Critical Incident Management: Strengthening the Relationship Between Crisis Negotiations and Tactical Teams

Crisis Negotiation Teams (CNT) and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams respond together to a critical incident. Although CNT and SWAT have the same goal of resolving a situation, their approaches are very different. Training together has been identified as necessary to balance the two approaches. This study examined practices and perceptions of CNT best practices concerning SWAT. A web-based survey was conducted, and 115 crisis negotiators answered questions about their perceptions about what are commonly perceived as best practices in crisis negotiations. Kendall’s tau statistical analyses were conducted to assist in comparing respondents’ perceptions of best practices to their implementation/usage within their department. In addition, focus groups were conducted with subject matter experts (SMEs) in crisis negotiation to gain further insight into their perceptions of best practices and experiences of working with SWAT. Given that SMEs had at least 10 years of experience, Kendall’s tau statistical analysis was conducted to compare this variable with the perceptions of the best practices and their frequency of use. There were significant relationships between the relative importance and frequency of use in all best practices related to the relationship between CNT and SWAT and training together; however, experience as a negotiator did not have a significant relationship with the best practices except training. The narratives from the focus groups expanded on the importance of training with the SWAT and discussed the roles of each of the entities during critical incidents.