Offender
Profiling Series: Vol 3The Social Psychology of Crime
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Psychology of CrimeThe Social Psychology of Crime: Groups, Teams and Networks
Margaret Wilson & Alaster Smith
Rules and Roles in Terrorist Hostage Taking
This chapter examines what happens during terrorist hostage taking incidents and explores the way that behaviour can be used as an indication of underlying psychological concepts. It is argued that people's behaviour in hostage taking incidents appears to be guided by certain predictable patterns. Hostage taking is therefore viewed as a social interaction based on a set of mutually understood rules with associated role structures. The roles and rules of hostage taking are explored and considered in the context of what happens when the rules break down. In particular, it is proposed that hostage taking can be understood in terms of the interaction between two sets of behavioural 'rules'; one which guides the 'normal' behaviour expected during hostage taking incidents, and a 'fall back' set of rules which underlie people's everyday interactions with one another.
Margaret Wilson
is a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Kent
at Canterbury. She has worked in a number of areas of Applied Social
Psychology, and has a range of interests in Investigative and Environmental
Psychology. She is well known for her work on hostage taking, particularly
in the U.S. where she has lectured on the topic extensively.
Alaster Smith completed his first degree in Psychology at Aston University, after which he gained a Masters degree in Environmental Psychology at the University of Surrey. He worked as a research officer in the Safety Research Unit for two years, participating on various projects addressing the attitudes to safety in various heavy process industries. Following this he was appointed principle researcher on a project looking at behavioural variation in Trans-national terrorist hostage taking. This work was continued following relocation of the research unit to the University of Liverpool and the work on kidnapping became the topic of his forthcoming PhD thesis. Alaster now works for the Home Office Police Research Group and is principally involved in research on matters relating to traffic policing and vehicle crime.
