood experiences.

In addition, psychoanalytic theories emphasize the role of unconscious, instinctual drives in personality
development. Some of these drives are sexual or aggressive in quality, and their unacceptability to the conscious mind
causes them to be repressed in the unconscious mind. Here, they continue to exert a powerful influence on an individual’s
behavior, often without his or her awareness.

Most psychoanalytic theories portray development as a series of stages through which all children proceed.
According to Freud, child development consists of five psychosexual stages in which a particular body region is the focus
of sensual satisfactions; the focus of pleasure shifts as children progress through the stages.

During the oral stage, from birth to age 1, the mouth, tongue, and gums are the focus of sensual pleasure, and the
baby develops an emotional attachment to the person providing these satisfactions (primarily through feeding). During the
anal stage, from ages 1 to 3, children focus on pleasures associated with control and self-control, primarily with respect to
defecation and toilet training. In the phallic stage, from ages 3 to 6, children derive pleasure from genital stimulation.
They are also interested in the physical differences between the sexes and identify with their same-sex parent. The latency
phase, from ages 7 to 11, is when sensual motives subside and psychological energy is channeled into conventional
activities, such as schoolwork. Finally, during the genital stage, from adolescence through adulthood, individuals develop
mature sexual interests.

An American psychoanalyst, Erik Erikson, proposed a related series of psychosocial stages of personality growth
that more strongly emphasize social influences within the family. Erikson’s eight stages span the entire life course, and,
contrary to Freud’s stages, each involves a conflict in the social world with two possible outcomes. In infancy, for
example, the conflict is “trust vs. mistrust” based on whether the baby is confident that others will provide nurturance and
care. In adolescence, “identity vs. role confusion” defines the teenager’s search for self-understanding. Erikson’s theory
thus emphasizes the interaction of internal psychological growth and the support of the social world.

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Psychoanalytic theories offer a rich portrayal of personality growth that emphasizes the complex emotional—and
sometimes irrational—forces within each person. These theories are hard to prove or disprove, however, because they are
based on unconscious processes inaccessible to scientific experimentation.

B Learning Theories

Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an animal’s natural response to one object or sensory stimulus
transfers to another stimulus. This illustration shows how a dog can learn to salivate to the sound of a tuning fork, an
experiment first carried out in the early 1900s by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov. For conditioning to occur, the pairing
of the food with the tuning fork (step 3 in the illustration) must be repeated many times, so that the dog eventually learns
to associate the two items..

Learning theorists emphasize the role of environmental influences in shaping the way a person develops. In their
view, child development is guided by both deliberate and unintended learning experiences in the home, peer group,
school, and community. Therefore, childhood growth is significantly shaped by the efforts of parents, teachers, and others
to socialize children in desirable ways. According to learning theories, the same principles that explain how people can
use a bicycle or computer also explain how children acquire social skills, emotional self-control, reasoning strategies, and
the physical skills of walking and running.

B. F. Skinner
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One kind of learning occurs when a child’s actions are followed by a reward or punishment. A reward, also called
a reinforcer, increases the probability that behavior will be repeated. For example, a young child may regularly draw
pictures because she receives praise from her parents after completing each one. A punishment decreases the probability
that behavior will be repeated. For example, a child who touches a hot stove and burns his fingertips is not likely to touch
the stove again. American psychologist B. F. Skinner devoted his career to explaining how human behavior is affected by
its consequences—a process he called operant conditioning–and to describing the positive and constructive ways that
reinforcement and punishment can be used to guide children’s behavior.

Learning by Observation
People learn much of what they know simply by observing others. Here a child learns to use a lawnmower by observing
his father’s behavior and imitating it with a toy lawnmower.
Spencer Grant/Liaison Agency

Another kind of learning, classical conditioning, occurs when a person makes a mental association between two
events or stimuli. When conditioning has occurred, merely encountering the first stimulus produces a response once
associated only with the second stimulus. For example, babies begin sucking when they are put in a familiar nursing
posture, children fear dogs whose barking has startled them in the past, and students cringe at the sound of school bells
that signal that they are tardy. Classical conditioning was first studied by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov in the early
1900s and later by American psychologist John B. Watson.

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Learning Aggression Through Observation
Pygmy Mammoth Productions

A third kind of learning consists of imitating the behavior of others. A boy may acquire his father’s style of
talking, his mother’s tendency to roll her eyes, and his favorite basketball player’s moves on the court. In doing so, he also
acquires expectations about the consequences of these behaviors. This type of learning has been studied extensively by
American psychologist Albert Bandura. His social learning theory emphasizes how learning through observation and
imitation affects behavior and thought.

Learning theories provide extremely useful ways of understanding how developmental changes in behavior and thinking
occur and, for some children, why behavior problems arise. These theories can be studied scientifically and practically applied. Critics
point out, however, that because of their emphasis on the guidance of the social environment, learning theorists sometimes neglect
children’s active role in their own understanding and development.

C Cognitive Theories

Understanding how children think is crucial to understanding their development because children’s perceptions of
life events often determine how these events affect them. For example, a five-year-old who believes that her parents’
marital problems are her fault is affected much differently than an adolescent who has a better understanding of marriage
and relationships. Cognitive theorists focus on the development of thinking and reasoning as the key to understanding
childhood growth.

The best-known theory of cognitive development was developed by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who became
interested in how children think and construct their own knowledge. Based on his studies and observations, Piaget
theorized that children proceed through four distinct stages of cognitive development: the sensorimotor stage, the
preoperational stage, the concrete-operational stage, and the formal-operational stage.

During the sensorimotor stage, which lasts from birth to about age 2, understanding is based on immediate
sensory experience and actions. Thought is very practical but lacking in mental concepts or ideas. In the preoperational
stage, which spans the preschool years (about ages 2 to 6), children’s understanding becomes more conceptual. Thinking
involves mental concepts that are independent of immediate experience, and language enables children to think about
unseen events, such as thoughts and feelings. The young child’s reasoning is intuitive and subjective. During the concrete-
operational stage, from about 7 to 11 years of age, children engage in objective, logical mental processes that make them
more careful, systematic thinkers. Around age 12 children attain the formal-operational stage, when they can think about
abstract ideas, such as ethics and justice. They can also reason about hypothetical possibilities and deduce new concepts.

According to Piaget, children progress through these four stages by applying their current thinking processes to
new experiences; gradually, they modify these processes to better accommodate reality. This occurs not through direct
instruction, but rather through the child’s own mental activity and internal motivation to understand.

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Information-processing theories are based on similarities between the human mind and a computer, both of which
are high-speed information-processing devices. These theories describe cognitive growth as the gradual acquisition of
more sophisticated strategies for organizing information, solving problems, storing and retrieving knowledge, and
evaluating solutions. Like Piaget, information-processing theorists believe that children acquire these skills through their
everyday efforts to understand and master intellectual challenges.

Cognitive theories provide insights into how a child’s mental processes underlie many aspects of his or her development.
However, critics argue that Piaget underestimated the sophistication of the cognitive abilities of young children. Information-
processing theorists have also been faulted for portraying children as little computers rather than as inventive, creative thinkers..

D Sociocultural Theory

Many developmental scientists believe that children do not proceed through universal stages or processes of
development. To sociocultural theorists, children’s growth is deeply guided by the values, goals, and expectations of their
culture. In this perspective, children acquire skills valued by their culture—such as reading, managing crops, or using an
abacus—through the guidance and support of older people. Thus, developmental abilities may differ for children in
different societies, and development cannot be separated from its cultural context.

One of the pioneers of sociocultural theory was Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, whose writings in the 1920s
and 1930s emphasized how children’s interaction with adults contributes to the development of skills. According to
Vygotsky, sensitive adults are aware of a child’s readiness for new challenges, and they structure appropriate activities to
help the child develop new skills. Adults act as mentors and teachers, leading the child into the zone of proximal
development—Vygotsky’s term for the range of skills that the child cannot perform unaided but can master with adult
assistance. A parent may encourage simple number concepts, for example, by counting beads with the child or measuring
cooking ingredients together, filling in the numbers that the child cannot remember. As children participate in such
experiences daily with parents, teachers, and others, they gradually learn the culture’s practices, skills, and values.

Sociocultural theory highlights how children incorporate culture into their reasoning, social interaction, and self-
understanding. It also explains why children growing up in different societies are likely to have significantly different
skills. Theorists like Vygotsky are sometimes criticized, however, for neglecting the influence of biological maturation,
which guides childhood growth independently of culture.

ELECTRA COMPLEX
The stage when a girl sees her mother as a rival for her father’s attention but for fear for her mother is less.

Note: Both attachment to the mother and father, the Electra complex is gradually replaced by a strengthened
identification with the mother.

GILLILAND (Psychologist) - He proposed the following five determinant of one’s personality:


1. intelligence
2. aggressive or forceful
3. sociability
4. personal appearance
5. morality

KRESTSCHEMER (German Psychiatrist) - identified two individual personality types:


the Pyknic and Asthenic.

1. Pyknic - they have broad head, long trunk, short legs, narrow shoulders, broad hips and much flesh; with violent
emotions .... when carried to extreme manifest depressive psychosis.

MANIC DEPRESSIVE REACTION


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This disorder, also called an affective reaction, is characterized by two phases: mania and depression.
The manic phase may be mild and bring elation and a general stepping up of all kinds of activity. The
patient tends to talk endlessly and in an associative rather than logical way. If the disorder is more severe, he may
act bizarrely; he may be a whirlwind of activity and become so excited and agitated that he foregoes food and
sleep and ends in a state of total collapse.
In a mild depressive phase, the individual feels dull and melancholy, his confidence begins to drain away,
and he becomes easily fatigued by daily routines. When the depressive phase is more severe, the patient starts to
retreat from reality, gradually entering into a state of withdrawal that is very much like a stupor. At this point, he
hardly moves or speaks. He may be unable to sleep. Eventually, he begins to question his value as a human being
and is crushed by feelings of guilt. He may refuse to eat. Symptoms may progress to point where an attempt at
suicide is a real possibility.

Stupor - the condition of the body in which the senses and faculties are suspended or greatly dulled, as by
drugs or intoxicants.

He is easily irritated and angered and becomes abusive whenever his desires are blocked....in which
moods of wild, energetic and grandiose (showy) elation are succeeded by periods of profound depression and
inactivity....the most extreme manifestations are in the manic phase, violence against others and in the depressive,
suicide....the current term is derived from folic maniaco-melancholique (melancholic) - morbidly gloomy; sad;
dejected; suggesting or promoting sadness; low spirit.

2. Asthenic - they have long head, short trunk, long legs, narrow hips and shoulders and very little fat; they have the
tendency to develop seclusive personality patterns that may result to dementia praecox or schizophrenia.

Alfred Adler (Founder of individual psychology)


He coined the term “inferiority complex” to describe the conflict, partly conscious and partly unconscious, which
the individual make attempts to overcome the distress accompanying inferiority complex of feelings. Thus the person
who has strong feelings of inferiority may behave in a superior way or develop some special skill to compensate for
the supposed inadequacy.

He supported the thesis that all behavior is goal-directed; specific personal goal of the individual and his methods
of trying to achieve that goal constituted the individual’s “life style”. Change in a life style that has resulted in
maladaption could be accomplished by changing the life goal.

Carl Jung (identified four functions of personality)


1. Sensation - represent concern with the here and now.
2. Intuition - represent concern with that things have been or will be.
3. Feeling - being concerned with a sense of values.
4. Thinking - concerned with things in the abstract.

Note: All functions must be in balance for healthy life.

Jung, a Swiss psychologist identified the Theory of Personality types:


1. Extrovert - persons who are friendly, flexible and adaptable, happy working with others, free from worries, and
outgoing.
2. Introvert - inclined to worry, reserved, lacking in flexibility, self-centered or self-interested person.
3. Ambivert - in between extrovert and introvert.

Karen Horney
He developed a school of thought that utilizes the process of adaptation of life situations as an explanation for
personality development. She believed that the prime motivating factor is the need for security, which is not universal
factor but one that operates when security is threatened.

Harry Stack Sullivan


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He introduced that individual’s self-image, self-concept or “self-dynamism” organizes behavior. The self-concept
is built into the individual as a result of his experience with significant other persons in his environment and as a result of
their reflected appraisals.
His theory emphasizes social factors as extremely significant for personality development, especially
interpersonal relationships and the self-concept in relation to them. He coined the term “acculturation”.

Erick Fromm
He believed that the major need of man is to find meaning of life through the use of his own powers. The basic
human conflict lies between the security given by the rigid social mores and the use of reasoned solutions to the problems
of existence.

Adolf Meyer
Founder of Psychobiology ( a study not only the person as a whole, or as a unit but also as a whole man) and
greatly influenced American psychiatry. He emphasized the importance of considering the total individual from all points
of view biologically, psychologically and socially. This approach is sometimes called holism or the holistic approach.

Sheldon - identified the somatotypes in relation to personality:


1. Ectomorph - identified as fragile and thin.
2. Endomorph - identified as soft-rounded and fat.
3. Mesomorph - identified as medium-built.

Erik Erickson
A psychoanalytical theorist identified eight (8) developmental stages throughout the whole life cycle. In his view,
for each stage of development some kind of psychological and social (psycho-social) crisis is likely to occur.
If a person is provided with a social and psychological environment that is conducive to development, he will be
able to deal adequately with the crisis and problems at each stage. If he fails to develop the strength and skills needed at
each stage, he will subsequently find difficulty in dealing with psycho-social crises in the succeeding stages of
development.

PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN ADJUSTMENT


Most of man’s behavior can be traced to his attempts to satisfy his needs. All of us have certain fundamental
needs that we seek to satisfy. These needs create tensions in the human body. When we are able to satisfy these needs,
the tensions disappear. Adjustment has been made

Adjustment - the satisfaction of a need.

Three Elements in the Adjustment Process


1. A need which arouses.
2. Purposive behavior, leading toward.
3. A goal which satisfies the needs.

NEEDS, DRIVES AND MOTIVATIONS


Drives are aroused state that results from some biological needs. The aroused condition motivates the person to
remedy the need.
Needs are the triggering factor that drives or moves a person to act. It is a psychological state of tissue deprivation.
Motivation on the other hand refers to the causes and “why’s” of behavior as required by a need.
Drive and motivation covers all of psychology, they energizes behavior and give its direction to man’s action. For
example, a motivated individual is engaged in a more active, more vigorous, and more effective that unmotivated one,
thus a hungry person directs him to look for food.

Types of Human Needs:


Human needs arise out of a person’s biological or psychological make up. They can be biological (biogenic) needs
which are the needs of the body which exist for the maintenance of health and protection of the body against physical
injuries. These include the need for:
1. food – hunger: the body needs adequate supply of nutrients to function efficiently. “An empty stomach
sometimes drives a person to steal.”
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2. air – need of oxygen
3. water - thirst
4. rest – weary bodies needs this.
5. sex – a powerful motivator but unlike food and water, sex is not vital for survival but essential to the survival of
the species.
6. avoidance of pain – the need to avoid tissue damage is essential to the survival of the organism. Pain will
activate behavior to reduce discomfort.
7. stimulus seeking curiosity – most people and animal is motivated to explore the environment even when the
activity satisfies no bodily needs.

They can also be psychological (psychogenic or sociogenic) needs. These are influenced primarily by the kind of
society in which the individual is raised. Psychological motives are those related to the individual happiness and well
being, but not for the survival, unlike the biological motives that focuses on basic needs – the primary motives. Examples
of these are:
1. love and affection
2. for security
3. for growth and development and
4. recognition from other human beings.

A.H. Maslow
Accordingly, there is a hierarchy of needs (Fig. 1) ascending from the basic biological needs present at birth to the
more complex psychological needs that become important only after the more basic needs have been satisfied.
According to Maslow’s formulation, the level that commands the individual’s attention and effort is ordinarily the
lowest one on which there is an unmet need. For example, unless needs for food and safety are reasonably well-met
behavior will be dominated by these needs and higher motives are of little significant. With their gratification, however,
the individual is free to devote time and effort to meet on the higher levels. In other words, one level must be at least
partially satisfied before those at the next level become determiners of action.

Figure 1
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Human needs however, can not always be satisfied. Obstacles and difficulties sometimes stand in the way
between the individual and his goal. These obstacles may lie in the individual’s environment or they may be in the
individual himself.

Some of the reasons why some people fail to reach their goal are:
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1. Unrealistic goals - when the person’s level of aspiration is much higher than his level of achievement, he is bound
to fail.
2. Harmful or Anti-social goal.
3. Conflicting goals.
4. Environmental difficulties, including force majeure.

FRUSTRATION, CONFLICT and ANXIETY


A. Frustration refers to the unpleasant feelings that results from the blocking of motive satisfaction. It is a form of stress,
which results in tension. It is the feeling that is experienced when something interferes with our hopes, wishes, plans
and expectations.
Frustration occurs when a person is blocked in the satisfaction of his needs. A person faced with frustration
becomes anxious and restless, and he tries to seek means of relieving these anxieties. He tries to engage in various
forms of activities that are intended to satisfy his needs and reduce his tensions.

The common sources of frustration are:


2. Physical Obstacles – are physical barriers or circumstances that prevent a person from doing his plan or fulfilling
his wishes.
3. Social Circumstances – are restrictions or circumstances imposed by other people and the customs and laws of
social living.
4. Personal shortcoming – such as being handicapped by diseases, deafness, paralysis, etc. which serves as a
barrier to the things one ought to do.
5. Conflicts between motives

Reactions to Frustrations - People differ in the way the react to frustrations. An individual’s way of reacting to
frustrations is sometimes known as his coping mechanism. Generally, people faced with frustration react it in one of two
ways:
1. by fighting the problem in a constructive and direct way by breaking the obstacles barring him from his goal, or
by getting angry and become aggressive; and/or
2. by running away (flight) from the problem, by sulking, retreating, becoming indifferent, and by giving up without
a fight.

These reactions to frustrations are sometimes called fight-flight reactions.


Frustration-tolerance
Individuals also differ in their capacity to tolerate unadjusted states, or frustration tolerance. Some people are
able to withstand prolonged periods of tension without showing signs of abnormality. Others become neurotic or
psychotic, or convert their frustrations into physical illness, while some act out their frustrations by committing anti-social
acts or becoming alcoholics or drug addicts.

Most normal persons react to frustration in the following ways:


1. direct approach
2. detour
3. substitution
4. withdrawal or retreat
5. developing feelings of inferiority
6. aggression
7. use of defense mechanism

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Defense Mechanism
Defense mechanisms are the unconscious techniques used to prevent a person’s self image from being damage. When
stress becomes quite strong, an individual strives to protect his self-esteem, avoiding defeat. We all use ego defense
mechanism to protect us from anxiety and maintain our feeling of personal worth. We consider them normal adjustive
reactions when they are use to excess and threaten self-integrity.
Further, defense mechanisms are unconscious psychological processes that act as safety valves to provide relief from
emotional conflict and anxiety. They are forms of self-deception, which the person may not be aware of, and are resorted
to whenever psychological equilibrium is threatened by severe emotional injury arising from frustration. Among the more
common defense mechanisms are:
1. Denial of reality – protection of one self from unpleasant reality by refusal to perceive or face it. Simply by
avoiding something that is unpleasant. Or in denial, the ego shuts itself off from certain realities.
2. Fantasy – the gratification of frustration desires in imaginary achievement. Paying attention not to what is going
on around him but rather to what is taking place on his thoughts.
3. Projection – placing blame for difficulties upon others or attributing one’s own unethical desires to others in an
effort to prevent ourselves being blamed. A mother may deny her hatred for the child is through projection. That
is the mother’s ego may pretend that the child actually hates her. The mother thus projects her unacceptable
emotions onto the child.
4. Rationalization – the use of excuses an individual to him and to others. Attempting to prove that one’s behavior is
justifiable and thus worthy of self and social approval. It is also an elaborate justification for what were obviously
illogical or immature actions.
5. Reaction Formation – it occurs when someone tries to prevent his submission to unacceptable impulses by
vigorously taking an opposite stand. Preventing dangerous desires from being expressed by exaggerating opposed
attitudes and types of behavior and using them as barriers. A step beyond denial is reaction formation, in which
the ego changes unacceptable love into acceptable hate (or vice versa). If a mother hates her child - a feeling she
must deny conscious awareness of - the mother may
6. Displacement – discharging pent-up emotion on objects less dangerous than those that initially aroused the
emotion.
7. Emotional Insulation - withdrawal into passivity to protect self from hurt.
8. Isolation/Intellectualization – serves to cut off the emotions from a situation which is normally is full of feeling.
9. Regression – revert from a past behavior or retreating to earlier developmental level involving less mature
responses and usually a lower level of aspiration. Example is falling back to childish behavior patterns; some
respond to stress by overeating or by drinking too much.
10. Sublimation – a process by which instinctual drives, consciously unacceptable, are diverted into personally and
socially accepted channels. Example is gratification of frustrated sexual desires in substitutive men sexual
activities.
11. Identification – increasing feeling of worth by identifying self with person or institution. The person can associate
himself with something or someone to elevate position. Or it is a process whereby an individual without
conscious awareness, satisfied frustrated desires by psychologically assuming the role or some of the traits of
another person.
12. Introjection – incorporating external values and standards into ego structures so individual is not at their mercy as
external threats. The acceptance of others’ values even they are contrary to one’s own assumption.
13. Undoing – Apologizing for wrongs, repentance, doing penance and undergoing punishment to negate a
disapproved act.
14. Sympathism – striving to gain sympathy from others. The person seeks to be praised by relating faults or
problem.
15. Acting-out – reduction of the anxiety aroused by forbidden desires by permitting their expression. The individual
deals with all his impulses by expressing them.
16. Substitution (displacement) - a process by which an unattainable or unacceptable goal, emotion or object is
replaced by one that is more attainable or acceptable.
17. Repression - the ego blocks off threatening thoughts or desires and thus keeps them from sweeping into the
spotlight of consciousness.

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B. Conflict refers to the simultaneous arousal of two or more incompatible motives resulting to unpleasant emotions. It
is a source of frustration because it is a threat to normal behavior.

Types of Conflicts
1. Double Approach Conflict – a person is motivated to engage in two desirable activities that can not be pursued
simultaneously.
2. Double Avoidance Conflict - a person faces two undesirable situations in which the avoidance of one is the
exposure to the other resulting to an intense emotion.
3. Approach-Avoidance Conflict – a person faces a situation having both a desirable and undesirable feature. It is
sometimes called “dilemma”, because some negative and some positive features must be accepted regardless of
which course of action is chosen.
4. Multiple Approach- Avoidance Conflict – a situation in which a choice must be made between two or more
alternatives each of which has both positive and negative features. It is the most difficult to resolve because the
features of each portion are often difficult to compare.

C. Anxiety is an intangible feeling that seems to evade any effort to resolve it. It is also called neurotic fear. It could be
intense; it could be low and can be a motivating force.

HUMAN VALUES
Human values are relevant in understanding human behavior. It is the standard which people uses to cognize,
express, and evaluates behavior as right or wrong, just or unjust, appropriate or inappropriate. Values are also guides
which people use to evaluate their behavior thus it gives direction to their life. They are the enduring preferences for
mode of conduct or state of existence.
How are values acquired? They are acquired through the influenced by the rewards and punishments meted out
by our parents, teachers and peers. For instance, at home – there is the teaching of control, cleanliness and good manners,
in school – there is competition and learning in conformity with a bigger group, morality and the teachings of the church,
the exposure to mass media and the government influences. The accumulations of these values continue to change as we
continue to face different experiences.
Feelings, aspirations, attitudes and belief are also considered values if they are chosen freely, chosen from
alternatives, prized and cherished, publicly affirmed, and acted upon repeatedly.

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UNIT 2
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CRIME
(Criminal Psychology)

FORMULA OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

In explaining the birth of a criminal act or criminal behavior, we must thus consider three factors: criminalistic
tendencies (T), the total situation (S), and the person’s mental and emotional resistance to temptation (R). These factors
then can be put into a formula as:

C=T+S where C – Crime/Criminal Behavior (the act)

R T – Criminal Tendency (Desire/Intent)


S – Total Situation (Opportunity)
R – Resistance to temptation (Control)

The formula shows that a person’s criminal tendency and his resistance to them may either result in criminal act
depending upon, which of them is stronger. This means that a crime or criminal behavior exists when the person’s
resistance is insufficient to withstand the pressure of his desire or intent and the opportunity (Tradio, 1983).

In understanding these, the environmental factors such as stress and strains are considered because they contribute
in mobilizing a person’s criminal tendency and the individual’s psychological state while resistance to temptation arises
from the emotional, intellectual and social upbringing and are either the manifestation of a strong or weak character.

NORMAL AND ABNORMAL BEHAVIORS

The Types of Behavior:


1. Normal Behavior – the standard behavior, the socially accepted behavior because they follow the standard norms
of society.
2. Abnormal behavior – behaviors that are deviant from social expectations because they go against the norms or
standard behavior of society.

* Normal and abnormal behaviors depend relatively on the culture of people since a normal behavior to one
society may not be accepted or allowed to other societies or individuals.

What is normal behavior?


Understanding criminal behavior includes the idea of knowing who is a normal from an abnormal one. A normal
person is characterized by his efficient perception of reality, self-knowledge, ability to exercise voluntary control over his
behavior, self-esteem and acceptance, productivity and his ability to form affectionate relationship with others.
Understanding criminal behavior includes the idea of knowing what characterized a normal person from an
abnormal one.

A normal person is characterized by the following criteria:


1. Free expression of personality
2. Ability to exercise voluntary control over his behavior
3. Adequate security feeling
4. Self-esteem and acceptance
5. Efficient contact/perception of reality
6. Adaptability to group norms or ability to form affectionate relationship with others
7. Emotional maturity
8. Adequate self-knowledge
9. Integrated and consistent personality
10. Productivity

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Who are abnormal?
When a person fails to meet the criteria enumerated above, he is deemed to be an abnormal person.

Abnormal Behavior Defined:


1. Deviation from the average (from the statistical form). To determine abnormality, we simple observe what
behaviors are rare or infrequent in a given society or culture and label these deviations from the norm as
abnormal.
Many characteristics such as weight, height, and intelligence cover a range of values when measured over
a population. For instance, a person who is extremely intelligent or extremely happy would be classified as
abnormal.

2. Deviation from the ideal (from social norms). One that measures behavior against the standards toward which
most people are striving - the ideal.
A behavior that deviates from the accepted norms of society is considered abnormal. However, it is
primarily dependent on the existing norm of such society.

3. Abnormality as a sense of subjective discomfort (personal distress). It focuses on the psychological


consequences of the behavior of the individual. In this approach, behavior is considered abnormal if it produces a
sense of distress, anxiety, or guilt in an individual - or if it is harmful to others.

This is abnormality in terms of the individual subjective feelings of distress rather than the individual
behavior. This includes mental illness, feeling of miserably, depression, and loss of appetite or interest, suffering
from insomnia and numerous aches and pains.

4. Abnormality as the inability to function effectively (maladaptive behavior). This views abnormality when people
who are unable to function effectively and adapt the demands of society are considered abnormal like an
unemployed, homeless woman living on the street might be considered unable to function effectively.

Further, maladaptive behavior is the effect of the well-being of the individual and or the social group.
That some kind of deviant behavior interferes with the welfare of the individual such as a man who fears crowds
or can’t ride a bus. This means that the person can not adopt himself with the situation where in it is beneficial to
him.

Legal definition of abnormality


According to the law, the distinction between normal and abnormal behavior rests on the definition of insanity
(one which cannot understand the difference between right and wrong or inability to exert control over his behavior at the
time he or she commits a criminal act), which is a legal, but not psychological, term.

Models of Abnormality: From Superstition to Science


For much of the past, abnormal behavior was linked to superstition and witchcraft. People displaying abnormal
were accused of being possessed by the devil or some sort of demonic god (Howells & Osborn, 1984).

Causes of Abnormal Behavior


1. Anxiety (psychological perspective). Stressful situations that if become extreme, it may result to maladaptive
behavior.
2. Faulty Learning (behavior perspective). The failure to learn the necessary adaptive behavior because of
wrongful development. This usually results to delinquent behavior based on the failure to learn the necessary
social values and norms.
3. Blocked or distorted personal growth (humanistic perspective). Presumably, human nature tends towards
cooperation and construction activities, however, if we show aggression, cruelty or other maladaptive behavior,
the result may be an unfavorable environment
4. Unsatisfactory interpersonal relationship. Self-concept in early childhood by over critical parents or by rigid
socialization measures usually cause deviant behaviors among individuals because they are not contented and
even unhappy on the kind of social dealings they are facing.
5. Pathological social condition. Poverty, social discrimination and destructive violence always result to deviant
behavior.
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Models of Psychological Disorder

Model Description Possible Application to Patients


Medical Model Suggests that physiological causes Examine the patient for medical
are root of abnormal behavior. problems, such as brain tumor,
chemical imbalance in the brain, or
disease.
Psychoanalytic Model Abnormality stems from Seek out information about the
childhood conflicts. patient’s past, considering possible
childhood conflicts.
Behavioral Model Abnormal behavior is a learned Concentrate on rewards and
response. punishment for patient’s behavior,
and identify environmental stimuli
that reinforce her behavior.
Cognitive Model Assumes people’s belief and Focus on patient’s perceptions of
thoughts are central to abnormal herself and her environment.
behavior.
Humanistic Model Emphasizes people’s control and Consider patient’s behavior in terms
responsibility for their own of the choices she has freely made.
behavior.
Socio-cultural Model Assumes behavior is shaped by Focus on how societal demands
family, society, and culture. contributed to patients’ disorder.

When a person is frustrated in his attempts to adjust himself to difficult situations over a long period of time, he may try to
escape from these conflicts by doing one of several things:
1. He may compromise with reality by developing imaginary ailments, phobias, obsessions, or compulsions. This is
known as neurosis.
2. He may withdraw from the real world into the world of fantasy and make-believe where his hidden or
unexpressed desires can be fulfilled. In this stage of mind, the person becomes psychotic.
3. Instead of compromising with reality or withdrawing into his well-being, the person may go to the other extreme
and may become very aggressive and cruel in his behavior towards others. He is then known as an anti-social
personality or a psychopath or sociopath, and when his anti-social behavior becomes in conflict with the law, he
becomes a criminal.

Primary, Predisposing, Precipitating, Reinforcing Causes


Regardless of one’s theoretical orientation, several terms are in common usage regarding causes of abnormal or
criminal behavior.
1. The Primary Cause – used to designate the condition without which the disorder would not have occurred. The
main reason of the existence of the disorder.
2. The Predisposing Cause – a condition that comes before and paves the way for a possible later occurrence of
disorder under certain conditions.
3. The Precipitating Cause – a condition that proves too much for the individual and triggers the disorder.
4. The Reinforcing Cause – a condition that tends to maintain maladaptive behavior that is already occurring.

Patterns of Abnormal Behavior


The three classifications or major groups of abnormal/criminal behavior are:
1. The Neurotic Behaviors
2. The Psychopathic Behaviors
3. The Psychotic Behaviors

Neurotic Behaviors
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The group of mild functional personality disorders in which there is no gross personality disorganization and the
individual is not required for hospitalization.

People with neurotic behaviors are sometimes called psychoneurotic. These are persons who are in the twilight
zone between normality and abnormality. They are not insane, but neither are they normal. They are always tense,
restless and anxious. Frequently, they have obsessions, compulsions, phobias and in some cases, amnesia. Anxiety is the
dominant characteristics.

Further, neurosis embraces a wide range of behaviors that are considered the core of most maladaptive life style.
Basic to this neurotic life-style are:
1. Neurotic Nucleus – the faulty evaluation of reality and the tendency to avoid rather than to cope with stress. It is
characterized by anxiety, avoidance instead of coping, and blocked personal growth.
2. Neurotic Paradox – the tendency to maintain the life style despite its maladaptive nature. It is characterized by
unhappiness and dissatisfactions.

Neurotic Behaviors are composed of the following disorders:


1. Anxiety disorders - These are commonly known as “neurotic fear”. When it is occasional but intense, it is called
“panic”. When it is mild but continuous, it is called “worry”. They are considered as the central feature of all
neurotic patterns. They are characterized by:
a. mild depressions
b. fear and tensions
c. mild stresses

Anxiety disorders are grouped as:


a. Obsessive-compulsive disorders
 When an individual is compelled to think about something that he don’t want to think about or carry
out some action against his will.
 The experience of persistent thoughts that we can not seem to get out of our mind such as thoughts
about haunting situations.
 This disorder may lead to committing immoral acts, etc.

b. Asthenic Disorders (Neurasthenia)


 An anxiety disorder characterized by chronic mental and physical fatigue and various aches and
pains.
 Symptoms includes:
1) Spending too much sleep to avoid fatigue but to no avail, even feels worsen upon awake.
2) Headaches, indigestion
3) Back pains and dizziness

c. Phobic Disorders – the persistent fear on some objects or situation that present no actual danger to the
person.
Example of Phobias (for complete list, see appendix)
Acrophobia - high places
Agoraphobia - open places
Algophobia - pain
Asthraphobia - storms, thunder, lightning
Claustrophobia - closed places
Hematophobia - blood
Hydrophobia - water
Mysophobia - contamination/germs
Monophobia - being alone
Nyctophobia - darkness
Ocholophobia - crowds

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2. Somatoform Disorders - Complains of bodily symptoms that suggest the presence of physical problem but no
organic basis can be found. The individual is pre-occupied with his state of health or diseases. Somatoform
disorders are grouped as:
a. Hypochondriasis – the excessive concern about state of health or physical condition (multiplicity about
illness).

A Hypochondriacally person tend to seek medical advises, but their fears is not lessened by their
doctor’s reassurances, and they maybe disappointed when no physical problem is found.

b. Psychogenic Pain Disorder – characterized by the report of severe and lasting pain. Either no physical basis
is apparent or the reaction is greatly in excess of what would be expected form the physical abnormality.

c. Conversion Disorders (Hysteria) – a neurotic pattern in which symptoms of some physical malfunction or
loss of control without any underlying organic abnormality.

Sensory Symptoms of Hysteria:


1) Anasthesia – loss of sensitivity
2) Hyperesthesia – excessive sensitivity
3) Hypesthesia – partial loss of sensitivity
4) Analgesia – loss of sensitivity to pain
5) Paresthesia - exceptional sensations

Motor Symptoms of Hysteria


1) Paralysis – selective loss of function
2) Astasia-abasia – inability to control leg when standing
3) Aphonia – partial inability to speak
4) Mutism – total inability to speak

Visceral Symptoms of Hysteria


1) Choking sensation
2) Coughing spells
3) Difficulty in breathing
4) Cold and clammy extremities
5) Nausea

3. Dissociative Disorders - A response to obvious stress characterized by:

a. Amnesia – partial or total inability to recall or identify past experiences.


1) brain pathology amnesia – total loss of memory and it can not be retrieved by simple means. It requires
long period of medication.
2) psychogenic amnesia – failure to recall stored information and still they are beneath the level of
consciousness but “forgotten material”.

b. Multiple Personality – also called “dual personalities”. The person manifests two or more symptoms of
personality usually dramatically different.

c. Depersonalization – loss of sense of self or the so called out of body experience.

4. Affective Disorders - The affective disorders are “mood disorders”, in which extreme or inappropriate levels of
mood – extreme elation or extreme depression. Forms of affective disorders:
a. Milder forms of affective disturbances
 Sadness
 Discouragement
 Sense of hopelessness
 Grief and the grieving process
1) death of loved one
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2) financial loss
3) break up of a romantic affair
4) separation/divorce
5) separation from an important friend, job, etc.
6) disappearance of anything very important

b. Neurotic affective – also called “neurotic mania”, characterized by overactive, dominating, and deficient in
self-criticism.

c. Neurotic depression – sadness and dejection (grave sadness). The individual often fails to return to normal
after a reasonable period of time resulted to high level of anxiety and lowers self-confidence and loss of
initiative.

d. Major depressive disorders – also called “severe affective disorders” with the following classifications:
1) Sub-acute major depressive disorders – symptoms of this depressive disorder includes loss of enthusiasm,
feeling of dejection, feeling of failure and unworthiness, fatigue and loss of appetite.
2) Acute major depressive disorder – symptoms includes mild hallucinations, feeling of guilt, want to be
alone, and increasingly inactive.
3) Depressive stupor – a severe degree of psychomotor retardation, almost unresponsive, refuse to speak,
and confusions or hallucinations.

The Psychopathic Behaviors

The second groups of abnormal behaviors typically stemmed from immature and distorted personality
development, resulting in persistent maladaptive ways of perceiving and thinking.

People with psychopathic behaviors are also called sociopaths or psychopaths.


These are persons who do not have any neurotic or psychotic symptoms but are not able to conform to prevailing customs
and standards of conduct of his social group. Some common characteristics are:
1. absence of a conscience
2. emotional immaturity
3. absence of a life plan
4. lack of capacity for love and emotional involvement
5. failure to learn from experience

Further, they are generally called “personality or character disorders”. These groups of disorders are composed
of the following:
1. Personality Disorders – disorders of character, the person is characterized as a “problematic” without psychoses.
This disorder is characterized by disrupted personal relationship, dependent or passive aggressive behavior. The
types of personality disorders are:
a. Paranoid Personality – characterized by suspiciousness, rigidity, envy, hypersensitivity, excessive self-
importance, argumentativeness and tendency to blame others for one’s own mistakes.
b. Schizoid Personality – characterized by the inability to form social relationship and lack interest in doing so.
The person seem to express their feelings, they lack social skills. They are the so called “loners”.
c. Schizotypal Personality – characterized by seclusiveness, oversensitivity, avoidance of communication and
superstitious thinking is common.
d. Histrionic Personality – characterized by immaturity, excitability, emotional instability and self-
dramatization.
e. Narcissistic Personality – characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance and pre-occupation with
receiving attention. The person usually expects and demands special treatment from others and disregarding
the rights and feeling of others.
f. Borderline Personality – characterized by instability reflected in drastic mood shifts and behavior problems.
The person usually display intense anger outburst with little provocation and he is impulsive, unpredictable,
and periodically unstable.

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g. Avoidant Personality – characterized by hypersensitivity to rejection and apprehensive alertness to any sign
of social derogation. Person is reluctant to enter into social interaction.
h. Dependent Personality – characterized by extreme dependence on other people – there is acute discomfort
and even panic to be alone. The person lacks confidence and feels helpless.
i. Passive-Aggressive Personality – characterized by being hostile express in indirect and non-violent ways.
They are the so called “stubborn”.
j. Compulsive Personality – characterized by excessive concern with rules, order, and efficiency that everyone
does things their way and an ability to express warm feeling. The person is over conscientious, serious, and
with difficulty in doing things for relaxation.
k. Anti-social Personality – characterized by continuing violation of the rights of others through aggressive,
anti-social behavior with out remorse or loyalty to anyone.

Anti-social Personality is actually the “psychopathic behavior”. The person lacks of ethical or moral
development and the inability to follow approved models of behavior. They are the un-socialized persons, which
often brings them conflict with the society. They may be refer to mixed groups of individuals such as unprincipled
business people, crooked politicians, imposters, drug pushers, quack doctors, prostitutes, etc.

Common Characteristics of anti-social personalities


1) Inadequate conscience development and unable to accept ethical values.
2) Irresponsible and impulsive behavior; low frustration tolerance.
3) Ability to impress and exploit others; projecting blame unto others of their own anti-social acts.
4) Rejection of authority.
5) Inability to maintain good interpersonal relationship.

2. Criminal Behavior - The disorder used to describe the behavior of a person who commits serious crimes from
individual to property crimes and the disobedience of societal rules in general.

 “Dyssocial personality” is the term used to refer to these individuals, particularly those who violate law
and practice “crime as a profession”.
 As a study, criminal behavior refers to the human conduct focused on the mental processes of the
criminal: the way he behaves or acts including his activities and the causes and influences of his criminal
behavior.

The Criminological Classification of Crimes and Criminals

Crimes are classified as:


1. Acquisitive Crime – when the offender acquires something as a consequence of his criminal act.
2. Extinctive crime – when the result of a criminal act is destruction
3. Seasonal crime – those which are committed only at a certain period of the year.
4. Situational crime – committed only when given the situation conductive to its commission
5. Episodal crime – committed by series of act within a lengthy space of time
6. Instant crime – committed the shortest possible time, i.e. serial murder
7. Static crime – committed only in one place; series of crimes
8. Continuing crime – committed in several places
9. Rational crime – committed with intent; offender is in full possession of his mental faculties/capabilities
10. Irrational crime – committed without intent; offender do not know the nature of his act
11. White collar crime – those committed by a person of responsibility and of upper socio-economic class in the
course of their occupational activities
12. Blue collar crime – those committed by ordinary professionals to maintain their livelihood
13. Upper world crime – committed by individuals belonging to the upper class of society
14. Under world crime – committed by members of the lower or under privilege class of society
15. Crime by imitation – committed by merely duplication of what was done by others
16. Crimes by passion – committed because of the fit of great emotions
17. Service crime – committed by rendering all service to satisfy the desire of another

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Criminals are classified as:
A. Based on Etiology
1. Acute Criminal – a person who violate a criminal law because of the impulse or fit of passion
2. Chronic Criminal – person who acted in consonance of deliberated thinking

B. Based on Behavioral System


1. Ordinary Criminal – lowest form of criminal career
2. Organized Criminal – high degree of organization to enable them to commit crimes without being detected
3. Professional Criminal – highly skilled

C. Based on Activities
1. Professionals
2. Accidental – situational crimes
3. Habitual – continue to commit crime because of deficiency of intelligence, lack of control

D. Based on Mental Attitudes


1. Active Criminals – due to aggressiveness
2. Passive Inadequate Criminals – Commit crimes because they are push to it by reward or promise
3. Socialized Delinquents – normal in behavior but defective in socialization process

TYPOLOGIES OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

Types: Consist of characteristics which have empirical reference. Reduce phenomena to a more systematic observation
and assist in the formulation of hypothesis.

Difference between Classification and Typologies


 Classification (consisting of classes) - It is composed of a set of variables or attributes which are linked and
formed a number of logically possible combination.

 Typology (consist of types) - These are classifications which in addition to specify the ways in which attributes
or variables are empirically connected.

Three classifications of Criminal Behavior

A. INDIVIDUALISTIC CLASSIFICATION - overt act which is based solely on the individual’s attributes.
1. Lombroso
a. atavism (born criminal)
b. insane criminal
c. criminaloids
d. criminal by passion
e. occasional criminal

2. Garofalo
a. typical criminals/murderers who kill for enjoyment
b. violent criminals
c. criminal deficient in pity and probity
d. lascivious criminals

3. Ferri
a. insane
b. born criminals
c. habitual criminals
d. passionate criminals

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4. Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists
a. immature
b. emotionally insane
c. dependent
d. hostile
e. anti-social
f. non-conformist
g. aggressive

INDIVIDUAL FACTORS
1. Sex - most crimes are committed by men.
2. Age - most common offenders are juveniles.
3. Rural and Urban Background
4. Personal Attributes

B. TYPOLOGIES BASED ON SOCIAL BEHAVIORAL SYSTEM - consist of formation of a configuration or


patterns of variables linked in specified ways.
1. Mayhew and Moreau (European Criminologists) - Criminal type is based on the way in which crime is related to
the various activities of a criminal.
a. Professional criminals - professional thieves
b. Accidental offenders - self-defense
c. Habitual criminals - commits crime due to lack of self-control, deficiency in intelligence, e.g. pick-pockets,
etc.

2. Lindesmith and Dunham - Differentiated individual criminal from social criminal. Individual criminal is based
on diverse and personal reason while social criminal is product of support and prescribed by group norms. e.g.
fraternity, racketeers

Note: Social criminal through his criminal behavior achieves status and recognition within a group. He sees
illegitimate means to achieve his goal. e.g. economic gain and security.

3. Gibbons and Gavity - stated that the chronological age at which offenders are determined by the society as a
criminal.
a. Group offenders - from time to time of their first act (life orientation is guided by criminal group)
b. Group offenders not defined as criminals until late in life (life orientation is largely guided and re-enforced by
non-criminal group) e.g. graft and corruption

4. Reckless - identified criminal careers - crimes are committed because of a vocational aspect (for living)
a. ordinary
b. organized
c. professional

Note:
These three types of criminal careers are similar in that they usually involved property offenses for the purpose of gain; criminals tend to specialize in
particular violations, the commission of the offenses requires various degrees of skill and experience; crime is pursued as a way of life, and career criminals continue
for a long period of time, possibly for a lifetime.

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Table 2
Comparison Table
Typology Description Specific Acts
Ordinary Career engage in conventional crimes; with limited skills, robbery, larceny and
Criminals and lack the organization to avoid arrest and burglary
conviction
Organized Career have a high degree of organization; specialize in racketeering, gambling
Criminals activities which can be operated as large-scale and prostitution, and
business; uses force, violence, intimidation and illegal drugs
bribery to gain and maintain control over
economic activities.
Professional highly skilled, thus able to maintain or obtain counterfeiting,
Criminals considerable amounts of money without being shoplifting
detected; usually avoided conviction because of
connections and contacts; specialize in offenses
which require skills rather than violence.

Gibbons – He identified role careers (self-image, normative orientation and social psychotic characteristics).

DEFINITIONAL Dimensions
1. The nature of the offense.
2. The intellectual setting with others in which the offense takes place.
3. Self-concept of the offender.
4. Attitudes toward society and agencies of social control.
5. The stages or steps in the role career of the offender.

BACKGROUND Dimensions
1. Social class.
2. Family background.
3. Peer group associations.
4. Contact with defining agencies such as the police, courts and prisons.

Adult Types of Offenders


1. Professional thieves
2. Professional heavy criminals
3. Semi-professional property criminals
4. Property offenders “one-time loser”
5. Automobile Thieves - “joyriding”
6. Naive check forgers
7. White-collar criminals
8. Professional “fringe” violators
9. Embezzlers
10. Personal offenders “one-time loser”
11. Psychopathic assaults
12. Violent sex offenders
13. Non-violent sex offenders - non-violent rape
14. Non-violent sex offenders - statutory rape
15. Narcotic addict - heroin, “shabu”

Juvenile Type of Offenders


1. Predatory gang delinquent
2. Conflict gang delinquent
3. Casual delinquent, non-gang member
4. Automobile thieves - joyrider
5. Drug-abuser
6. Over-aggressive delinquent
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7. Female delinquent
8. “Behavior problem” delinquent

Note: Some of these types to overlap and unclear as to their characteristics.

Cavan. He identified the types of criminal behavior, gave principle consideration to the public’s reaction to crime and the
criminals’ reaction to the public.
1. Criminal Contra-culture - professional criminals, robbers, burglars, etc.
2. Extreme Under-conformity - occasional drunkenness
3. Minor Under-conformity - embezzlement
4. Average Conformity - minor pilferage
5. Minor Over-conformity - exactness in obeying laws and codes.
6. Extreme Conformity - attempts to reform society by persuasion and legal norms.
7. Ideological Contra-culture - strenuous efforts to model society possibly through the use of illegal means.

Block and Geis


Identified types of criminal behavior, considerable attention was given to the types of criminal behavior systems
and to the social and cultural structure in which criminal behavior systems arise.
Examples: professional criminals, organized crime organizations, homicides, sexual offenders, etc.

Typology of Criminal Behavior (Based on the type of crime committed)


Clinard and Quiney
1. Violent personal crime - murder, assault, rape, etc.
2. Occasional property crime - auto theft, shoplifting, check forgery and vandalism.
3. Occupational crime - embezzlement, fraudulent sales, false advertising, price fixing, black market activity,
prescription violation, anti-trust violation.
4. Political crime - treason, sedition, espionage, sabotage, etc.
5. Public order crime - drunkenness, vagrancy, disorderly conduct, prostitution, etc.
6. Conventional crime - robbery, larceny, burglary, and gang theft.
7. Organized crime - racketeering, organized prostitution, etc.
8. Professional crime - shoplifting, pickpocketing, forgery, counterfeiting, etc.

Three different types of multiple murder


1. Serial murder - several victims in three or more separate incidents over weeks, months or years.
2. Mass murder - the killing of four or more victims at one location within one event (en masse- in group)
3. Spree murder - involves killing at two ore more locations with almost not time to break between murder.

Genocide - systematic killing of people or nation committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part a nation, ethnical,
racial or religious group.
1. Killing members in the group.
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction in whole or in
part.
4. Impossible measures intended to prevent birth within the group.
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Massacre - indiscriminate killing of people in random without distinction.

Typology of Violent Offenders (J. Conrad)


1. Culturally violent offenders - are individuals who live in sub-cultures in which violence is an acceptable
problem-solving.
2. Criminally violent offenders - use violence as a means of accomplishing a criminal act, robbery, etc.
3. Situational violent offenders - commits act of violence or rare occasions, often under provocation, such as
domestic disputes - often describe as crime of passion - domestic violence, rape, etc.
4. Pathologically violent offenders - mentally ill or persons suffering from mental brain damage.

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LEGALISTIC CLASSIFICATION
Stresses on the seriousness of the offense as indicated by the kind of punishment provided for the behavior.
1. Most serious offenses - felonies (delitos) - these are acts and omissions punishable by law under RPC. These are
committed by means of fault (culpa) and by means of deceit (dolo).
 Culpa - through imprudence, negligence, lack of foresight, or lack of skill (as a result of the act)
 Dolo - with deliberation or deliberately done
2. Less serious offenses are called misdemeanors and are usually punishable by fines or by confinement in local jail
(a.k.a. petty crimes or minor offenses)

Based on the Penalty Imposed


1. Grave Felonies - the law attaches capital punishment or penalties which in any of their periods are afflictive (Art.
25, RPC)
2. Less Grave Felonies - the law punishes with penalties which in their maximum period are correctional.
3. Light Felonies - those infractions of law for the commission of which a penalty of arresto menor or a fine not
exceeding 200 pesos or both, is provided.

Crimes are committed in two ways:


1. By means of commission - Requisites: intelligence, free will, freedom, intent
2. By means of omission - Requisites: intelligence, freewill/freedom, failure to do an act required by law

MALA INSE - acts are bad in themselves, forbidden behaviors for which there is wide scale consensus in the mores for
prohibition.

MALA PROHIBITA - acts that are bad because they are prohibited by law. Or these are acts as inherently not bad in
themselves but are violations because the law defines them as such. e.g. traffic violations, City/Municipal
Ordinances violations
Elements of Crime:
1. There must be an act or commission;
2. The act or omission must be voluntary - voluntariness presupposes freedom and will, intelligence and intent; and
3. The act or omission must be punishable by law.

In general, a crime consists of:


1. the criminal act (actus reus) ; and
2. the criminal intent (mens rea)

Note: As a general rule, there is no criminal liability unless the two requisites above-mentioned are present; another
Latin maxim says:

“Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea”- or the act does not make a person a criminal unless his mind is criminal.

Art. 4 (RPC) Criminal liabilities shall be incurred by:


1. any person committing a felony (delito) although the wrongful act done be different from that which he intended;
or
2. any person performing an act which would be an offense against persons or property, were it not for the inherent
impossibility of its accomplishment or on account of the employment of inadequate or ineffectual means
(impossible crime).

Legal Categories of Crimes under RPC (examples)


1. Crimes against persons
2. Crimes against property
3. Crimes against chastity

Disadvantages of the Legal Classification


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1. It tells nothing about the person and the circumstances associated with the offense, nor does it consider the social
context of the criminal act, as in the case of rape or the theft or an auto;
2. It creates a false impression of the specialization by implying that criminals confine themselves to the kind of
crime for which they happen to be caught or convicted;
3. It is a common practice in order to secure easy convictions to allow offenders to receive a reduced sentence by
“plea copping” or pleading guilty to a lesser charge which may have only a slight resemblance to the original
charge offense;
4. Because the legal definition of a criminal act varies from time to time and place; and
5. The use of legal categories in a classification assumes that offenders with a certain legal label e.g. rapist, thieves,
arsonists, etc.

Psychotic Behavior

The group of disorders involving gross structural defects in the brain tissue, severe disorientation of the mind thus
it involves loss of contact with reality.

People suffering from psychotic behaviors (psychosis) are also called psychotic. They are regarded as the most
severe type of mental disorder. A psychotic has tensions that disturb thinking, feeling and sensing; the perception of
reality is distorted. He may have delusions and hallucinations.

1. Organic Mental Disorders - this occurs when the normal brain has been damage resulted from any interference
of the functioning of the brain.

Types of Organic Mental Disorders


a. Acute brain disorder – caused by a diffuse impairment of the brain function. Its symptoms range from mild
mood changes to acute delirium.
b. Chronic brain disorder – the brain disorder that result from injuries, diseases, drugs, and a variety of other
conditions. Its symptoms include impairment of orientation (time, place and person), impairment of memory,
learning, comprehension and judgment, emotion and self-control.

Groups of Organic Mental Disorders


a. Delirium – the severe impairment of information processing in the brain affecting the basic process of
attention, perception, memory and thinking.
b. Dementia – deterioration in intellectual functioning after completing brain maturation. The defect in the
process of acquiring knowledge or skill, problem solving, and judgment.
c. Amnestic Syndrome – the inability to remember on going events more than a few minutes after they have
taken place.
d. Hallucinosis – the persistent occurrence of hallucinations, the false perception that arise in full wakefulness
state. This includes hallucinations on visual and hearing or both.
e. Organic Delusional Syndrome – the false belief arising in a setting of known or suspected brain damage.
f. Organic Affective Syndrome – the extreme/severe manic or depressive state with the impairment of the
cerebral function.
g. Organic Personality Syndrome – the general personality changes following brain damage.
h. General Paresis – also called “dementia paralytica”, a syphilitic infection of the brain and involving
impairment of the CNS.

2. Disorders Involving Brain Tumor - A tumor is a new growth involving abnormal enlargement of body tissue.
Brain tumor can causes variety of personality alterations, and it may lead to any neurotic behavior and
consequently to psychotic behavior.

3. Disorders Involving Head Injury - Injury to the head as a result of falls, blows, and accidents causing sensory
and motor disorders; and mental disorder such as:
a. Retrograde Amnesia – the inability to recall events preceding immediately the injury.
b. Intra-cerebral Hemorrhage – gross bleeding at the site of damage.
c. Petechial Hemorrhage – small spots of bleeding at the site of damage.

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These injuries may also impair language and other related sensory motor functions and may result to brain
damage such as:
1) Auditory Asphasia – loss of ability to understand spoken words.
2) Expressive Asphasia – loss of ability to speak required words.
3) Nominal Asphasia – loss of ability to recall names of objects.
4) Alexia – loss of ability to read.
5) Agraphia – loss of ability to express thoughts in writing
6) Apraxia – loss of ability to perform simple voluntary acts.

4. Senile and Pre-senile Dementia


a. Senile Dementia – mental disorder that accompanied by brain degeneration due to old age.
b. Pre-senile Dementia – mental disorder associated with earlier degeneration of the brain.

5. Mental Retardation - A mental disorder characterized by sub-average general functioning existing concurrently
with deficits in adaptive behavior. It is a common mental disorder before the age of 18. The person is suffering
from low I.Q, difficulty in focusing attention and deficiency in past learning.
Levels of Mental Retardation
a. 1. Mild Mental Retardation (I.Q. 52-67)- “educable”
b. 2. Moderate Mental Retardation (I.Q. 36-51) - “trainable”
c. 3. Severe mental Retardation (I.Q. 20-35) - “dependent retarded”
b. Profound Mental Retardation (I.Q. under 20) – “life support retarded”

6. Schizophrenia and Paranoia

Schizophrenia – refers to the group of psychotic disorders characterized by gross distortions of reality,
withdrawal of social interaction, disorganization and fragmentation of perception, thoughts and emotion. It also refers
to terms such as “mental deterioration”, “dementia praecox”, or “split mind”.

Types of Schizophrenia
1. Simple Schizophrenia (Undifferentiated Type) – the schizophrenia in which symptoms are rapidly changing
mixture of all the primary indicators of schizophrenia. The varying combinations of delusions, hallucinations,
thought disorders, and gross bizarreness.
2. Paranoid Schizophrenia – it is the illogical, changeable delusions frequently accompanied by vivid
hallucinations, with a resulting impairment of critical judgment, unpredictable and occasionally dangerous
behavior.
3. Catatonic Schizophrenia – it is the altering period of extreme withdrawal and extreme excitement. The
individual may talk or shout incoherently and engage in uninhibited, impulsive behavior. The person may be
dangerous.
4. Hebephrenic Schizophrenia (Disorganized Type) – there is emotional distortion manifested in inappropriate
laughter, peculiar mannerism, and bizarre behavior.

Paranoia – the same as “delusions”, “impaired contact with reality”. A psychotic behavior characterized by
delusion of apprehension following a failure or frustration.

Symptoms of the Disorder include feeling of being mistreated, ignored, stolen from, spied upon, and over
suspicious. The Disorder is characterized by: (sequence of events in paranoia)
a. Suspiciousness – the individual mistrust the motives of others and fear that he will be taken advantage.
b. Protective thinking – blame others for one’s own mistake
c. Hostility – respond to alleged mistreatment with anger and hostility, the person becomes increasingly
suspicious.
d. Paranoid illumination – strange feelings of events being experienced.
e. Delusion – feeling of persecution.

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Other Groups of Human Disorders

A. Addictive Groups of Disorders - This group of disorders includes substance use, obesity and pathological gambling.
1. Substance Use (Alcohol and Drug Abuse)

Alcoholism or “problem drinking” is an addictive source of human disorders. It is evident by its general effects
as follows:
a. It serves as a depressant
b. It numbs the higher brain center
c. It impairs judgment and other rational
d. It lowers self-control
e. Deterioration of perception

Drug abuse or the inappropriate/misuse is a threat to normal behavior. It is an addictive disorder, the fact that
causes both physical and psychological dependency to the drug.

2. Extreme obesity – also known as “habitual over eating” is an addictive form of disorder. It is a life threatening
disorder, resulting in such conditions as diabetes, high blood pressures and other cardiovascular diseases that can
place an individual at high risk of heart attack.
3. Pathological gambling – is an addictive form of disorder, which does not involve chemically addictive

B. Abnormal Sexual Behaviors


Abnormal sexual behaviors are also called sexual deviations. Sexual deviation is the effect of sexual dysfunction.
Sexual dysfunction is the impairment of the sexual nature or ability of an individual. Sexual dysfunctions are common
causation of sex crimes.

1. Sexual dysfunctions affecting males


a. Erectile Insufficiency (Impotency) – it is a sexual disorder characterized by the inability to achieve or maintain
erection for successful intercourse.
b.Pre-mature Ejaculation – it is the unsatisfactory brief period of sexual stimulation that result to the failure of the
female partner to achieve satisfaction.
c. Retarded Ejaculation – it is the inability to ejaculate during intercourse – resulting to worry between partners.

2. Sexual dysfunctions affecting females


a. Arousal Insufficiency (Frigidity) – a sexual disorder characterized by partial or complete failure to attain the
lubrication or swelling response of sexual excitement by the female partner.
b. Orgasmic Dysfunction – a sexual disorder characterized by the difficulty in achieving orgasm
c. Vaginismus – involuntary spasm of the muscles at the entrance to the vagina that prevent penetration of the male
sex organ.
d. Dyspareunia – called painful coitus/painful sexual acts in women

Abnormal sexual behaviors usually lead to sex crimes. The following are classifications of abnormal behaviors
involving sex.
a. SEXUAL REVERSALS
1) Homosexuality –a sexual behavior directed towards the same sex; “lesbianism or tribadism” for female
relationship
2) Transvestism –the achievement of sexual excitation by dressing as a member of the opposite sex such a
man who wears female apparel.
3) Fetishism – sexual gratification is obtained by looking at some body parts, underwear of the opposite sex
or other objects associated with the opposite sex.

b. Abnormal behavior based on choice of partner


1) Pedophilia – a sexual perversion where a person has the compulsive desire to have sexual intercourse
with a child of either sex.
2) Bestiality – the sexual gratification is attained by having sexual intercourse with animals.
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3) Auto-sexual (self-gratification/masturbation) – “sexual self abuse”; sexual satisfaction is carried out
without the cooperation of another
4) Gerontophilia – is a sexual desire with an elder person.
5) Necrophilia – an erotic desire or actual intercourse with a corpse
6) Incest – a sexual relation between person who, by reason of blood relationship cannot legally marry.

c. Based on sexual urge


1) Satyriasis – an excessive (sexual urge) desire of men to have sexual intercourse
2) Nymphomania – a strong sexual feeling of women with an excessive sexual urge

d. Based on mode of sexual expression


1) Oralism – the use of mouth or the tongue as a way of sexual satisfaction
Fellatio – male sex organ to the mouth of the women coupled with the act of sucking that initiates
orgasm
Cunnilingus – sexual gratification is attained by licking the external female genitalia
Anilism (anillingus) – licking the anus of the sexual partner
2) Sadism – achievement of sexual stimulation and gratification through the infliction of physical pain on
the sexual partner. It may also be associated with animals or objects instead of human beings
3) Masochism – infliction of pain to oneself to achieve sexual pleasure
4) Sado-Masochism (Algolagnia) – pain/cruelty for sexual gratification
e. Based on part of the Body
1) Sodomy – is a sexual act through the anus of the sexual partner.
2) Uranism – sexual gratification is attained through fingering, holding the breast of licking parts of the
body.
3) Frottage – the act of rubbing the sex organ against body parts of another person.
4) Partialism – it refers to the sexual libido on any part of the body of a sexual partner.
f. Based on visual stimulus
1) Voyeurism – the person is commonly called “the peeping Tom”, an achievement of sexual pleasures through
clandestine peeping such as peeping to dressing room, couples room, toilets, etc. and frequently the person
masturbate during the peeping activity.
2) Scoptophilia – the intentional act of watching people undress or during sexual intimacies.
g. Based on Number of Participants in the Sexual Act
1) Troilism – three person participate in sex orgy such as two women versus on man or vice versa
2) Pluralism – group of persons in sexual orgies such as couple to couple sexual relations. It is also called
“sexual festival”
What are the other Sexual Abnormalities?
a. Exhibitionism – it is called “indecent exposure”, intentional exposure of genitals to members of the opposite sex
under inappropriate conditions.
b. Coprolalia – the use of obscene language to achieve sexual satisfaction.
c. Don Juanism – the act of seducing women as a career with out permanency of sexual partner or companion.

Sigmund Freud stated that perversions are sexual activities which either:
(a) extend, in an anatomical sense, beyond the regions of the body that are designed for sexual union, or
(b) linger over the immediate relations to the sexual object which should normally be traversed
(c) rapidly on the path towards the final sexual aim.

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UNIT 3
INTRODUCTION TO FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY
An Overview of the Forensic Aspects of Psychology

Definitions of Forensic Psychology


There is a narrow definition and a broad definition of Forensic Psychology. The narrow definition comes from
the Executive Council of the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS), Division 41 of the American Psychological
Association (APA), in its 2000 petition to the APA for the recognition of forensic psychology as a subspecialty. In that
petition, forensic psychology is defined as “the professional practice by psychologists within the areas of clinical
psychology, counseling psychology, neuropsychology, and school psychology, when they are engaged regularly as experts
and represent themselves as such, in an activity primarily intended to provide professional psychological expertise to the
judicial system."
The broad definition, used by schools such as John Jay College, is that forensic psychology is "the development
and application of psychological principles to the problems and administration of legal, judicial, correctional, and law
enforcement systems; clearly rooted in the discipline of psychology and its subfields, but also interdisciplinary in nature,
drawing on diverse disciplines such as the law, sociology, political science, anthropology, philosophy, medicine, and
linguistics." [John Jay College, 2005].

Bartol & Bartol (2004) define forensic psychology as "the research endeavor that examines aspects of human
behavior directly related to the legal process and the professional practice of psychology within, or in consultation with, a
legal system that embraces both civil and criminal law." The author go on to say that the practice of forensic psychology
includes: "investigations, studies, evaluations, advice to attorneys, advisory opinions, and depositions or testimony which
assist in the resolution of disputes relating to life or property in cases before the courts or other lawful tribunal, and
encompasses situations before they reach the court as well as those situations following the court decision." The basic
issue involved in the "narrow v. broad" definitional debate is that criminal justice people, who advocate a broad definition,
want the field to reflect more "research" and less "practice," the former being something practitioners are far too busy to
be interested in, and the latter being to avoid calling someone a forensic psychologist who happens to just be a clinical
psychologist working in some legal capacity.

In the Philippines, forensic science has not yet attained the recognition in courts for it is seldom applied.

Historical Development

Forensic psychology is an entrenched, yet often misapprehended, practice area of psychology, criminal justice and
law. The idea of forensic psychology was conceived by Hugo Munsterberg in 1908 (the founder of applied psychology)
when he published the book On the Witness Stand, mostly about eyewitness testimony and juries. This was the pioneer
book in forensic psychology. Others cite historical benchmarks in Germany with the psychiatrist Albert von Schrenck-
Notzing offering testimony in court about pre-trial publicity as far back as 1896 or William Stern's publication (also in
Germany) of the first journal or periodical dealing with forensic psychology, called Betrage zur Psychologie der Aussage
(O’ Connor, 2007).

In the United States, the first psychological experiment on the psychology of testimony was conducted by J.
McKeen Cattell of Columbia University. The history of the insanity defense goes back to England, to the case of Daniel
M'Naghten in 1843, who shot and killed the secretary of the prime minister, and the M'Naghten test for insanity was used
in many countries, including the U.S., up until 1962. In American criminology, one can trace the origins of a clinical or
psychological criminology to the psychiatrist William Healy, who in 1909, created the Juvenile Psychopathic Institute to
assist the newly created juvenile court in Illinois, and his classic work called Pathological Lying, Accusation, and
Swindling. Numerous other people figured prominently in the development of forensic psychology, and it would be a
mistake to overlook the mental testers of the 1912-1917 period, the polygraph pioneers of the 1920s, personality theorists
such as Hans Eysenck (1916-1997), and a variety of other prominent people and organizations who contributed to prison
psychology and police psychology, most notably Hans Toch, founder of the SUNY-Albany school of criminal justice in
the late 1960s, and the John Jay college of criminal justice which has broadened doctoral education in this field.

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Recognition in Courts

The courts overwhelmingly recognize and accept psychologists of all stripes as expert witnesses in all U.S.
courtrooms (Jenkins v. U.S. 307 F.2d 637 1962). When certification programs sprang up in the late 1980s, the field
continued to be a growth industry.

Admissibility of Psychological Evidence/ Expert Testimony

Since Jenkins v. U.S. (1962), the general rule has been that every psychologist is a potential expert witness, and
must be prepared to interact with the legal system unless they have ethical grounds not to do so. This rather broad sweep
of the psychology discipline includes all of its subfields: cognitive, physiological, developmental, social, abnormal,
clinical, counseling, industrial, and school. However, educational programs in psychology haven't yet geared up for
training students in their forensic duties. Such training is noticeably absent at the undergraduate level, and only a dozen or
so graduate programs in forensic psychology exist. Many academic psychologists resent being placed in the position of
being, shall we say, "whores" (do anything for money) of the legal profession. Therefore, ethics rather than legal
principles have played a larger role in guidelines for forensic psychologists. We'll talk about ethics again in a minute, but
the main problem is that once a psychologist gets on the stand, they're fair game for almost every dirty lawyer trick in the
book, and they're expected to respond to all things psychological, not just their specialty area.

Since Frye v. U.S. (1923), and it must be remembered that representatives from psychology were intimately involved in
testimony when the Frye standard was developed, most states either follow a Frye-like rule or the FRE relevancy rule in
admitting psychological evidence. An interest in meeting the Daubert standards characterizes many in the psychology
profession, but there are plenty of practitioners who do not like Daubert for many reasons. Let's first look at the field in
terms of Daubert, then the Frye-like standards, then the FRE relevancy test:

In terms of Daubert:

1. Testability: The clinical theories and techniques relied upon by psychiatrists have had as much (if not more)
epidemiological follow-up in the form of "natural history" studies as those in any other branch of clinical
medicine.
2. Peer review and publication: Forensic psychiatrists regularly discuss their methods in peer-reviewed professional
journals.
3. Known or potential error rate: Error rates are specified in psychiatric diagnosis as in any other branch of clinical
medicine.
4. Standards controlling operation: Standards governing the practice of forensic psychiatry are articulated in Ethical
Guidelines, which provide methodological as well as ethical benchmarks.
5. General acceptance: Courts have acknowledgment that well-established propositions in a particular subfield of
psychology may be less challengeable and more easily defended than less well-established opinions. At the same
time, by ruling out a rigid and absolute "general acceptance" test, courts have allowed for "reasonable minority"
opinions.

In terms of Frye-like standards:

1. Certain theories and ideas have more credibility in the field of psychology than other theories and ideas. For
example, the theory of atavism has long been refuted, and drive theories have more general acceptance than
instinct theories. (See the online forensic psychology dictionary).
2. In most cases, psychologists should not be allowed to testify on the issue of intent or motive, as these have the
same effect as testimony on the ultimate issue of guilt or innocence. For example, a psychologist cannot testify to
premeditation, but can state the defendant is impulsive. However, sometimes testimony on the lack of a specific
intent is appropriate, as is testimony in support of a self defense claim.
3. Under no circumstances should psychologists be used to argue whether a witness is truthful or lying. The rule is
that courts are prohibited from ordering witnesses to submit to psychological examinations or therapy for
repressed memories in the case of eyewitnesses.

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4. Unimpeached psychological testimony, except in the case of a serious mental disorder rendering the defendant
incapable of understanding their action, can be contradicted by contrary lay witness testimony, and juries should
be instructed that they can disregard psychological evidence if they want to.

In terms of FRE standards:

1. Psychological testimony should be relevant in making some fact in the case more or less probable that it would be
without the testimony. In short, psychology should assist the trier of fact, and not be involved in assisting the trier
of law. Insanity is a legal concept, for example.
2. Psychological testimony should be related to mental state, personality, or character of the defendant, and either of
these should be at issue in the case before admitting such testimony.
3. The probative value of psychological testimony should outweigh its prejudicial impact. Juries are often impressed
by an expert's qualifications or psychometric testing, so the court must be assured that the value of the testimony
is greater than the expert's influence on the jury.
4. The expert should have expertise in the area in question in the particular case. This means that a mix of education and
experience qualifies one as an expert. If one expert has a master's degree but little experience (a one-year internship), they are
less qualified than another expert with only a bachelor's degree but who has testified as an expert in 40 similar cases.

Eyewitness Testimony

A few psychologists try to carve out a specialty area where it's understood that this is the one and only area they'll
testify about. This work is typically unpaid work, as opposed to all-purpose psychologists who usually get paid.
Eyewitness science is one such area. It's estimated that there are over 4,250 wrongful convictions each year due to sincere,
yet inaccurate eyewitness identification. This has led many courts to consider inviting forensic psychologists to offer
testimony about perception and memory. Forensic psychologists are not permitted to testify on the accuracy of a
particular witness, only on the inherent unreliability of eyewitnesses in general. They are allowed to explain the
mechanisms of perception, processing, memory, and recollection, and to describe the empirical research which has been
conducted on these subjects. With victims, the rule is that a psychologist can testify about how victims of child abuse,
domestic violence, or rape often have trouble remembering the incidents in their past, but they cannot state whether a
particular victim was abused, battered, or raped (but juries usually get the idea).

Several states do not allow forensic psychologists to testify about eyewitness identification at all, the reasoning being
that it invades the province of the jury. Some jurisdictions don't consider it Frye-compatible; others seriously limit its
scope to general circumstances under the FRE, and it's a common subject matter in Daubert pretrial hearings.

The expert testimony involves a discussion of event factors (duration, complexity, and violence). Eyewitnesses
normally overestimate duration. Personal factors are also involved (stress, weapon focus, and expectation). Psychologists
have termed the relationship between stress and memory the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Expectation involves personal bias,
cultural bias, and stereotypes. Over half of victims who didn't even see or hear their assailant think it was a black man.
Memory is also affected by storage factors. One psychologist, Elizabeth Loftus, has pioneered research in this area, which
demonstrates the gap-filling process of the mind (with certain words and inaccuracies). There's actually a negative
correlation between witness confidence and accuracy. Finally, recall factors play a part, and psychologists are especially
critical of police line-ups, being quick to spot suggestive procedures or other social forces at work.

Competency to Stand Trial

If a defendant's irrational behavior is known to either side or observed in court, this raises doubts as to competency (a
legal concept) and ability to assist his/her attorney. In such cases, a special competency hearing must be held. Forensic
psychologists often testify at these hearings. Incompetency is separate from insanity. If the defendant is found
incompetent (IST), no trial is held. If the defendant is found competent, then a trial will commence at which time the issue
of insanity will be raised. Competency is all about mental state at the time of trial; insanity is about mental state at the
time the offense was committed.

Determination of competency normally takes place during an examination at a state mental hospital or a forensic
psychiatric unit of a correctional facility. Other times, private facilities are involved. The inmate is interviewed for a
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period of days, sometimes weeks. Psychometric and neurological testing will also be done. Mental retardation, amnesia,
and mild forms of mental disorder are not considered proof of incompetency by the courts. In general, the courts will
often take persons to trial that psychiatrists think are incompetent. If the person is declared incompetent, the court will
order them, under civil commitment, to undergo rehabilitation with drugs and/or therapy so that they can be restored to a
point where they are able to stand trial. Psychologists often get paid for restoring someone to competency so they can
stand trial, which in many ways is a direct conflict of interest if they testified previously about someone's need for
treatment, and referred them to their own clinic or that of a colleague's.

Forensic treatment programs fall into three categories: traditional (medication, family therapy, substance recovery);
contemporary (cognitive therapy, biofeedback, psycho education); and targeted (behavioral approaches to restoring
competency, including role playing and mock trials). Somewhere around 50-75% of the time, the treatment is effective in
raising them to a higher level of functioning so that they can stand trial.

Prediction of Future Dangerousness

Judges are often uncertain about how high to set bail or what sentence to impose; convicted inmates often come before
various boards or committees asking for release; schoolchildren with tendencies toward violence often come to forensic
attention from mandated reporters; and police often call the mental health center for assistance in dealing with a mentally
disordered offender. These are some of the situations in which a forensic psychologist or mental health professional is
legally obligated to assess the risk of further, or future violence.

A standardized risk assessment interview or instrument is given to the mentally disordered criminal at some point.
Many states have mandated particular forms in their statutes. An individual's score is then compared to national norms
that have been put together from longitudinal or cohort research. A review of that research is beyond the scope of this
lecture, but suffice it to say that predictive validity and actuarial norms are quite well-known. A few jurisdictions use
Hare's PCL-R (Psychopathy Checklist Revised) where a score of 30 out of 40 tends to predict violence. Other
jurisdictions rely upon the MMPI, the Rorschach, or some combination of both.

The official position of the APA is that neither psychologists nor psychiatrists have any special abilities to predict future
dangerousness. Despite this, both kinds of experts are frequently called upon by the legal system for just such services.
The error rates in predicting dangerousness are quite high, on the order of 80-90%, regardless if actuarial or clinical
methods are used. Past criminal behavior is actually the best predictor of future dangerousness. Also, many of the risk
markers that are used in the legal system are sociological, not psychological. Things such as "bond with community"
might be a legal criteria which a psychologist may or may not be able to ascertain.

Insanity

Both "sanity" and "insanity" are legal terms, and forensic psychologists and psychiatrists must relate their scientific
language to them. Various legal jurisdictions define insanity differently and require different tests. There are at least five
(5) different tests:

1. The M'Naghten Test (1843) - this is the hardest one for the defense to satisfy. It really consists of two tests: one, a
determination that the defendant was suffering from a mental defect; and two, proof that at the time of offense, the
defendant could not tell the difference between right and wrong.
2. The Irresistible Impulse Test (1844) - this is intended to tap into the defendant's powerlessness to do otherwise, as
with compulsive disorders or syndromes. It covers the things people do anyway even when they know it is wrong.

3. The Durham Test (1954) - this is a largely abandoned test that asks if the offense was a product of a mental
disease.

4. The A.L.I. Test (1970) - this one, formulated by the American Law Institute, asks whether at the time of offense, as
a result of mental disease, the individual lacked substantial capacity to appreciate their criminality or conform to
the requirements of law.

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5. The Federal Test (1982) - this one was codified in the 1984 Insanity Defense Reform Act, and involves
determining if a severe mental disease made the person unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of their act.

UNIT 4
SERIAL KILLING AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Serial Killing defined.

Serial killer is a person who murders usually two or more people over a period of more than 30 days with a "cooling off"
period between each murder, whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification. There is often a
sexual element to the murders. The murders may have been attempted or completed in a similar fashion and the victims
may have had something in common, for example occupation, race, appearance, gender or age group.

Coinage of the English term serial killer is commonly attributed to former FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler in the 1970s.
Serial killer entered the popular vernacular largely due to the widely publicized crimes of Ted Bundy and David
Berkowitz in the middle years of that decade.

Characteristics

Psychosis is rarely noted among serial killers. The predominant psychiatric diagnosis noted in the group tends toward the
psychopathic, meaning they suffer from traits within a specific cluster of dysfunctional personality characteristics, those
most commonly associated with Antisocial Personality Disorder or Dissocial personality disorder.

Psychopaths lack empathy and guilt, are egocentric and impulsive, and do not conform to social, moral and legal norms.
They may appear to be quite normal and often even charming, a state of adaptation that psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley
named the "mask of sanity".

Serial killers tend to share the following general characteristics:

1. The majority are single, white males.


2. They are often intelligent, with IQs in the "bright normal" range.
3. Despite their high IQs, they do poorly in school, have trouble holding down jobs, and often work menial jobs.
4. They tend to come from unstable families.
5. As children, they are typically abandoned by their fathers and raised by domineering mothers.
6. Their families often have criminal, psychiatric and alcoholic histories.
7. They often are mistrustful of their parents.
8. It is common to find that as children, they were abused—psychologically, physically and/or sexually—by a family
member.
9. Many spend time in institutions as children and have records of early psychiatric problems.
10. They have high rates of suicide attempts.
11. From an early age, many are intensely interested in voyeurism, fetishism, and sadomasochistic pornography.
12. More than 60 percent wet their beds beyond the age of 12.
13. Many are fascinated with fire starting.
14. They are involved in sadistic activity or tormenting small creatures.

Types of serial killers

The FBI's Crime Classification Manual places serial killers into three categories: "organized", "disorganized" and
"mixed"—offenders who exhibit organized and disorganized characteristics. Some killers descend from being organized
into disorganized behavior as their killings continue. They will carry out careful and methodical murders at the start, but
become careless and impulsive as their compulsion takes over their lives.

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As to nature of commission:

Organized/nonsocial offenders

Organized/nonsocial offenders are usually of high intelligence, have an above average IQ (>110 range), and plan their
crimes quite methodically, usually abducting victims, killing them in one place and disposing of them in another. They
will often lure the victims with ploys appealing to their sense of sympathy. For example, Ted Bundy would put his arm in
a fake plaster cast and ask women to help him carry something to his car, where he would beat them unconscious with a
metal bar (e.g. a crowbar), and carry them away.

Others specifically target prostitutes, who are likely to voluntarily go with a serial killer posing as a customer. They
maintain a high degree of control over the crime scene, and usually have a solid knowledge of forensic science that
enables them to cover their tracks, such as burying the body or weighing it down and sinking it in a river. They follow
their crimes in the media carefully and often take pride in their actions, as if it were all a grand project. The organized
killer is usually socially adequate, has friends and lovers, and sometimes even a spouse and children. They are the type
who, when captured, are most likely to be described by acquaintances as kind and unlikely to hurt anyone. Some serial
killers go to lengths to make their crimes difficult to discover, such as falsifying suicide notes, setting up others to take the
blame for their crimes, faking gang warfare, or disguising the murder to look like a natural death. David Berkowitz, Ted
Bundy, and John Wayne Gacy are examples of organized serial killers.

Disorganized/asocial offenders

Disorganized/asocial offenders are often of low intelligence, have a below average IQ (<90), and commit their crimes
impulsively. Whereas the organized killer will specifically set out to hunt a victim, the disorganized will murder someone
when the opportunity arises, rarely bothering to dispose of the body but instead just leaving it at the same place where
they found the victim. They usually carry out "blitz" attacks, leaping out and attacking their victims without warning, and
will typically perform whatever rituals they feel compelled to carry out (e.g., necrophilia, mutilation, cannibalism, etc.)
once the victim is dead.

They rarely bother to cover their tracks but may still evade capture for some time because of a level of cunning that
compels them to keep on the move. They are often socially inadequate with few friends, and they may have a history of
mental problems and be regarded by acquaintances as eccentric or even "a bit creepy". Usually they are very introverted
people, too. They have little insight into their crimes and may even block out memories of committing the murders.

As to Motives:

The motives of serial killers are generally placed into four categories: "visionary", "mission-oriented", "hedonistic" and
"power/control"; however, there is often considerable overlap among these categories.

Visionary

Visionary serial killers suffer from psychotic breaks with reality, sometimes believing they are another person or are
compelled to murder by entities such as the devil or God. The two most common subgroups are "demon mandated" and
"God mandated."

Herbert Mullin believed the American casualties in the Vietnam War were preventing California from experiencing an
earthquake. As the war wound down, Mullin claimed his father instructed him via telepathy to raise the amount of "human
sacrifices to nature" in order to delay a catastrophic earthquake that would plunge California into the ocean.

David Berkowitz is an example of a demon-mandated visionary killer. He claimed a demon transmitted orders through his
neighbor's dog, instructing him to murder.

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Mission-oriented

Mission-oriented killers justify their acts on the basis that they are getting rid of a certain type of person, such as
homosexuals, prostitutes, blacks or Catholics, whom they find undesirable; however, they are not psychotic.

Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber", targeted universities and the airline industry. He wrote a manifesto that he distributed to
the media, in which he claimed he wanted society to return to a time when technology was not a threat to its future,
asserting that "the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race."

Hedonistic

This type of serial killer seeks thrills and derives pleasure from killing, seeing people as objects for their enjoyment.
Forensic psychologists have identified three subtypes of the hedonistic killer: "lust", "thrill" and "comfort".

Lust

Sex is the primary motive of lust killers, whether or not the victims are dead, and fantasy plays a large role in their
killings. Their sexual gratification depends on the amount of torture and mutilation they perform on their victims. They
usually use weapons that require close contact with the victims, such as knives or hands. As lust killers continue with their
murders, the time between killings decreases or the required level of stimulation increases, sometimes both.

Kenneth Bianchi, one of the "Hillside Stranglers", murdered women and girls of different ages, races and appearance
because his sexual urges required different types of stimulation and increasing intensity.

Jeffrey Dahmer searched for his perfect fantasy lover—beautiful and eternal. As his desire to find the perfect lover
increased, he experimented with drugs, alcohol and exotic sex. His increasing need for stimulation was demonstrated by
the dismemberment of victims, whose heads and genitals he preserved. He experimented with cannibalism to ensure his
victims would always be a part of him.

Thrill

The primary motive of a thrill killer is to induce pain or create terror in their victims, which provides stimulation and
excitement for the killer. They seek the adrenaline rush provided by hunting and killing victims. Thrill killers murder only
for the kill; usually the attack is not prolonged, and there is no sexual aspect. Usually the victims are strangers, although
the killer may have followed them for a period of time. Thrill killers can abstain from killing for long periods of time and
become more successful at killing as they refine their murder methods. Many attempt to commit the perfect crime and
believe they will not be caught.

Robert Hansen took his victims to a secluded area, where he would let them loose and then hunt and kill them. Lee Boyd
Malvo and John Allen Muhammad, the DC Snipers, killed random victims, often at gas stations, shooting them and
leaving the scenes unnoticed. In one of his letters to San Francisco Bay Area newspapers, the Zodiac Killer wrote
"[killing] gives me the most thrilling experience it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl".

Comfort

Material gain and a comfortable lifestyle are the primary motives of comfort killers. Usually, the victims are family
members and close acquaintances. After a murder, a comfort killer will usually wait for a period of time before killing
again to allow any suspicions by family or authorities to subside. Poison, most notably arsenic, is often used to kill
victims. Female serial killers are often comfort killers, although not all comfort killers are female. Dorothea Puente killed
her tenants for their Social Security checks and buried them in the backyard of her home. H. H. Holmes killed for
insurance and business profits.

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Power/control

Their main objective for killing is to gain and exert power over their victim. Such killers are sometimes abused as
children, leaving them with feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy as adults. Many power/control-motivated killers
sexually abuse their victims, but they differ from hedonistic killers in that rape is not motivated by lust but as simply
another form of dominating the victim. Ted Bundy traveled around the United States seeking women to control.

Medical professionals

Some people with a pathological interest in the power of life and death tend to be attracted to medical professions. These
kinds of killers are sometimes referred to as "angels of death" or angels of mercy. One example is Harold Shipman, an
English family doctor, who made it appear that his victims died of natural causes. Between 1975 and 1998, he killed at
least 215 patients. Dr John Bodkin Adams, meanwhile, though acquitted in 1957 of the murder of one patient, is believed
to have killed around 163 patients in Eastbourne, England.

Victims

Criminologists have long recognized that there are links between most serial killers and their chosen victims.
Demographically, serial murderers tend to target more women than men, and kill strangers more often than family or
acquaintances, as opposed to single-homicide offenders, who tend to kill men and women equally, while killing friends
and family more often.

Serial murderers’ killings are often sexually motivated. The sexual motivation supports the theory that serial murderers
tend to have specific criteria and specific sexual interests that motivate their selection of certain victims. This victim
selection process sets serial murderers apart from other types of killers.

In the United States, serial killers prefer to target victims ages 18–50. The majority of victims are White, supporting
researchers' claims that serial murder is intra-racial.

Female serial killers

Approximately one out of every six serial killers is a woman. Female serial killers tend to murder men and women, with a
preference for elderly victims, and prefer to kill with poison. They generally need to have a relationship with a person
before killing them. Females derive their excitement by killing intimately, such as poisoning a husband or smothering a
child. Most commit killings in specific places, such as their home or a health-care facility, or at different locations within
the same city or state.

A notable exception to these characteristics is Aileen Wuornos, who killed outdoors instead of at home, used a gun instead
of poison, killed strangers instead of friends or family, and killed for personal gratification.

Serial killers in history

Historical criminologists have suggested that there may have been serial murders throughout history, but specific cases
were not adequately recorded. Some sources suggest that legends such as werewolves and vampires were inspired by
medieval serial killers.

Liu Pengli of China, cousin of the Han Emperor Jing, was made king of Jidong in the sixth year of the middle period of
Jing's reign (144 BC). According to the Chinese historian Sima Qian, he would "go out on marauding expeditions with 20
or 30 slaves or young men who were in hiding from the law, murdering people and seizing their belongings for sheer
sport". Although many of his subjects knew about these murders, it was not until the 29th year of his reign that the son of
one of his victims finally sent a report to the Emperor. Eventually, it was discovered that he had murdered at least 100
people. The officials of the court requested that Liu Pengli be executed; however, the emperor could not bear to have his
own cousin killed, and Liu Pengli was made a commoner and banished.

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In the 15th century, one of the wealthiest men in France, Gilles de Rais, is said to have abducted, sexually assaulted and
killed at least 100 children, mainly boys, whom he had abducted from the surrounding villages and taken to his castle. The
Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory was arrested in 1610 and subsequently charged with torturing and butchering as
many as 600 young girls. Like Liu Pengli, they were not immediately brought to justice because they were rich, powerful
and, most importantly, royalty. Although their crimes were known or suspected, official refused to believe any allegations
until they could no longer be denied. After his arrest, de Rais confessed to his crimes, which also included delusions of
demon worship.

Chronicles of the times dealt largely with the affairs of the powerful; moreover, there was a lack of established police
forces, at least in Europe, during those centuries. Therefore, there may have been many other classical or medieval serial
killers who were either not identified or not publicized as well. Many incidents that were probably the work of serial
killers were blamed on werewolves and demonic spirits.

Thug Behram, a gang leader of the Indian Thuggee cult of assassins, has frequently been said to be the world's most
prolific serial killer. According to numerous sources, he was believed to have murdered 931 victims by means of
strangulation with a ceremonial cloth (or rumal, which in Hindi means handkerchief), used by his cult between 1790 and
1830, thus holding the record for the most murders directly committed by a single person in history.

In total, the Thugs as a whole were responsible for approximately 2 million deaths, according to Guinness World Records.
The notoriety of the Thugs eventually led to the word thug entering the English language as a term for ruffians,
miscreants, and people who behave in an aggressive manner towards others. Recent scholarship has cast doubt on the
Thuggee cult and suggested that the British in India were confused by the vernacular use of the term by Indians, and may
also have used fear of such a cult to justify their colonial rule.

In his 1886 book Psychopathia Sexualis, psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing noted a case of a serial murderer in the
1870s, a Frenchman named Eusebius Pieydagnelle who had a sexual obsession with blood, and who confessed to
murdering six people.

The unidentified killer Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes (the exact number of victims is not known) in London in 1888.
Those crimes gained enormous press attention because London was the world's greatest centre of power at the time, so
having such dramatic murders of financially destitute women in the midst of such wealth focused the news media's
attention on the plight of the urban poor and gained coverage worldwide. He has also been called the most famous serial
killer of all time.

American serial killer H. H. Holmes was hanged in Philadelphia in 1896 after confessing to 27 murders. Joseph Vacher
was executed in France in 1898 after confessing to killing and mutilating 11 women and children

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UNIT 5
CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Crisis is a state provoked when a process faces obstacle/hazard to important life goals that is far a time insurmountable
through the utilization of customary method of problem solving. It comes from the Greek word “crisis” which means to
separate. Webster describes it as an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending; a
situation that has reached critical phase.
In short it is defined as a dangerous or critical moment of development.

 a period of disorganization.
 period of upset during which may different abortive attempts at solution are made.

Emergency on the other hand, is defined as sudden condition or state of affairs calling for immediate action.
There are two types of crisis and emergency that is: natural and manmade.
1. Man Made Crisis
Civil Disturbance Revolt
Revolution War
Kidnapping Hijacking
Hostage-Taking Terrorist Activities

2. Natural Crisis
Fire Marine/Air Disasters
Structural Collapse Hazardous Spills
Utilities Failure (Power, Water, Tel.) Nuclear Accidents
Food Scarcity/Famine Flood

Crisis management or intervention – assistance or help extended to the individual with the problem. He is helped to
clarify source of this problem. The resource which may be available for him within himself and the environment and
decision to solve problems becomes his responsibility.

Aims or goals

1. to arrive at a definitive resolution or crisis to restore the optimum level of functioning.


2. maximize the opportunity at the amount of crisis to deal with areas of functioning already in flux and which are
therefore maximally responsive to effective intervention.

It Involves

1. high level of professional skill


2. ready access to source of help without delay
3. specialized form of helping or treatment

TYPES OF CRISIS
1. Individual crisis
2. Economic or financial crisis – when a person is deprived of the basic necessities of life, foods, material things
and opportunities for comfort and survival.
3. Emotional crisis - emotion which can be defined as a state of arousal something expressed, accompanied by
physiological changes in the body a motivating force and ranges from pleasant to unpleasant to feelings is the
source of the hardest kind of individual crisis.
4. Social crisis – lack of interest, confidence and social skills to relate meaningfully, harmoniously and fruitfully
with others.
5. Moral crisis – irrational or distorted concept of what is right or wrong good or bad. Underdeveloped conscience
and lack of moral values and integrity as a person

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The crisis theory

Definition of crisis – it is provoked when a person faces an obstacle (hazard) to important life goals that is for a time
insurmountable through the utilization of customary methods of problem-solving (coping).

Basic concepts of the crisis theory -

1. Equilibrium - state of balance or adjustment between opposite or divergent influences.


2. Time – involves the period of disorganization, period of upset and the period of adaptation.
3. Change – the result of crisis on the individual.

Crisis process
Crisis model – defines crisis as the disturbance of an existing equilibrium as a result of rapidly occurring significant
changes in forces affecting that equilibrium.

Model: involves an individual psychological process in balance with social, physical and psychological environment.

Details of the crisis model

1. It involves the events

a. Look into the GENESIS of a crisis.


b. Look into what particular LIFE AREAS are affected. This may be involved age/sex:: sexual work-familial,
aging, diseases
c. Identify the person who was the LAST CONTACT.

2. Analyze the Crisis: crisis here will be referred to as the period of disorganization and upset involves painful
feelings of anxiety, depression, hopelessness and helplessness. It is also time-limited (prolonged CRISIS is not
tolerable)

3. Outcome or result of the crisis. This refers to the termination of the crisis and it may happen that a new
adaptation occurs.

a. new level of equilibrium


b. no change
c. no recovery or restoration of previous equilibrium

Crisis intervention techniques

1. Recognition that definitive crisis intervention is the treatment of choice for the majority of persons in crisis.
2. Acceptance of limited goals-major areas of pathology may be identified but not be dealt within the
intervention and remain unchanged although the intervention is complete.
3. Recognition that there are precise steps that to be carried out in order to bring about successful outcome.
Weighing the pros and cons of a particular therapeutic action will be encountered for less often in crisis
intervention.
4. It is important that those in crisis intervention must adopt a willingness and ability to work in only a single
sharply circumscribed area. There is a need for focusing the problem
5. Willingness to accept an obligation to the person for the course of the intervention.
- The intervention might take such outcomes as bringing in key family members placing the person in a
more controlled situation for a period of time making arraignment for medical evaluation.
6. Through assessment or diagnostic evaluation is neither dicated nor desirable in crisis management.

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Levels of intervention

1. General support – person without formal psychotherapeutic training


- Intervener might be a family member, friend, nurse, clergyman and gives warmth and supportiveness.
2. Environmental change – intervener removes the hazard that resulted in the individual state of crisis.
3. Genetic treatment – the intervention practitioner working on this level required to have a thorough knowledge
of various kinds of crisis and the kinds of approaches typically effective in resolving them.
- Requires knowledge of each model crisis that the intervention practitioner.
4. Individually tailored treatment
- carried out only by mental health professionals
- required to have an understanding of the genesis of psychopathologic processes, training in personality,
theorem and a thorough comprehension of psychodynamics.

STEPS IN THE INTERVENTION

1. Assessment of treatability
- Determining whether or not the individual is safely treated in such a setting.
- Treatable in an outpatient basis.
2. Identification of Precipitating Event
- Precipitating event: the one leading the person to discomfort.
- Essential for determining or differentiating the crisis phenomenon from long-term psychopathological
processes.
3. How to identify
a. Practitioner focuses upon the exact moment at which the persons first made the decision to seek help.
a.g. Precisely what happened just before you decided to come here.
Identify the other influential antecedents of the person’s coming for help (outline a time line).
4. Identification of the area of Impact:
- determine the area of functioning that has been impacted
- formulation of the reason unique to particular individual why the precipitating event resulted in crisis and
could not be warded off by the available coping mechanism.
5. Formulation of Crisis Package
- package involves: information about antecedent events
time-line
area of impact
areas of symptomology
- this is communicated to the person ion a way it will he understable.
- A cognitive grasps of the crisis and events will lead to the achievement of the individual to a master the
situation.
6. Emotional Aspects
- identify the feelings that go with the crisis.
- Need to be in touch with all the underlying feelings
- effective grief work (to identify specifically in what area of the person’s life the loss is most experienced)
7. Coping Mechanism
- the intervener helps the person to bring into play adaptive coping mechanisms.
- This includes classically ego-defenses and a full range of problem solving behaviors the individual may
attempt to use with the dilemma.
- Involves the introduction of new significant others
- What a new persons might be brought into the life space to help replace these losses.
8. Summarization and Anticipating Planning
- Summarizing of what has occurs on the individual’s life since coming for help and the change that have
been made.

45
Crisis Management Model (PNP Manual)
It basically involves two phases:
A. Pro-active Phase- designed to predict or prevent the probability of occurrence of crises at the same time prepare to
handle them when they occur. The Proactive phase is further divided into different stage. These are
a. Prediction
i. Foretelling the likelihood of crisis,
ii. through-
1. Continuous assessment of all possible threats and threat groups.
2. Analysis of developing or reported events and incidents.
3. Updated inputs from intelligence reports

b. Prevention
i. Institution of passive and active security measures
ii. Remedy or solution of destabilizing factors or security flaws to such crisis or emergency
iii. Vigilance and alertness to signs or manifestations of developing crisis or emergency
iv. Establishment of alert systems

c. Preparation
i. Planning, organizing, training and stockpiling of equipment, supplies needed
ii. Simulated drills at unspecified days

B. Reactive Phase – designed to address the situation or crisis. These incudes:


a. INITIAL ACTION
i. Monitoring the progress of the incident
ii. Securing the scene
iii. Protecting itself
iv. Establishing perimeter security
v. Evacuating innocent civilians
vi. Preventing escape of perpetrators
b. ACTION
i. It begins as soon as the On-Scene Command Post (OSCP) is established and the Tactical Intervention,
Service Support Units, Negotiation Team and Public Affairs personnel arrive and are deployed

c. Post Action
i. Begins as soon as the perpetrators surrender, or when they are captured or neutralized and the crisis situation
is deemed clear
ii. Restore normalcy and bring responsible to court
46
GENERAL TASKING AS A MATTER OF POLICY
1. POC - PEACE AND ORDER COUNCIL
- Organizational body that shall primarily act on crises that arise out of man-made emergencies
- Addresses various aspects of national security particularly those affecting peace and order.
– Concerned with the formulation of crisis management procedures, integration and orchestration of government,
military/police and public efforts towards the prevention and control of crisis incidents.

2. NCCAS(National Commission on CIVIL AVIATION SECURITY)


- Acts on crises resulting from aircraft hijacking, disturbances in the civil aviation, or terrorism that has national
significance.
3. NDCC (National Disaster Coordinating Committee)
- Acts on crises that occur as a result of natural disasters or calamities.

47
SPECIAL ACTION UNITS CAPABLE OF HANDLING CRISIS SITUATIONS
a. PNP Aviation Security Group (ASG)
b. PNP Special Action Force (SAF)
c. PNP Maritime Group (MG)
d. PN Special Warfare Group (PN SWG)
e. PA Special Action Group, SF
f. PAF Special Operations Wing

48
49
POLICY
- Coordinated and Calculated Response Against Terrorism
- Terrorism Considered a Criminal Act
- Lawful Means and Peaceful Resolution of Crisis
- Graduated Armed Response
- No Compromise with Terrorists
- Respect for Human Rights
- Handling of Crisis at the Lowest Levels Possible

MANAGING HOSTAGE SITUATION


A hostage situation is a set of circumstances wherein a suspected law violator is holding a person captive with the
use of force and threat of violence while the police are in close contact with the suspect and his captive.

Differences between Hostage- Taking and Kidnapping

The difference between hostage – taking and kidnapping are:

1. The police are not aware of the captive’s location


2. The police are not in close contact with the perpetrators
3. The police cannot exert any pressure on the suspects

Motives in Hostage- Taking

1. In political terrorism, reasons include showing the public that the government is unable to protect its own
citizens.
2. Hostage-taking guarantees immediate media coverage, and after repeated hostage incidents, it is the hope of
the terrorist that the government might overreact and become excessively restrictive with its own citizens,
thus causing civil discontent and a grassroots movement to overthrow the government
3. Law enforcement officers will most likely encounter hostage incidents that involve either criminals or the
mentally-disturbed

a. If the hostages are taken in a criminal situation, it is usually because the criminal is unable to
complete the crime and escapes before the police responds thus making hostage-taking a spontaneous
event
b. The criminal’s primary reason for taking hostages is to ensure his own safety
c. The demands are invariably for safe passage and a means of escape in return for the hostages lives
d. It is also very common for hostage-takers to demand ransom

4. A husband or wife may take a child hostage in custody battles


5. A mentally-disturbed person may take hostages in order to right what he believes to be wrong

Five Categories of Hostage-Takers

1. Persons in Crisis - are people who take hostages during a period of prolonged frustration, despair and
problems

2. Psychotics - are mentally-ill people who take hostages during a period of psychiatric disturbance

3. Common Criminals - are people who take hostages for personal, rather than ideological reasons

4. Prisoners - are people who take hostages because of dissatisfaction and discontent regarding their living
conditions in prison

5. Political Terrorist - are ideologically-inspired individuals or groups of people who take hostages because of
political and ideological beliefs.

50
Three Generic Categories of Hostage-Takers

1. The Common Criminal


Characteristics of the Common Criminal:

a. The common criminals will generally concede to police negotiations if there is no way out and
hostages will generally be unharmed
b. This type is classified as a rational creative thinker, is able to reason, and can discriminate on how
much force is to be used against him

2. The Psycho
Characteristics of Psycho:

a. This person is unpredictable and may resort to violence depending on his mood
b. The enforcement officer should try to gain as much information as possible concerning motives, past
history, medical and arrest records, etc..
c. This type of person is generally described as full of inner conflict and frustrations which are transferred to
his immediate reality, distorted to suit his own illusions
d. Bringing a priest, wife or a sweetheart may plunge the psycho right back into the environment from which
he is desperately seeking refuge and the reaction may result to killing the hostages and himself

3. The Fanatic
Characteristic of Fanatic:

a. This category includes the one who falls on the extreme side of violence
b. He is the most dangerous because the law, in his mind has no legal basis
c. This mental orientation only sees misdirected social justice
d. This type will rationalized deviance in terms of revolutionary zeal often parlayed by feelings of inadequacy

Mind Barriers in Dealing with Hostage-Takers

1. Law enforcers will have to discover the hostage-taker’s intentions


2. The demands and needs of the hostage-taker must be determined
3. “Negotiation” means to talk. Stalling and talking may actually help
4. In most cases time has been found to be an ally because of the following reasons

a. The more time elapses, the more time the hostage-taker will have to think about his predicament
b. With little persuasion, the hostage-taker may feel downright uncomfortable
c. Time reduces anxiety for as long as overt acts are committed
d. The hostage-taker can be starved out and sleep will eventually catch up on him
e. The hostages might even take advantage of such lapses and may attempt to escape on their own

Reasons Why Common Criminals Take Hostages

Criminals have three common demands


1. Escape
2. Money
3. Transportation

Reasons Why Political Terrorists Take Hostages


1. Politically-motivated terrorist take hostages with the intent of getting as much publicity as possible for their
cause
2. The demands will normally go beyond the authority of the local police and may require the involvement of
the national government
3. The likelihood of hostages being killed is very high since the terrorists may be prepared to die as martyrs

51
Four Major Activities in Managing Hostage Situations

1. Planning consists of work to be performed in order to predetermine a course of action. Planning to manage a hostage
situation involves
a. Forecasting
Anticipating conditions, problems and opportunities that may be confronted during, and after, the incident
b. Establishing Objectives
Determine desired result

c. Establishing Priorities
Creating a sequence of steps to be followed in reaching the objective
d. Scheduling
Establishing action commitment
e. Allocating Resources
Identifying manpower and equipment required to reach objectives and to effectively utilize available
resources
f. Establishing Procedures
Standardizing ways of performing specified work.
g. Establishing Policy
Providing answers to important questions and problems which are anticipated and which provide for
action that is in the interest of the police

2. Organizing - Organizing consist of work to be performed in order to arrange and relate work so that it can be
accomplished effectively. Organizing work in managing a hostage situation involves:
a. Structuring Work
Identifying and classifying work that needs to be performed, and seeing to its proper implementation
b. Delegating
Entrusting responsibility and authority to others and establishing accountabilitY
c. Developing Relationship
Creating conditions necessary for mutually cooperative effort and teamwork
3. Leading- consists of work to be performed in order to stimulate people to take effective action. Leading work in
managing hostage situations involves:

a. Making Decisions
Arriving at conclusions and judgments about results
b. Communicating
Creating understanding
c. MOTIVATING
Inspiring, encouraging and impelling people to take required action
d. Selecting People
Choosing people with the appropriate skills, attitudes and experience to perform specific work
e. Developing People
Improving the knowledge, attitudes and skills of people

4. Controlling- consist of work to be performed in order to assess and regulate work in progress and which needs to be
finished. Controlling work in managing a hostage situation involves:

a. Developing Performance Standards


Establishing criteria in order to differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable performance
b. Measuring performance
Recording and reporting work
c. Evaluating Performance
Appraising work and result
d. Correcting Performance
Regulating and improving methods and results
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TWO BASIC CONCEPTS IN HOSTAGE-BARRICADE SITUATION

1. In hostage-barricade situation, the hostage-takers have placed themselves willingly or unwillingly in direct
confrontation with the authorities and therefore they must be prepared to deal with them. Since there is a
confrontation, it is safe to conclude that the hostage-takers are willing to discuss the situation.
2. It is not in the interest of the hostage-takers to get violent. They do not take hostages with the expressed purpose
of taking their hostages’ lives. They do it in 0order to coerce the authorities to behave in certain ways and
eventually to exchange the hostages for something they want.

CATEGORIES OF HOSTAGES

The hostages could be simple civilians, government officials or military/personnel of various stages in life,
position or rank.

a. Criminals -are generally interested in money, escape or personal safety.


b. Mentally - deranged individuals – takes hostages because of something that may have provoked them. They
probably not engaged in planning whatsoever.
c. Terrorists - whether political or religious tend to be dedicated to their cause and are willing to risk their lives to
ensure its success. They are generally part of an organization which has objectives and expectations which they
feel obligated to meet.

PERSONALITY TYPES OF HOSTAGE-TAKERS

A. The most common disorders involved in hostage-taking are psychotics and personality disorders.

1. Types of Psychotics

a. Paranoid Schizophrenics

- They are characterized by persistent false mental perceptions or beliefs such as delusions of
persecution. Their thinking is often loose and makes no sense. They can appear normal at some
moments and psychotic at other times.

b. Psychotic Depressives

- They experience extreme sadness, hopelessness, feelings of inadequacy, worthlessness, slow thinking
and speech and indecisiveness. They have less concentration and are prone to suicide.

2. Personality Disorders
a. Anti-social Personalities- They are repeatedly in conflict with society, thus, are incapable of loyalty and
are selfish, callous and irresponsible. They feel no guilt and have a low frustration tolerance. They tend to
blame others no matter what the circumstances are. They are probably the most difficult personality type
to deal with.

b. Inadequate Personalities- They are unable to respond effectively to emotional, social, intellectual and
physical demands. They show ineptness, poor judgment, social instability and they lack physical and
emotional stamina.

QUICK RECOGNITION POINTS

1. If a person’s behavior is weird, he is probably a paranoid schizophrenic.


2. If his response is something like ‘” go away and leave me alone”, he is probably a psychotic depressive.
3. If the demands are fairly realistic, he may be an antisocial personality.
4. If he is totally unrealistic, the person is most likely an inadequate personality.

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TACTICS AGAINST HOSTAGE-TAKERS

1. ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN COMMUNICATION

a. problem-solving climate- show desire to understand


b. climate of compromise- adopt give and take attitude and by showing a willingness to bargain and yield
when necessary.

2. STALL FOR TIME

- reduce the stress environment


- allow for negotiations external to the conflict zone.
- Permit the implementation of active hostage rescue efforts.

3. OBTAIN INFORMATION

- THE NEGOTIATOR CAN USE OPEN-ENDED OR CLOSE ENDED questions depending on the initial
reactions of the hostage-takers.
- In restatement of content, the negotiator must repeat in his own words what he thinks he has heard.
- In reflection of feeling the negotiator or must pay attention to what is said and how it was said.

4. CALM THE HOSTAGE-TAKERS BY USING

1. MODELING – the negotiator must talk and respond in a calm and controlled manner using a very
conversational tone.
2. VENTILATION- Give the hostage-takers time to talk without interrupting them.
3. DISTRACTION- use this to draw the attention of the hostage-takers away from whatever is bothering
them.

5. ESTABLISH RAPPORT
6. USE PERSUASION- Deal with small issues first thus creating as atmosphere
of success.

- Maintain non-threatening communications, both verbal and non-verbal.


- Agree with obvious reluctance to any demands that might be to your tactical advantage. If the demands
are to be advantage of the hostage-takers or fall in the area of non-negotiable items, stall for time and
express willingness to seek alternative solutions
- Be alert on the development of the Stockholm Syndrome.

The three aspects of this syndrome are:

a. Positive- feeling of the hostages towards the hostage-takers.


b. Negative feeling of the victims towards the authorities.
c. Positive feeling of the hostage-takers towards the victims.

THE PNP OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES IN HOSTAGE SITUATION

Sec. 1 procedures to be followed in a Hostage Situation

a. A Crisis Management Task Group shall be activated immediately.


b. Incident scene shall be secured and isolated.
c. Unauthorized persons shall not be allowed entry and exit to the incident scene.
d. Witnesses’ names, addresses, and other information shall be recorded. Witness shall be directed to a safe
location.

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Sec. 2 Ground Commander- there shall be only one a ground commander in the area.

Sec. 3. Negotiator- he shall be designated by the Ground Commander.

Sec. 4. Assault Team- An assault team shall be alerted for deployment in case the negotiation fails. Members of the team
shall wear authorized and easily recognizable uniform during the conduct of the operation. Bonnets shall not be used.

Sec. 5. Assault Plan- The assault shall be planned to ensure minimal threat to life for all parties.

Sec. 6 Support Personnel- An ambulance with medical crew and a fire truck shall be detailed at the incident area.

Sec. 7. Coordination- proper coordination with all participating elements shall be detailed at the incident area.

Sec. 8 Safety of Hostages- In negotiating for the release of a hostage, the safety of the hostage shall always be paramount.

Sec. 9. Procedures to be followed during Negotiations

a. Stabilize and contain the situation.


b. Select the right time to make contact with the hostage-taker;
c. Take time when negotiating;
d. Allow hostage-taker to speak;
e. Don’t offer the hostage-taker anything. What he will ask for will be part of the negotiation.
f. Avoid directing frequent attention to the victim when talking to the hostage-taker;
g. Do not call them hostages. Be as honest as possible; avoid tricks; be sincere;
h. Never dismiss any request from the hostage-taker as trivial or unimportant.
i. Never say “NO”;
j. Soften the demands;
k. Never set a deadline; try not to accept a deadline;
l. Do not make alternate suggestions not agreed upon in the negotiation;
m. Do not introduce outsiders (non-law enforcement officers) into the negotiation process, unless their
presence is extremely necessary in the solution of the crisis; provided that they shall be properly advised
on the do’s and don’ts of the hostage negotiations.
n. Do not allow any exchange of hostages, unless extremely necessary; in particular, do not exchange a
negotiator for a hostage;
o. Avoid negotiating face-to-face; and
p. Law enforcement officers without proper training shall not be allowed to participate in hostage
negotiations.

PRINCIPLES, TECHNIQUES AND PROCEDURES IN DEALING WITH HOSTAGE – TAKING INCIDENT

D. POLICE ORGANIZATION FOR COUNTERING HOSTAGE TAKING

1. A police force must have an established contingency plan or procedure to deal with the problem of hostage –
taking if it occurs within its jurisdiction, first of all, there should be a pre-planned procedure on how the various
elements of the police force have to be organized on the ground or at the scene of the incident. The ground
organization is an ad-hoc arrangement of police that is immediately set up when a hostage taking incident take
place. Such arrangement is pre-planned to delineate functions and responsibilities of responding police elements,
prevent confusion and successfully deal with the problem. A suggested ground organization consists of the
following groups and elements.

a. The command group

b. The operating group

1. negotiating team
2. investigation team
55
3. crowd control them
4. intervention unit or assault force
5. traffic control elements
6. intelligence team
7. search and recovery team

c. Administrative group

1. media relation team


2. catering services
3. other admin support

d. Technical support group

1. Communication team
2. EODT
3. Medical Ambulance team
4. Rescue and evaluation team
5. special equipment team

2. The scale of size of the foregoing organization is flexible and should be adapted to the magnitude of the
operations. The assembly procedure of the ad-hoc organization should be subject to periodic field training
exercise (FTC) i.e., the contingency plan itself should be rehearsed from time to time.

3. A small compact and special trained unit should be also organized particularly in places (usually urban areas)
where hostage – taking and kidnapping that can be called upon to assault the lair of the kidnappers or hostage
takers to rescue and liberate the hostage and neutralized/capture the terrorist /criminal elements. This unit is
specially trained in such operations, and is composed of well selected personnel who have physical, emotional
and psychological stability to withstand and stressful conditions.

E. POLICE TACTICS AND TECHNIQUES

1. The principal factors that will influence police decisions are:

a. number of offenders
b. number of hostages
c. personality of the offenders
d. motivation of the offenders
e. motivation of the offenders
f. equipment and implements of violence at the disposal of the offenders.

2. The decision to assault the lair of the hostage – takers and free the victim is the responsibility of the ground
commander, and the intervention unit commander. The decision to tactically intervene is usually given when
negotiation completely fails and it has become clear that the terrorist are about to start harming or killing the
hostages or are started to do so. That is, the government forces are left no other choice to ensure the safety of the
hostages. However, when hostage – taking has political color and/or international complication and therefore, not
simply a police problem, the higher commander and those having political authority are usually brought into the
picture in accordance with the demands of the situation.

3. In any hostage – taking incident, a priority consideration is to establish controlled communication links with the
offenders, and negotiate for the safe release of the hostage. If possible, a police personnel trained in the art of
negotiation or has such skills is assigned in this job. The principal objectives of the negotiator are:

a. To secure time and assist in intelligence gathering and tactics for a successful armed assault:
b. To secure the release of as many hostages as possible, in the process.

56
In relation to the “siege of the Iranian embassy in London the following principal about negotiation has
become clear, and is lesson learned there from:

a. The negotiator primary tasks is to save the lives of the hostage; he should be able to sole link of the
offenders with the outside world;
b. Each siege is different;
c. The negotiator should gin time, whenever possible;
d. The hostage and the hostage-takers should be isolated;
e. The negotiator is part of the incident team:
f. The negotiator should avoid exposure which might result in his becoming a hostage;
g. All negotiations must be recorded;
h. All negotiations must be conducted on the basis of referral to higher authority, thus, idly, the deciding
authority should not be the negotiator himself;
i. No single negotiator should become the sole line of communication and to avoid this danger, negotiators
should be employed a team.

4. The communications used by the offenders should be controlled by the police.


5. The isolation of the immediate premises of the scene of the hostage – taking is the first tactical consideration of
the police, then followed by the control of communication and the initiation of negotiation. Isolation of the scene
goes hand-in-hand with police control of communication with hostages.

F. INTELLIGENCE

1. Police operation dealing with hostage taking situation relies heavily upon the intelligence available. The
inquiries being conducted by the detectives or interrogators and the statements taken from the witnesses and
released hostages produced much intelligence.
2. Observation post should be established at a place having a commanding view over the scene of hostage
incident.
3. The specific purposes of intelligence are:

a. To assist in understanding what is taking place in the building where the hostage are kept;
b. To better conduct the police operation.
c. To prepare for any form of armed action by the police;
d. To assist negotiators in their prime task;
e. To assist in forming negotiating ploys, or ideas;
f. To provide an information weapons held by terrorist; and,
g. To assist in the event of armed intervention by the assault team.

G. ACTIVITY AFTER INTERVENTION OPERATION

When the hostage incident is terminated by the assault of the intervention unit, and hostages liberated, care must be
taken to prevent the perpetrators from mixing with the hostage and affording to opportunity to escape. Hence. Persons
freed from a hostage incident should be brought to an exclusion area and handcuffed until their identities are established.
When the building or scene of the hostage – taking has been cleared by the intervention unit, it is in fact a crime
scene cleared to be protected and processed for every bit of items of evidentiary value. The scene must be placed under
investigator in charge, who become the scene manager that directs search and recovery of evidence. The search and the
recovery team shall normally include evidence technicians, evidence. The search and the recovery team shall normally
include evidence technicians, evidence custodian/recorder. EOD personnel and photographer. Their purpose is to recover
the death bodies remaining in the building, to provide evidence in continuity in the conveyance of the bodies from the
building to the pathologist; to preserve and to preserve and recorded details of any potential exhibits could be material to
any court proceedings, and as a matter of records.

57
Appendices
HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION STUDY GUIDE 2009

This study guide is designed to provide the law enforcement Explorer with basic principles. The guide is not all
inclusive, and does not delineate specific techniques that must be used. The focus of this guide is to provide principals
that are flexible and adaptable to various law enforcement situations. Following the basic principals in this guide should
allow the law enforcement Explorer to successfully handle various law enforcement training activities safely and
professionally. The study guide was developed through the cooperation of International Association of Chiefs of Police
and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

Hostage taking has occurred throughout recorded history including ancient Greek, Norse and Roman mythologies.
In recent history, political events in Algeria, Kenya and Vietnam demonstrate horrific examples. Infamous Mao Tse-tung
and Che Guevera defended the ideology. Patty Hearst’s kidnapping demonstrated the organized manipulation of the
individual and the media.
Hostages virtually guarantee media coverage showing the government’s inability to protect the public. With
repeated hostage takings, the government may become overly restrictive and provide rumor or media material for
fostering civil discontent to the media. Criminals, mentally disturbed, prisoners and terrorists are often the categories for
hostage takers. Hostage situations have occurred from escalations of family member-on-member, family member-on-
employee, intoxicated co-worker domestic dispute situations, angry client on employee and angry employee-on-client
workplace violence (such as at the VA hospitals and
clinics).
In 1993, 2.2 million people were attacked at their work, 16 million were harassed, 6.3 million were threatened
with violence and one sixth was attacked with lethal weapons (McMain, Mullens, 1996). Unlawful demonstrations at
government buildings have disrupted governmental proceedings and have escalated into hostage situations (UCLA,
Berkley, CA; Howard University, Washington, DC; and the Secretary of Agricultures office, Washington, DC).

Hostage takers participate in either well planned or spontaneous reactions to a situation.


Professional criminals (robbers, burglars, and carjackers) may take a hostage accidentally or as a fight or flight panic
reaction when the criminal act is discovered and interrupted, trapping the criminal(s) without a preconceived plan. The
hostages are then used as barter for escape.
Inadequate personalities are emotionally disturbed persons that may take a hostage to obtain and maintain prolonged
attention to themselves or their plight. Mental and/or emotionally disturbed employee(s), or other(s) visiting a facility
(State Department incident) can result in a potential hostage, a high risk suicide or acting out disgruntled employee
situation. Although it is certainly possible for you to become the victim of a terrorist hostage situation, you are far more
likely (statistical) to be taken hostage by a criminal or emotionally/mentally unstable individual. Loose groups such as
incarcerated criminals have accomplished takeovers and obtained hostages in Federal office buildings, courthouses, and at
Oakdale, CA; Louisiana and Atlanta, GA prisons.
Prison inmates with unplanned spontaneous hostages may respond more quickly to an effective tactically compressed
window-of-time frame and an early show of force.
However, a carefully planned hostage taking window-of-time frame should be tactically stretched out with
delaying tactics to minimize immediate harm to hostages. Structured groups such as terrorists maximize the propaganda
effect (of individual or multiple events of violence) for political or social change through media exposure. Terrorist victim
hostage(s) may be carefully selected, the operation well thought out, even rehearsed. Terrorists may penetrate facilities for
media coverage or as retaliation for real or imagined acts carried out by a government. The participant may be between 29
and 35 years of age, well educated, dedicated and willing to die for their cause, well trained and armed and experienced
with explosives and automatic weapons.
There are three choices for the hostage taker. The first is to choose martyrdom, kill the hostages and commit suicide. The
second is to lessen the demands to a more achievable proportion and continue negotiations. The third is to surrender to
police.

There are generally four choices for police commanders at a hostage situation. The first traditional confrontational
response is to amass officers and massive firepower and assault. The second is to use selective sniper fire. The third is to
use chemical agents. The fourth is to contain the area and negotiate with a specially trained negotiator. The first three will
almost always result in injury. The Israeli government investigates the martyr site for intelligence information, very

58
quickly cleans it up, repairs and normalizes the trade traffic to minimize the (media publicized) effectiveness of the
“terror” of suicide bombers on the “target” general public.
The average domestic crisis negotiation team response is about 45 minutes to one hour (Spaulding, 1987).
Therefore, the most crucial moments of the situation will be with the talents of the first responding officer(s). Overseas
travel may be entirely different. Contemporary law enforcement officers responding to, arriving, during and leaving all
hostage/barricade calls must be aware of their own safety to ensure the safety of others. Identifying and properly utilizing
effective cover and/or concealment will aid personal safety. Additional tactics such as contact and cover officer roles and
responsibilities increase safety for both officers.
Upon arrival, the investigating patrol officer(s) employs the ICER concept to the call.
Isolate physical and psychological activities on the scene and keep onlookers beyond the police safety line. Contain the
hostage taker mobility to the smallest location in the building or exterior area and deny the opportunity to observe the
police presence activities. This begins the confines of the inner perimeter and also allows time for crisis stabilization.
Evaluate because the original report may or may not be what the situation actually is. Gather as much cursory information
as possible. Assess the threat(s) and estimate the location(s) of the command post(s), and the number and proposed
positions of backup officers needed to establish a temporary inner perimeter. Report the number and identities of hostage
takers and hostages and their clothing descriptions, precipitating events, size and locations of the dangerous zones, inform
responding officers of recommended entry routes, types of weapons involved and directions or line of fire.

Patrol officers recognize that hostage situations require additional backup personnel, and equipment and expertise
beyond what is required for standard patrol responsibilities. They will often request tactical specialists for this type of call.
Tactical teams may be known by many terms: Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT), Special Operation Response Team
(SORT), Special Operations Group (SOG), Emergency Response Team (ERT) or Hostage Rescue Teams (HRT) and many
other acronyms. Tactical officers arriving will replace the backup officers on the inner perimeter, allowing the uniformed
officers to report to the command post for operational debriefing and then be reassigned to reinforce the outer perimeter.

Tactical teams will immediately establish physical and organizational boundaries for their operations. Establishing
inner and outer perimeters and cordons allow containing the crisis objective into sterile zones. All personnel assigned
should be made aware of the included and excluded description of areas and reference points, police positions, command
post locations, and law enforcement support services staging areas with VIP and media briefing positions.
Access into and out of the objective, through cordons, are required for evacuating persuaded people (often not wanting to
leave homes or offices without their valuables) to predetermined debriefing locations. Cordons also limit unauthorized
personal and media communications, food, water, drink, and utilities such as water, heat, air conditioning, cable, natural
gas or oil heating and cooking fuel. These then become negotiable utilities.
The responsible decision makers Commander, Strategic Operations Command (SOC),
Commander, Tactical Operations Command (TOC), and Supervisor, Crisis Negotiations Team
(CNT), utilize the Incident Command System (ICS) management procedures by delegating authority to empower and
supervise leaders and specialists, track situations, events, and any decisions made, and produce outcome reviews including
the use of force Rules Of Engagement (ROE).

Strategic Operations Command (SOC) command post (CP) sites are generally located at
the outer perimeter. They contain and disseminate the command and control (logistics, liaison
and coordination), communications and intelligence (CCCI) requirements to support the severity
and complexity of the operation. Some examples would be site security; access control;
operational, administrative, communications, financial, supply, liaison and intelligence personnel
check in; helicopter landing sites with ground and air vehicles parking control; VIP and media
briefing areas; staff arrival and scheduling, assembly, staging and departure areas; electrical and
telephone control; toilet, medical, mental health, legal advisory, feeding and sleeping areas.
Communications equipment often includes multiple frequency and interagency radios; landline,
cellular and satellite telephones; broadband cable, internet and standard broadcast television;
teletype and NLETS/NCIC/TECS/EPIC/DOD with state criminal history and personal credit
history computer access. Recorders maintain historical events/decisions/actions chronology with
site blueprints, topographical maps and situation maps. The SOC controls all personnel on scene
and authorizes execution of tactical plan except emergency situational operations.
Tactical Operations Command (TOC) command posts are primarily located within the
inner perimeter and within proximity of the situation. The TOC formulates the tactical plan,
makes recommendations to the SOC and executes plan with SOC approval. The TOC controls
59
the inner perimeter, probing for intelligence information, enhancing the CNT/TIE/EOD and
tactical team response and counter-sniper position, and encourages continuing negotiations and
shared information developed with the CNT supervisor. Technical Investigative Equipment
teams may be attached to the TOC to provide color, monochromatic, infrared and thermal long
range observation through miniature video and auditory surveillance devices mounted to
stationary platforms, man carried, or vibration gimbled to Remotely Piloted (RPV) or Unmanned
Aerial or Ground Vehicles (UAV/UGV), and send site and environmental sensory signal
information to the SOC, TOC and CNT unit sites.
Crisis Negotiation Teams (because of their training, special skills, knowledge and police
experience) are used to resolve a myriad of incidents such as barricaded subject, trapped armed
robbers, hostage situations, stalking victims and perpetrators, high risk suicide, mental health
warrants, high risk warrants, gang violence and applying stress reducing debriefing techniques to
crisis victims, police officers and other public service employees. Equipment needed for CNT
operation will usually include service weapons and issued equipment, civilian soft clothes, duty
wear uniform or tactical utility clothing with weather support outerwear and footwear with body armor.

HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION TRAINING KEY


4
Personal accessory equipment often includes pen, pencil, writing pad or notebook,
penlight and flashlight, knife, watch, compass, whistle, pocket mirror, electrical or masking or
duct tape, first aid kit, personal medicines, camping trail mix or field foods like Meals Ready to
Eat (MRE’s) with fruit juices, de-caffeinated coffee and water. Support equipment might
include chalkboards, map overlays, throw telephones with reel extension land lines, recorders
with voltage adaptors and listening headsets, and small mechanical tool kit. CNT members ask,
determine and re-ask certain questions throughout operations, they may include: Is this a
hostage or non-hostage incident? That answer is often determined by the situation. Is it a
hijacking or terrorist situation with political statements requiring bargaining/negotiation skills
(passing of time increases the safety of the hostages) or an incident more personal in nature, such
as a domestic incident or a barricaded suspect that is an emotionally disturbed individual or
trapped criminal (passing time increases the risk of the hostages)? Active listening/crisis
intervention skills might be more applied in these types of situations. Is this a negotiable
incident, or can it be made into it? This can be answered by determining if the hostage taker
has the need to live, if authority has threatened force, if there are substantive instrumental or
expressive demands (if not, the potential for violence increases), if the negotiator is viewed as
willing to help, if there are good communications and the number of hostage takers that believe
they are in charge. Non-negotiable demands would be weapons, personnel exchanged for
hostages, release of prisoners and non-prescription drugs.
What kinds of strategies and tactics can/should be used, at what risks and what are the
options? Negotiation strategies include: Demand Theories (Selye) that require action (stress)
and a (performance expectation) perception with a time frame. Another strategy deals with
personnel safety. The Cox-Mackay (1976) Transactional Model of Stress deals with
environment, abilities, dealing with stress demands, and measuring effectiveness, the Yerkes-
Dodson Law relates to measuring (appropriate) performance. Time effects are a tactic that
increase basic human needs and produce the opportunity of the negotiator to meet these needs in
exchange for something. The critically monitored Positive and Negative Transference may
occur due to shared experiences, dependency, proximity and tension of the situation. This could
(negotiator encouraged) develop into a classic Stockholm Syndrome (alignment of hostage taker
and hostages).

Negotiator Checklist Situation Board


60
Arrival interview with first responder:
Notes
What has occurred?
Who initiated the call?
Time of occurrence?
Police injuries?
Suspect injuries?
Hostage injuries?
Others injuries?
What kind of contact has been made with suspect?
When?
Is the situation locked in?
Where are the suspects located?
Where are the hostages located?
Where are the non-hostages?
Where is the floor plan?
Where are the telephones and types?
Where are the suspect’s observation points?
What firearms are used/located on the site?
What explosives/chemicals are located on the site?
What is the description/profile of the hostage taker?
What is the description/profile of the hostage?
What is the nature of the surrounding scene
What is the offender affiliation/public support like?

Negotiator Checklist Situation Board


Data collection of subject in a hostage situation:
Full name Nickname
Age DOB Sex Race
Height Weight Recent gain/loss Build
Hair color Eyes color Glasses style or contacts
Scars, birthmarks, tattoos and other marks
Clothing and jewelry description
Marital history and current status/locations
Criminal history including violence/convictions/sentencing/disposition
Physical health/disease (self and family) factors
Sleep and eating patterns history
Mental health history, helpless/hopeless/suicide statements/attempts/and in this situation
Histrionic, Schizoid, Compulsive, Avoidant, Dependent, Narcissistic, or Aggressive personality style?
Temperament? Coping skills?
Family mental health history/actual or potential stressors/(in)voluntary commitments
Significant others/family members/friends/neighbors in life
Relationship to anyone in situation
Religion/participation
Military history/MOS/assignments/theatres of operations
Weapons/explosives history/and in this situation
Education and specialized skills/license training
Employment and experience history
Socioeconomic status history
Financial (real property/assets/funds acquisition/disposal) history
Residential stability
Daily activities/recreational/sporting/activity or behavioral changes
Wills (recently drawn/verbalized) or Power of Attorney issued
Substance use/dependency/abuse history/and in this situation
61
Transference (+/-) and Stockholm Syndrome history/and in this situation
Treatment from/to hostage takers/other hostages history/and in this situation
Newspaper records and media involvement
Traumatic incidents in life and recent history/reactions during and after
Involvements in negotiation history/and in this situation
Movement and stress behaviors history during this situation
Demands during this situation
Released, rescued, injured, surrendered or other status at resolution of this situation
Situation outcome
Notes or remarks:

Negotiator Coach Situation Board


Stage
Disposition Methods
Crisis Establish common ground relationship
Probe cause of the problem
Establish credibility
Encourage safety
Encourage ventilation
Identify and assess problem(s)
Validate feelings
Alert for suicide/homicide,
Prevent impulsive acting out,
Probe for survivors/succumbers,
defense mechanisms/coping strategies,
positive/negative transference & allow
Stockholm Syndrome development
Active listening
Overcoming communication
boundaries/reassurance
I/we content information
Paraphrasing
Likeability/similarity influence
Requests/consistent concern
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Mirroring
Using effective pauses
Clarifying meanings
Clarifying feelings
Active listening
Negotiations Facilitate prediction of outcome and
consequences
Facilitate planning different solution
Eliminate unacceptable solutions
Encourage choosing solution
Plan implementation
Problem oriented questioning
I/we content information
Problem solving questions
Advantage identification
Summarizing solution
Utilize command structure
Solution Resolution of situation
Managing protracted situations stress
Post-shooting trauma
Guided viewing
62
Hostage taker, hostages and
negotiator stress management
and mediation procedures
Defusing and Debriefing

Negotiator Coach Situation Board


Instrumental or Expressive Demand
Deadline Outcome

Negotiator Coach Situation Board


The HT… Conversation or content has…
Shows Positive signs of progress

Diminished references to violence;


Occurred more often and longer;
Slowed rate and diminished volume;
Diminished threats;
Moved to personal issues;
Moved past deadline without incident;
Resulted in released hostages; and
Resulted in no one killed or injured since onset of negotiations.

Shows Negative signs of progress and could become suicidal

Set a deadline for own death;


Insisted or provoked face-to-face negotiations (suicide by cop ritual);
Denied thoughts of suicide (by depressed personality HT); and,
Moved to disposition of property (suicide ritual).
Shows Negative signs of progress and could become volatile
Tied weapon to HT and/or hostage;
A history of violence;
Insisted or provoked a particular third person be brought to the scene;
Become angrier since negotiations;
Become more emotional in content since negotiations; and
Has no social outlet for expressing anxiety, fear or frustration.
Shows Negative signs of progress and lack of cooperation and rapport
No rapport and no clear demands or outrageous demands after significant
time period with negotiator.
Possible factors include use of alcohol or drugs by HT during
negotiations; and
Significant multiple stressors in HT’s life.

Stress Reactions of Subject


Stage Anxiety Behavior Mind State Speed of Action Intervention Range
1 Mild Reality oriented
External world
2 Moderate needs help
Outside to focus
3 Severe Poor
Productiveness
Can’t cope alone
Needs support
and direction
from outside
4 Panics Disorganized
Non-perceiving
63
Or Mis-perceiving, Severe physical reactions to stress
Feeling Oriented Internal World Fast None/Passive
Negotiator Supervisor Situation Board
Tasks Evaluated
Comments
Can trained members function without supervisor?
Are appropriate personnel available?
Is intelligence gathered in timely way?
Can communications be established/maintained?
Are appropriate records of the negotiations kept?
Is commander kept informed?
Hostage or non-hostage situation?
Negotiable now?
To make it negotiable?
Is tactical intelligence available for planning?
Has on-scene MHC completed suicide and Aggression Risk evaluation?
Has a threat assessment on hostages/hostage taker been developed?
Siege strategy and integrated tactics/negotiations plan developed?
Are negotiation strategy and defusing tactics developed?
Commander and tactical team commander briefed?
Are primary and secondary negotiators briefed?
Have negotiators discussed options?
Are support people on the job?
Is the right equipment on the job?
Has introduction been developed and practiced?
Is intelligence about incident being gathered and updated?
Is intelligence about people being gathered and updated?
Are words, tones, demands, promises, deadlines and outcomes
monitored?
Are content, affect and paralinguistics monitored?
Are situation boards completed, updated and shared?
Are primary and secondary negotiators reviewing what has been done and
assessing the results?
Are negotiators managing stress with breaks etc.?
Has MHC monitored negotiators throughout operation for stress tactics?
Are operational debriefings for team members and MHC arranged?
Are CISM defusings scheduled for all CNT and MHC members?
Negotiator Rating Assessment
Negotiation Supervisor and MHC Rating
Rating
Safety of hostages is the primary concern
Negotiates basic human needs (to live, biological, safety, social ego
and self actualization) transportation and money to buy time
Keeps possibility of escape alive in the mind of the HT
Keeps HT’s mind off killing hostages. Avoids deadlines.
Makes negotiations easier by reducing anxiety, avoids perception of
superiority when adapts posture, language and vocabulary to HT’s
Defers decisions on HT demands to higher authority
Maintains rapport with HT by reducing emotionality increasing
rationality. Reacts to changes in HT’s feelings or demands.
Does not bargain for additional/replacement hostages
Receives something in return for something and increases hostages
chances of escaping
Communicates intelligence gathered with CNT coach and MHC for
better decision making.

64
Given these circumstances I expect this negotiator will
Become fatigued, argument, angry or unsettled, thereby
exacerbating the crisis situation
5
Freeze and become irrelevant in the crisis situation 15
Become judgmental, or interpretive, losing trace of the HT’s
motivation
25
Become too probing, causing the HT to become defensive 35
Show concern, but not sufficient empathy 45
Show concern and empathy, but not be able to offer insightful
alternatives
55
Show empathy and general ability to seek alternatives 65
Show empathy and ability to guide HT to meaningful alternatives 75

INTRODUCTION:

Historical hostage practices

As the probable etymology (through French ostage, modern otage, from Late Latin
obsidaticum, the state of being an obsess or hostage; Medieval Latin ostaticum, ostagium)
from the Latin hostis ('guest') testifies, it has a history of political and military use dating
back thousands of years, where political authorities or generals would legally agree to hand
over one or usually several hostages in the custody of the other side, as guarantee of good
faith in the observance of obligations. These obligations would be in the form of signing of a
peace treaty, in the hands of the victor, or even exchange hostages as mutual assurance in
cases such as an armistice. Major powers, such as Ancient Rome and the British who had
colonial vassals, would especially receive many such political hostages, often offspring of
the elite, even princes or princesses who were generally treated according to their rank and
put to a subtle long-term use where they would be given an elitist education or possibly
even a religious conversion. This would eventually influence them culturally and open the
way for an amical political line if they ascended to power after release.

The practice of taking hostages is very ancient, and has been used constantly in
negotiations with conquered nations, and in cases such as surrenders, armistices and the
like, where the two belligerents depended for its proper carrying out on each others good
faith. The Romans were accustomed to take the sons of tributary princes and educate them
at Rome, thus holding a security for the continued loyalty of the conquered nation and also
instilling a possible future ruler with ideas of Roman civilization.

The practice continued through the early Middle Ages. The Irish High King Niall of the Nine
Hostages got his epithet Noígiallach because, by taking nine petty kings hostage, he had
subjected nine other principalities to his power.

This practice was also adopted in the early period of the British occupation of India, and by
France in her relations with the Arab tribes in North Africa. The position of a hostage was
that of a prisoner of war, to be retained till the negotiations or treaty obligations were
carried out, and liable to punishment (in ancient times), and even to death, in case of
treachery or refusal to fulfil the promises made.

65
The practice of taking hostages as security for the carrying out of a treaty between civilized
states is now obsolete. The last occasion was at the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, when
two British peers, Henry Bowes Howard, 11th Earl of Suffolk, and Charles, 9th Baron
Cathcart, were sent to France as hostages for the restitution of Cape Breton to France.

In France, after the revolution of Prairial (June 18, 1799), the so-called law of hostages was
passed, to meet the royalist insurrection in La Vende. Relatives of migris were taken from
disturbed districts and imprisoned, and were liable to execution at any attempt to escape.
Sequestration of their property and deportation from France followed on the murder of a
republican, four to every such murder, with heavy fines on the whole body of hostages. The
law only resulted in an increase in the insurrection. Napoleon in 1796 had used similar
measures to deal with the insurrection in Lombardy (Correspondence de Napoléon I. i. 323,
327, quoted in Hall, International Law).

In later times the practice of official war hostages may be said to be confined to either
securing the payment of enforced contributions or requisitions in an occupied territory and
the obedience to regulations the occupying army may think fit to issue; or as a
precautionary measure, to prevent illegitimate acts of war or violence by persons not
members of the recognized military forces of the enemy.

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Germans took as hostages the prominent
people or officials from towns or districts when making requisitions and also when foraging,
and it was a general practice for the mayor and adjoint of a town which failed to pay a fine
imposed upon it to be seized as hostages and retained till the money was paid. Another
case where hostages have been taken in modern warfare has been the subject of much
discussion. In 1870 the Germans found it necessary to take special measures to put a stop
to train-wrecking by parties in occupied territory not belonging to the recognized armed
forces of the enemy, an illegitimate act of war. Prominent citizens were placed on the engine
of the train so that it might be understood that in every accident caused by the hostility of
the inhabitants their compatriots will be the first to suffer. The measure seems to have
been effective. In 1900 during the Second Boer War, by a proclamation issued at Pretoria
(June 19), Lord Roberts adopted the plan for a similar reason, but shortly afterwards (July
29) it was abandoned (see The Times History of the War in S. Africa, iv. 402).

The Germans also, between the surrender of a town and its final occupation, took hostages
as security against outbreaks of violence by the inhabitants.

Most writers on international law have regarded this method of preventing such acts of
hostility as unjustifiable, on the ground that the persons taken as hostages are not the
persons responsible for the act; that, as by the usage of war hostages are to be treated
strictly as prisoners of war, such an exposure to danger is transgressing the rights of a
belligerent; and as useless, for the mere temporary removal of important citizens till the
end of a war cannot be a deterrent unless their mere removal deprives the combatants of
persons necessary to the continuance of the acts aimed at (see W. E. Hall, International
Law, 1904, pp. 418, 475). On the other hand it has been urged (L. Oppenheim,
International Law, 1905, vol. ii., War and Neutrality, pp. 271-273) that the acts, the
prevention of which is aimed at, are not legitimate acts on the part of the armed forces of
the enemy, but illegitimate acts by private persons, who, if caught, could be quite lawfully
punished, and that a precautionary and preventive measure is more reasonable than

66
reprisals. It may be noticed, however, that the hostages would suffer should the acts aimed
at be performed by the authorized belligerent forces of the enemy.

Article 50 of the Hague War Regulations provides that no general penalty, pecuniary or
otherwise, can be inflicted on the population on account of the acts of individuals for which
it cannot be regarded as collectively responsible. The regulations, however do not allude to
the practice of taking hostage.

In May 1871, at the close of the Paris Commune, took place the massacre of the so-called
hostages. Strictly they were not hostages, for they had not been handed over or seized as
security for the performance of any undertaking or as a preventive measure, but merely in
retaliation for the death of their leaders E. V. Duval and Gustave Flourens. It was an act of
maniacal despair, on the defeat at Mont Valrien on the 4th of April and the entry of the
army into Paris on the 21st of May. Among the many victims who were shot in batches the
most noticeable were Georges Darboy, archbishop of Paris, the Abbé Deguery, curé of the
Madeleine, and the president of the Court of Cassation, Louis Bernard Bonjean.

Illegal hostage taking

Taking hostages is today considered a crime or a terrorist act; the use of the word in this
sense of abductee became current only in the 1970s. The criminal activity is known as
kidnapping. An acute situation where hostages are kept in a building or a vehicle that has
been taken over by armed terrorists or common criminals is often called a hostage crisis.

Hostage taking is still often politically motivated or intended to raise a ransom or to enforce
an exchange against other hostages or even condemned convicts. However in some
countries hostage taking for profit has become an "industry", ransom often being the only
demand.

BODY / CONTENT:

HOSTAGE TAKING refers to terrorism cases in w/c a personis seized or detained w/ the threat to kill,
injure, or continue to detain the person in order to compel a third-person or governmental organization to do,
or to abstain from doing, at act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the person.
HOSTAGE TAKING SITUATIONS refers to a set of circumstances wherein a suspected law violator is
holding captive w/ use of intimidation while the police are in close contact w/ the suspect.
The hostage taker confronts the authorities and openly holds the victims for ransom. His demands are
often more than just material in nature. Political concessions are frequently demanded in exchange for the
hostages lives. The advantages of this new tactis are: First, because it is current, it attracts the media,
Second, the fact that live hostages are involved increases the drama of the event, thus pressure can be
applied by the terrorist to force concessions. Lastly, the hostage is a tangible-asset to the terrorist, something
w/ w/c to bargain.

PROCEDURES DURING HOSTAGE TAKING SITUATION

HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION TRAINING KEY


There are generally four choices for police commanders at a hostage situation. The first traditional
confrontational response is to amass officers and massive firepower and assault. The second is to use
selective sniper fire. The third is to use chemical agents. The fourth is to contain the area and negotiate with a
specially trained negotiator. The first three will almost always result in injury. The Israeli government
investigates the martyr site for intelligence information, very quickly cleans it up, repairs and normalizes the
trade traffic to minimize the (media publicized) effectiveness of the “terror” of suicide bombers on the “target”
general public.

67
The average domestic crisis negotiation team response is about 45 minutes to one hour (Spaulding, 1987).
Therefore, the most crucial moments of the situation will be with the talents of the first responding officer(s).
Overseas travel may be entirely different. Contemporary law enforcement officers responding to, arriving,
during and leaving all hostage/barricade calls must be aware of their own safety to ensure the safety of
others. Identifying and properly utilizing effective cover and/or concealment will aid personal safety.
Additional tactics such as contact and cover officer roles and responsibilities increase safety for both officers.
Upon arrival, the investigating patrol officer(s) employs the ICER concept to the call.
Isolate physical and psychological activities on the scene and keep onlookers beyond the police safety line.
Contain the hostage taker mobility to the smallest location in the building or exterior area and deny the
opportunity to observe the police presence activities. This begins the confines of the inner perimeter and also
allows time for crisis stabilization. Evaluate because the original report may or may not be what the situation
actually is. Gather as much cursory information as possible. Assess the threat(s) and estimate the location(s)
of the command post(s), and the number and proposed positions of backup officers needed to establish a
temporary inner perimeter. Report the number and identities of hostage takers and hostages and their
clothing descriptions, precipitating events, size and locations of the dangerous zones, inform responding
officers of recommended entry routes, types of weapons involved and directions or line of fire.
Patrol officers recognize that hostage situations require additional backup personnel, and equipment and
expertise beyond what is required for standard patrol responsibilities. They will often request tactical
specialists for this type of call. Tactical teams may be known by many terms: Special Weapons and Tactics
(SWAT), Special Operation Response Team (SORT), Special Operations Group (SOG), Emergency Response
Team (ERT) or Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) and many other acronyms. Tactical officers arriving will replace
the backup officers on the inner perimeter, allowing the uniformed officers to report to the command post for
operational debriefing and then be reassigned to reinforce the outer perimeter. Tactical teams will immediately
establish physical and organizational boundaries for their operations. Establishing inner and outer perimeters
and cordons allow containing the crisis objective into sterile zones. All personnel assigned should be made
aware of the included and excluded description of areas and reference points, police positions, command post
locations, and law enforcement support services staging areas with VIP and media briefing positions.
Access into and out of the objective, through cordons, are required for evacuating persuaded people (often not
wanting to leave homes or offices without their valuables) to predetermined

HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION TRAINING KEY


Debriefing locations. Cordons also limit unauthorized personal and media communications, food, water,
drink, and utilities such as water, heat, air conditioning, cable, natural gas or oil heating and cooking fuel.
These then become negotiable utilities. The responsible decision makers Commander, Strategic Operations
Command (SOC), Commander, Tactical Operations Command (TOC), and Supervisor, Crisis Negotiations
Team (CNT), utilize the Incident Command System (ICS) management procedures by delegating authority to
empower and supervise leaders and specialists, track situations, events, and any decisions made, and
produce outcome reviews including the use of force Rules Of Engagement
(ROE). Strategic Operations Command (SOC) command post (CP) sites are generally located at the outer
perimeter. They contain and disseminate the command and control (logistics, liaison and coordination),
communications and intelligence (CCCI) requirements to support the severity and complexity of the operation.
Some examples would be site security; access control; operational, administrative, communications, financial,
supply, liaison and intelligence personnel check in; helicopter landing sites with ground and air vehicles
parking control; VIP and media briefing areas; staff arrival and scheduling, assembly, staging and departure
areas; electrical and telephone control; toilet, medical, mental health, legal advisory, feeding and sleeping
areas.
Communications equipment often includes multiple frequency and interagency radios; landline, cellular and
satellite telephones; broadband cable, internet and standard broadcast television; teletype and
NLETS/NCIC/TECS/EPIC/DOD with state criminal history and personal credit history computer access.
Recorders maintain historical events/decisions/actions chronology with site blueprints, topographical maps
and situation maps. The SOC controls all personnel on scene and authorizes execution of tactical plan except
emergency situational operations. Tactical Operations Command (TOC) command posts are primarily located
within the inner perimeter and within proximity of the situation. The TOC formulates the tactical plan, makes
recommendations to the SOC and executes plan with SOC approval. The TOC controls the inner perimeter,
probing for intelligence information, enhancing the CNT/TIE/EOD and tactical team response and counter-
sniper position, and encourages continuing negotiations and shared information developed with the CNT
supervisor. Technical Investigative Equipment teams may be attached to the TOC to provide color,
monochromatic, infrared and thermal long range observation through miniature video and auditory
surveillance devices mounted to stationary platforms, man carried, or vibration gimbaled to Remotely Piloted
(RPV) or Unmanned
68
Aerial or Ground Vehicles (UAV/UGV), and send site and environmental sensory signal information to the
SOC, TOC and CNT unit sites.
Crisis Negotiation Teams (because of their training, special skills, knowledge and police experience) are used
to resolve a myriad of incidents such as barricaded subject, trapped armed robbers, hostage situations,
stalking victims and perpetrators, high risk suicide, mental health warrants, high risk warrants, gang
violence and applying stress reducing debriefing techniques to crisis victims, police officers and other public
service employees. Equipment needed for CNT operation will usually include service weapons and issued
equipment, civilian soft clothes, duty wear uniform or tactical utility clothing with weather support outerwear
and footwear with body.

HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION TRAINING KEY


Armor. Personal accessory equipment often includes pen, pencil, writing pad or notebook, penlight and
flashlight, knife, watch, compass, whistle, pocket mirror, electrical or masking or duct tape, first aid kit,
personal medicines, camping trail mix or field foods like Meals Ready to
Eat (MRE’s) with fruit juices, de-caffeinated coffee and water. Support equipment might include chalkboards,
map overlays, and throw telephones with reel extension land lines, recorders with voltage adaptors and
listening headsets, and small mechanical tool kit. CNT members ask, determine and re-ask certain questions
throughout operations, they may include: Is this a hostage or non-hostage incident? That answer is often
determined by the situation. Is it a hijacking or terrorist situation with political statements requiring
bargaining/negotiation skills (Passing of time increases the safety of the hostages) or an incident more
personal in nature, such as a domestic incident or a barricaded suspect that is an emotionally disturbed
individual or trapped criminal (passing time increases the risk of the hostages)? Active listening/crisis
intervention skills might be more applied in these types of situations. Is this a negotiable incident, or can
it be made into it? This can be answered by determining if the hostage taker has the need to live, if
authority has threatened force, if there are substantive instrumental or expressive demands (if not, the
potential for violence increases), if the negotiator is viewed as willing to help, if there are good
communications and the number of hostage takers that believe they are in charge. Non-negotiable demands
would be weapons, personnel exchanged for hostages, release of prisoners and non-prescription drugs.
What kinds of strategies and tactics can/should be used, at what risks and what are the options?
Negotiation strategies include: Demand Theories (Selye) that require action (stress) and a (performance
expectation) perception with a time frame. Another strategy deals with personnel safety. The Cox-Mackay
(1976) Transactional Model of Stress deals with environment, abilities, dealing with stress demands, and
measuring effectiveness, the Yerkes- Dodson Law relates to measuring (appropriate) performance. Time effects
are a tactic that increase basic human needs and produce the opportunity of the negotiator to meet these
needs in exchange for something. The critically monitored Positive and Negative Transference may occur due
to shared experiences, dependency, proximity and tension of the situation. This could (negotiator encouraged)
develop into a classic Stockholm Syndrome (alignment of hostage taker and hostages).

Negotiator Checklist Situation Board


Arrival interview with first responder:
Notes
What has occurred?
Who initiated the call?
Time of occurrence?
Police injuries?
Suspect injuries?
Hostage injuries?
Others injuries?
What kind of contact has been made with suspect?
When?
Is the situation locked in?
Where are the suspects located?
Where are the hostages located?
Where are the non-hostages?
Where is the floor plan?
Where are the telephones and types?
Where are the suspect’s observation points?
What firearms are used/located on the site?
What explosives/chemicals are located on the site?
69
What is the description/profile of the hostage taker?
What is the description/profile of the hostage?
What is the nature of the surrounding scene?
What is the offender affiliation/public support like?

Negotiator Checklist Situation Board


Data collection of subject in a hostage situation:
Full name Nickname
Age DOB Sex Race
Height Weight Recent gain/loss Build
Hair color Eyes color Glasses style or contacts
Scars, birthmarks, tattoos and other marks
Clothing and jewelry description
Marital history and current status/locations
Criminal history including violence/convictions/sentencing/disposition
Physical health/disease (self and family) factors
Sleep and eating patterns history
Mental health history, helpless/hopeless/suicide statements/attempts/and in this situation
Histrionic, Schizoid, Compulsive, Avoidant, Dependent, Narcissistic, or Aggressive personality style?
Temperament? Coping skills?
Family mental health history/actual or potential stressors/(in)voluntary commitments
Significant others/family members/friends/neighbors in life
Relationship to anyone in situation
Religion/participation
Military history/MOS/assignments/theatres of operations
Weapons/explosives history/and in this situation
Education and specialized skills/license training
Employment and experience history
Socioeconomic status history
Financial (real property/assets/funds acquisition/disposal) history
Residential stability
Daily activities/recreational/sporting/activity or behavioral changes
Wills (recently drawn/verbalized) or Power of Attorney issued
Substance use/dependency/abuse history/and in this situation
Transference (+/-) and Stockholm syndrome history/and in this situation
Treatment from/to hostage takers/other hostages history/and in this situation
Newspaper records and media involvement
Traumatic incidents in life and recent history/reactions during and after
Involvements in negotiation history/and in this situation
Movement and stress behaviors history during this situation
Demands during this situation
Released, rescued, injured, surrendered or other status at resolution of this situation
Situation outcome

Notes or remarks:

Negotiator Coach Situation Board


Stage
Disposition Methods
Crisis Establish common ground relationship
Probe cause of the problem
Establish credibility
Encourage safety
Encourage ventilation
Identify and assess problem(s)
Validate feelings
Alert for suicide/homicide,
Prevent impulsive acting out,
Probe for survivors/cucumbers, Defense mechanisms/coping strategies, Positive/negative transference &
allow
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Stockholm syndrome development
Active listening
Overcoming communication
Boundaries/reassurance
I/we content information
Paraphrasing
Likeability/similarity influence
Requests/consistent concern
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Mirroring
Using effective pauses
Clarifying meanings
Clarifying feelings
Active listening

Negotiations Facilitate prediction of outcome and consequences


Facilitate planning different solution
Eliminate unacceptable solutions
Encourage choosing solution
Plan implementation
Problem oriented questioning
I/we content information
Problem solving questions
Advantage identification
Summarizing solution
Utilize command structure

Solution Resolution of situation


Managing protracted situations stress
Post-shooting trauma
Guided viewing
Hostage taker, hostages and negotiator stress management and mediation procedures
Defusing and Debriefing

Negotiator Coach Situation Board


Instrumental or Expressive Demand
Deadline Outcome

Negotiator Coach Situation Board


The HT… Conversation or content has…
Shows positive signs of progress
Diminished references to violence;
Occurred more often and longer;
Slowed rate and diminished volume;
Diminished threats;
Moved to personal issues;
Moved past deadline without incident;
Resulted in released hostages; and
Resulted in no one killed or injured since onset of negotiations.

Shows negative signs of progress and could become suicidal


Set a deadline for own death;
Insisted or provoked face-to-face negotiations (suicide by cop ritual);
Denied thoughts of suicide (by depressed personality HT); and, Moved to disposition of property (suicide
ritual).

Shows negative signs of progress and could become volatile


Tied weapon to HT and/or hostage;
A history of violence;
Insisted or provoked a particular third person be brought to the scene;
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Become angrier since negotiations;
Become more emotional in content since negotiations; and
Has no social outlet for expressing anxiety, fear or frustration.

Shows negative signs of progress and lack of cooperation and rapport


No rapport and no clear demands or outrageous demands after significant time period with negotiator.
Possible factors include use of alcohol or drugs by HT during negotiations; and
Significant multiple stressors in HT’s life.

Stress Reactions of Subject


Stage Anxiety Behavior Mind
Speed of Action
Intervention Range
1 Mild Reality oriented External world
Normal Normal None/Active
2 Moderate needs help from outside to focus
3 Severe Poor productiveness
Can’t cope alone
Needs support and direction from outside
4 Panics Disorganized
Non-perceiving or Mis-perceiving
Severe physical reactions to stress
Feeling oriented
Internal world
Fast None/Passive

Negotiator Supervisor Situation Board


Tasks Evaluated
Can trained members function without supervisor?
Are appropriate personnel available?
Is intelligence gathered in timely way?
Can communications be established/maintained?
Are appropriate records of the negotiations kept?
Is commander kept informed?
Hostage or non-hostage situation?
Negotiable now?
To make it negotiable?
Is tactical intelligence available for planning?
Has on-scene MHC completed suicide and Aggression Risk evaluation?
Has a threat assessment on hostages/hostage taker been developed?
Siege strategy and integrated tactics/negotiations plan developed?
Are negotiation strategy and defusing tactics developed?
Commander and tactical team commander briefed?
Are primary and secondary negotiators briefed?
Have negotiators discussed options?
Are support people on the job?
Is the right equipment on the job?
Has introduction been developed and practiced?
Is intelligence about incident being gathered and updated?
Is intelligence about people being gathered and updated?
Are words, tones, demands, promises, deadlines and outcomes monitored?
Are content, affect and paralinguistic monitored?
Are situation boards completed, updated and shared?
Are primary and secondary negotiators reviewing what has been done and assessing the results?
Are negotiators managing stress with breaks etc.?
Has MHC monitored negotiators throughout operation for stress tactics?
Are operational debriefings for team members and MHC arranged?
Are CISM defusing scheduled for all CNT and MHC members?

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Negotiator Rating Assessment
Negotiation Supervisor and MHC Rating
Safety of hostages is the primary concern
Negotiates basic human needs (to live, biological, safety, social ego and self actualization) transportation and
money to buy time
Keeps possibility of escape alive in the mind of the HT Keeps HT’s mind off killing hostages. Avoids deadlines.
Makes negotiations easier by reducing anxiety, avoids perception of superiority when adapts posture,
language and vocabulary to HT’s.
Defers decisions on HT demands to higher authority
Maintains rapport with HT by reducing emotionality increasing rationality. Reacts to changes in HT’s feelings
or demands.
Does not bargain for additional/replacement hostages
Receives something in return for something and increases hostage’s chances of escaping.
Communicates intelligence gathered with CNT coach and MHC for better decision making

RULES DURING HOSTAGE TAKING SITUATION

General
For the purpose of this plan, hostage taking is the seizing of any person against his/her will, within the
detention center, by any person, as a security for the performance or nonperformance of specific actions.

Prevention
The prevention of a hostage-taking incident is the responsibility of each employee.
Accordingly, employees are directed to:
1. Obey and enforce all of the rules of the detention center.
2. Never compromise security for any reason.
3. Safeguard facility keys at all times and, if attacked, make every attempt not to surrender your keys.
4. Promptly report all violations of security rules to your immediate supervisor.
5. Do not create adversary relationships with inmates; remember the “fair but firm” rule.
6. Always be pro-active in your thinking.
7. Never impart any information about the security of the facility, the staff, or aspects of the operation, to any
person who does not have a need to know and who is not personally known to you to be cleared for access to
that information.
8. Do not trust any inmate or any visitor.

Mission
When faced with a hostage situation, the mission of the Allegany County Sheriff’s
Office, in priority, is:
1. The safe release of hostages
2. To protect the lives and well-being of all affected participants
3. The apprehension of hostage takers
4. The protection of property and equipment

Response
1. Staff as Hostage
A. The decision to attempt to escape remains only with the staff member concerned. It is recommended,
however, should the staff be subdued, that resistance is often times futile and leads to greater injury or death,
and that attempts of escape, once subdued, are discouraged.
B. Staff who is in danger of becoming a hostage must immediately and by any means available alert any other
staff member. If applicable, activate your duress alarm!
C. Facility keys must be protected. Staff in possession of facility keys who are in danger of becoming a
hostage must deny inmates access to the keys by any means, active or passive.
2. Other Staff
The decision to go to the assistance of another staff member, who has been taken hostage or is in immediate
danger of being taken hostage, must be weighed against the possibility that the person rendering assistance
may also be placed in similar jeopardy.
A. Keys must be retrieved if possible.
B. The affected and non-affected areas must be immediately locked down.
C. The supervisor must be alerted immediately.
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3. Shift Supervisor-The Shift Supervisor on duty must:
A. Immediately order a lockdown of the entire facility, including removing any inmates not in the housing unit
to a secure area and turning off the inmate telephones, televisions, water, and housing unit control panel.
B. Account for all keys.
C. Direct all non-emergency movement to cease and direct that no one be permitted to enter, leave, or move
within the facility, without the authority of the supervisor.
D. Make an immediate assessment of the situation and, if outside of the control or scope of the on-duty staff,
alert the TNT and contact the Sheriff and Assistant Administrator.
E. Direct the CCO to notify the EMC if there are keys unaccounted for or if there is any danger of keys falling
into inmate control.
F. Continually observe and/or monitor the situation.
G. Never permit the release of any inmate from the facility under any circumstance or condition of duress
whatsoever!
H. Remain in command until relieved by the Sheriff, Assistant Administrator or Lieutenant, or the relieving
supervisor.
I. Attempt to make contact with the hostage takers, either personally or through a trained experienced staff
member, to determine grievances and/or demands, and to determine if anyone is injured; an attempt may be
made to establish a dialogue with the hostage takers in so far as it does not jeopardize life, limb, or
negotiations; the Supervisor must remain ever mindful of the high stresses involved and when any doubt
exists, contact should be terminated and the situation monitored; no demands or promises should be made
by the on-duty staff until a trained negotiator is on the scene to advise.
4. Control Center Officer(s) (CCO’S)
The CCO’s will:
A. On order, notify EMC and advise that a hostage-taking situation exists.
B. Notify the Sheriff
C. On order, notify the TNT CDR
D. On order, implement the ERP
E. Do not permit the release of any inmate from the facility under any condition of duress whatsoever; any
order for the release of any inmate, which is not personally communicated by the Sheriff or his designee,
should never be obeyed.
F. On order, notify the hostage negotiator(s) by contacting EMC dispatcher.
5. EMC Dispatcher
Upon receipt of the notification from the CCO, the EMC dispatcher will immediately notify MSP, CCPD, and
ACSO patrol division and request immediate response.
6. Responding Agencies
All responding agencies will report to their established posts and assume the assigned duties. All Liaisons will
report to the SEOC/CMT and await further instructions.
7. Negotiation Team
A. the Negotiation Team is under the direct supervision of the CMT CDR.
B. the Negotiation Team is comprised of a primary and alternate negotiator.
If the on-duty staff has established a rapport with the hostage takers, negotiations will continue until the
trained negotiator can be introduced into the team.
C. The negotiation team may negotiate for the safe release of hostages and may make concessions except:
i. Inmates will not be released
ii. Inmates will not be given weapons, drugs, or alcohol.
iii Hostages will not be added or exchanged.
iv. The negotiation team will report to the CMT Command Post and will be briefed and provided a separate
room with a call down phone capability.
v. Negotiation is the primary tool for resolution and will continue as long as successful resolution can be
reached.
vi. Negotiations will not be continued if, after negotiations have begun, any death or grievous bodily injury
occurs by the inmate or inmate group against any person. It is recognized that within an inmate population,
an individual or group may compete for dominance, control, or leadership, and that factions may occur. It is
with the safety of the hostages in mind that any death or grievous injury to any hostage by any inmate will
result in an armed assault.
vii. The negotiation team will not be told of any probable or anticipated assault.
8. Tactical Neutralization Team (TNT)
The TNT will be continually updated with intelligence information. The TNT
CDR will develop an initial assault plan and make adjustments as necessary.
There is no sniper option.
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9. Intelligence Gathering
The CMT CDR will appoint one staff member to direct the all-source intelligence gathering activity. This
person will be located at the CMT Command Post.

Resolution
1. The CMT CDR announces termination of the incident and releases personnel.
2. All inmates will be searched.
3. All inmate areas will be searched.
4. All inmates will be returned to their housing units and normal operations will continue.
5. The CMT CDR will require after action reports from key personnel.
6. The Sheriff will direct an investigation into the incident and a debriefing.
7. Inmate hostage takers, ringleaders, et al, will be segregated until the close of the investigation.

Guidance for Initial Contact with Hostage Takers


In the opening stages of a hostage-taking situation, personal dynamics are extremely stressed. Violence, if it is
to occur, normally takes place within the first 10 to 15 minutes.
As the first staff member on the scene, the opportunity may present itself to speak with the hostage takers.
You must personally decide, given the circumstances, if this is an appropriate course of action. It is
recommended that you try not to negotiate with the hostage takers, rather, try to diffuse tensions.
1. Be conscious of both verbal and non-verbal language.
2. Choose words, tone of voice, and manner with care.
3. Pre-screen your statements from the hostage takers point of view.
4. Adapt conversation to the hostage takers’ level of vocabulary and education.
5. Always speak softer and lower than the hostage taker does and avoid being abrasive
6. Avoid questions that allow only “yes” and “no” answers.
7. Be conscience of your stance, voice characteristics, and facial expressions.
8. Do not use words, gestures, or posture that may be interpreted as superior, and avoid unnecessary
movements which may further excite the situation.
9. Do not use words such as hostage, hostage taker, SWAT Team, gun, crime, or any words that convey
violence, words that establish right or wrong, or words that convey imperatives, i.e., must, will, you better,
never etc.

Guidance to Hostages
Individuals who are detained by inmates must remember that their actions may form the basis for further
exploitation by their captors. Specific guidance for all situations is impossible, but the following general
guidance may be of assistance. It should be selectively applied considering individual circumstances and
specific situations.
1. Unless there are clear indications that your efforts stand a good chance for success, do not resist or
attempt to flee; otherwise, you may become an assassination target as an alternative objective.
2. Suppress initial panic and try to remain as calm as possible. Even though frightened, attempt to appear
calm. Keep in mind that forces are at work to secure your release.
3. While held captive, think of your oath of office, sense of duty, and personal integrity.
4. Attempt to get on a name basis with your captors. This should cause them to think of you as an individual
person rather than an object of authority, and ease tensions.
5. Do not become depressed if negotiations become prolonged. Time is on your side. The more time that
passes, the better your chances for a safe release.
6. Comply with any reasonable request of your captors, but try not to assist them in their cause.
7. Escape, unless made during the initial abduction, should be attempted only as a last resort. Generally,
there is not a good opportunity to escape and attempts should not be made unless they have been carefully
calculated. Escape efforts could impede negotiations and rescue efforts.
8. Whenever possible, note abductor characteristics. Habits, speech, mannerism, contacts, and physical
descriptions to assist in any apprehension and prosecution.
9. Do not reveal classified or sensitive information.
10. Avoid provocative remarks. Do not be belligerent. Your captors may be emotionally unstable and may
react violently to revocation.
11. Do not discuss expected actions by the government, family, friends, or the team negotiating for your
release. If asked, claim no knowledge.
12. When released, obtain and follow appropriate guidance from organizational authorities prior to any press
release.
13. File a detailed written report.
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