Naval postgraduate school monterey, california thesis

2. 
Kidnapping vs. Hostage Taking 
Kidnapping is the surreptitious taking and holding of a person or persons 
for the purpose of achieving some personal or organizational gain (Bolz, 
Dudonis, & Schulz, 2002, p. 112). 
A kidnapping differs from a hostage siege in several ways, to include the tactics, 
techniques, and procedures required to solve the crisis. First, in a kidnapping scenario, 
the main goal of the criminals is to gain a ransom; the hostage taker, on the other hand, 
9
The 
American Heritage College Dictionary
defines biorhythm as an innate, cyclical biological 
process or function. Also known as the “…biological rhythm, it is a cyclic pattern of changes in 
physiology or in activity of living organisms, often synchronized with daily, monthly, or yearly 
environmental changes. Rhythms that vary according to the time of day (circadian rhythms), in part a 
response to daylight or dark, include the opening and closing of flowers and the nighttime increase in 
activity of nocturnal animals. Circadian rhythms also include activities that occur often during a 24-hour 
period, such as blood pressure changes and urine production. Annual cycles, called cirannual rhythms, 
respond to changes in the relative length of periods of daylight and include such activities as migration and 
animal mating. Marine organisms are affected by tide cycles. Although the exact nature of the internal 
mechanism is not known, various external stimuli—including light, temperature, and gravity—influence 
the organism's internal clock; in the absence of external cues, the internal rhythms gradually drift out of 
phase with the environment… physiological rhythms are also present in the activity of individual organs, 
e.g., the beating of heart muscle and the activity of electrical waves of the brain.” 
(http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/b1/biorhyth.asp, last accessed on 7 December 2003). 
10
Game theory is the branch of social science that studies strategic decision-making (Dixit & 
Nalebuff, 1991, p. 2).

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9 
seeks power
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in addition to and above all other demands, which usually include an 
exorbitant amount of money. Second, a hostage crisis usually occurs at a known 
location, with the terrorists already surrounded inside a structure; in a kidnapping, the 
security of the criminals rests solely on the clandestine
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nature of their location. Except 
for the ransom or telephone call, no one has any idea who or where the perpetrators are 
located (p. 112). Third, a hostage crisis will usually last anywhere from one to two 
weeks, depending on the logistical or physical constraints of the terrorists. Kidnapping 
situations can go on for months or even years. Finally, hostage takers are historically 
more brutal in their treatment of hostages, torturing or killing them at random to establish 
political shock and/or credibility. In contrast, the kidnapper’s success depends on 
safeguarding his victim. A trained negotiator will know this and understands he/she has 
more time to develop the scenario; in a hostage siege, the negotiator must buy time.