Courses

Basic Hostage Negotiations

This forty-hour course is designed to provide the foundational skills needed to become a law enforcement Hostage Crisis Negotiator. This training will prepare the student to meet the demanding requirements and certification criteria needed to be an active member of their agency’s Hostage Crisis Negotiation Team. Instruction includes current negotiation techniques, de-escalation tactics, managing emotions, hostage, and non-hostage situations, and much more. The technical skills learned during the training is reinforced by rigorous scenario-based exercises.

TRAINING TOPICS INCLUDE:

  • Introductions and Course Overview
  • Negotiator’s Mission and Goals
  • Philosophy of Crisis Negotiation
  • Types of Crisis Negotiation
  • Hostage Negotiations
  • Non-Hostage Negotiations
  • Core Negotiation Concepts
  • Critical Assessments
  • Suicide Assessment and Intervention
  • Active Listening Skills
  • Decision Making

This three-day course of instruction reviews relevant case law and rulings specific to Hostage Negotiators, co-existing with a tactical team, knowing when negotiations aren’t working, creating a Negotiation Intelligence Team, and conducting digital negotiations.

This training provides an awareness of liability concerns and established court guidelines for negotiators, team leaders, and command staff during critical incidents.  The course also covers why tactical and negotiator teams are co-dependent, the specific needs of each, and ways to bridge operational response gaps during critical incidents.  Negotiators are then provided with tools to evaluate the effectiveness of their negotiation.  This includes the process of identifying behavior markers that are indicative of peaceful or violent outcomes. A block of instruction is provided on Intelligence gathering techniques and how to decipher relevant information to be used to assist both the Negotiation and Tactical Teams.  Finally, in today’s digital age the likeness of conducting a negotiation through non-verbal means is becoming increasingly likely.  A review of specific techniques to engage in a digital negotiation is provided.

Attendees will also participate in scenario based and tabletop exercises to practice newly acquired skills and to master the basics.

TRAINING TOPICS INCLUDE:

  • Legal and Liability
  • Crisis Communications
  • High Risk Indicators
  • Tactical/ Negotiator Relationship
  • Non-Verbal Negotiation Techniques
  • Scenario Training

Advanced Hostage Negotiations

Advanced Hostage Negotiations for Corrections

This three-day course of instruction reviews relevant case law and rulings specific to Hostage Negotiators, co-existing with a tactical team, knowing when negotiations aren’t working, creating a Negotiation Intelligence Team, and conducting digital negotiations.

This training provides an awareness of liability concerns and established court guidelines for negotiators, team leaders, and command staff during critical incidents.  The course also covers why tactical and negotiator teams are co-dependent, the specific needs of each, and ways to bridge operational response gaps during critical incidents.  Negotiators are then provided with tools to evaluate the effectiveness of their negotiation.  This includes the process of identifying behavior markers that are indicative of peaceful or violent outcomes. A block of instruction is provided on Intelligence gathering techniques and how to decipher relevant information to be used to assist both the Negotiation and Tactical Teams.  Finally, in today’s digital age the likeness of conducting a negotiation through non-verbal means is becoming increasingly likely.  A review of specific techniques to engage in a digital negotiation is provided.

Attendees will also participate in scenario based and tabletop exercises to practice newly acquired skills and to master the basics.

TRAINING TOPICS INCLUDE:

  • Legal and Liability
  • Crisis Communications
  • High Risk Indicators
  • Tactical/ Negotiator Relationship
  • Non-Verbal Negotiation Techniques
  • Corrections Specific Scenario Training

Interview and Interrogation

This 3-day course of instruction is designed specifically for law enforcement officers. The focus of this training is to prepare investigators to utilize effective methods of interviewing and interrogation techniques.  Attendees will be able to identify the differences between an interview and interrogation and learn ways to structure interrogations to identify and address deceptive verbal and non-verbal cues from suspects and much more.

TRAINING TOPICS INCLUDE:

  • The Communication Process
  • Developing an Interrogation Process
  • Dealing with Denial and Deception
  • Recognizing verbal and non-verbal cues
  • Common Body Language Indicators
  • Keys to Successful Interrogations
  • Juvenile Interrogations
  • False Confessions
  • Legal Guidelines and Case Law

This 3-day course is designed to provide investigators with the tools and techniques they need to thoroughly investigate robberies in their communities. From the initial radio call to prosecution, attendees will explore each phase of investigating this type of crime and learn new methods of investigations as well. Students are encouraged to bring any unresolved robberies to class for review and suggestive input. Significant class participation will be involved in actual case studies presented.

TRAINING TOPICS INCLUDE:

  • Robber Psychology
  • Robbery Classifications
  • Crime Scene Management
  • Forensic Evidence
  • Investigative Tools & Techniques
  • Eyewitness Identification
  • Court Guidelines & Case Law
  • Interview and Interrogation
  • False Confessions

Robbery Investigations

Campus Law Enforcement Response to Critical Incidents and Crisis Situations

The purpose of this course is to provide you, the Campus Police Officer or SRO, with the necessary knowledge and techniques utilized in responding to on-campus critical incidents, as well as crisis negotiations/intervention in private and/or public elementary and secondary schools as well colleges and universities. It will focus on the duties of the first responding officer to a crisis and what actions if any should be taken until a trained negotiator arrives. De-escalation and containment of conditions such as occupying protesters, faculty/student altercations, on/off campus sexual assaults and harassment, domestic violence situations, suicidal threats, and radicalization of students are challenging issues that school assigned law enforcement face across the nation regularly.  The response to conditions such as these is in many cases more important than the resolution.