Understanding Global Terrorist Hostage Taking and Kidnapping

Global hostage taking and kidnapping have recently become signi­ficant security concerns for the world community. This is due to un­intended consequences of globalization and terrorism.This book responds to this emerging security threat worldwide. This book is primarily based on the author's doctoral dissertation that analyzed the terrorism data collected by the Institute for the Study of Violent Groups at Sam Houston State University to study terrorist hostage taking and kidnapping. This book aims at providing a general understanding on the recent development of global hostage taking and kidnapping. This book includes three important aspects of this topic. First it shows the prevalence and general security challenge of global hostage taking and kidnapping. Also geographical hotspots are identified and described. Second it summarized previous studies and writings about this topic. Also it discusses guidelines and prin­ciples of hostage negotiation tactical assault crisis management prevention and hostage survival. Last it shows an actual research as an example. This study statistically analyzes and predicts the chance of hostage's survival or death.