ONLINE Hostage Negotiation School

The Hostage Negotiation School aims to train experts able to manage strategic situations involving hostages, both in extortion and in terrorist scenarios, and in any situation in which hostages are taken, even temporarily, as in cases of brief kidnappings of bank and post office managers. Topics relating to hostage-taking inside prisons will also be addressed.

It is the only Hostage Negotiation School in Italy and one of the few in Europe.

The programme, international in scope, gives a broad view of how such situations must be managed, so as to create and/or broaden the knowledge and the techniques of those who have to handle kidnapping events in these operational theatres. It is more and more often important to know how to manage kidnappings, which have grown considerably in recent years.

In the most recent NATO and UN guidance, very great importance is given to negotiation as the cornerstone, before moving on to the use of force in such cases. There is a shortage of specialists in this field. The course sets out to train these particularly important figures within the Police, the Army, security bodies, public and private companies and NGOs.

New negotiation techniques and unconventional methods will be taught, alongside the internationally recognised rules of hostage negotiation. It is also particularly suitable for individuals, organisations or public and private companies that may be at risk of kidnapping.

The programme of studies is addressed to civilian staff, to serving civilian and military personnel of the Public Administration (Law Enforcement, Armed Forces, etc…), to experts, and to university students, graduates and researchers who wish to deepen their studies in the field and/or to begin a career in it.

Dates Start: October 2021 – End: May 2022 [registration is open]

The programme of studies will run with ONLINE classes

The Hostage Negotiation School will last one academic year in total for the teaching section.

Admission: subject to assessment of the candidate's C.V.

Teaching areas and subjects:

Hostage negotiation: methodologies and techniques

• Negotiation: models and development
• The PON Model
• The birth of operational negotiation: the origins
• Negotiation: its types
• The figures involved in a kidnapping
• Types of kidnapping
• Scenario and context
• Victimology
• Terrorism and Counter-terrorism
• Mediation
• Unconventional negotiation techniques
• Event management
• Hostage negotiation in complex theatres
• Hostage negotiation in criminal contexts
• Hostage negotiation in urban contexts
• Negotiation with people with psychological disorders
• Negotiation with people with psychiatric disorders
• Negotiation in prisons and penitentiary institutions

Applied methodologies and techniques: strategic communication

• Strategic communication
• Persuasive communication techniques
• Modulation practices
• Support techniques
• The art of dominance
• Mental manipulation techniques
• Hostage dynamics
• Behavioural aspects of hostage-taking
• The influence of chemical substances
• Dynamic classification of motivation
• Resolution
• Language
• The role of the female Figure
• Communication in crises and emergencies
• Applied strategic communication
• Psyops – Operational psychology
• Media management

Sociology-Psychology-Anthropology applied to Hostage Negotiation

• The influence of cultures
• Social psychology
• Ethnic psychology
• Cross-culture
• Sociology of Crime
• Sociology of Deviance
• Cultural anthropology
• Anthropology of security

Intelligence

• Intelligence techniques, the use of communication in intelligence
• Unconventional operational negotiation techniques
• Gathering evidence and information
• International negotiation systems
• Establishing contacts and building relationships
• Military and Police Interrogation techniques
• The analyst: collecting and analysing data
• Communication systems and override systems

Legal and forensic disciplines

• International law
• Law of the sea and maritime piracy
• Psychopathology and forensic psychiatry
• Organised crime
• General psychopathology
• Psychiatric clinical practice

Exercises & simulations