Negotiation Skills and Prison Reforms: Lessons from History

There are various static, such as active listening skills used by negotiators to hopefully reason with hostage takers and get them to surrender. In The 1972 Olympic Terrorist Attack. Negotiators wasted time and gave no positive results which led the terrorists to believe that negotiators didn't take hem seriously. In the end many people died and the terrorists won because Black September forced the Germans to release the three terrorists that were apprehended. "The Attica Prison Riot of 1971 alarmed and outraged society. The public outrage brought about long overdue prison reforms including changes to public policy and administration.

The riot began on September 9, 1971 and ended on September 13, 1971 when state police stormed the prison and opened fire. " It is obvious that the prisoners at the Attica prison were determined to have their demands met or at least get their points across to the right officials, who would in turn make changes at the prison. The inmates wanted better living conditions, fair wages, better treatment, and religious freedom. One may believe that criminals should be treated like caged animals because they have omitted criminal offense, but in reality prisons are human and deserve to be treated as such (Adkins, 2011).

What turned the riot into a disaster was the fact that Governor Nelson Rockefeller was unwilling to allow proper negotiations to defuse the situation. Instead, the Governor ordered an assault which took the lives of several prisoners and law enforcement officers. Nearly 40 people died at the command of one person, who refused to compromise with the Inmates. The negligence of Governor Nelson Rockefeller cost many people their lives and the loved ones of these people also suffered (Rosenberg, 2014).

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A trained negotiation's team should have been In place to negotiate with the Inmates for the safety of the employees who were taken hostage. There's a possibility that If the Governor was willing to pay attention to the Inmate's demands and assure them that some form a change may have been possible, then all of those people wouldn't have died In such a tragic manner during the riot. The Governor obviously had no regard for human life when he ordered law enforcement officers to take back the prison. The assault cost 8 the riot and the assault caught the attention of the Government and the public.

Some of the demands of the prisoners may have been unreasonable, but the situation could've been handled a lot better than it was that day. "Black Septembers demands in the Munich attack: the release of more than 200 Palestinian guerrillas held in Israeli Jails, along with the release of German Red Army members Andrea Beaded and Laurie Inform, held in German prison. " The Germans failed at each attempt to use assault on the terrorists. There was either a leak in the plans to attack or the Germans lacked the knowledge needed to pull this off.

The terrorist found out about the plans by watching television and it mess that these terrorists outsmarted the Germans each time. The Germans knew that the demands of the terrorists were unreasonable and impossible, but there were no tactics used to save the lives of the hostages. Properly trained negotiators would not have allowed this particular crisis to go down the way that it did causing nine hostages to die. Trained negotiation's teams are now available to handle crisis situations in and outside of prisons and if things are done properly an event like the Attica Riot will continue to be a thing of the past.

The crisis negotiator would be able to monomaniac with the hostage takers to get to the root of the problem, secure the hostages, and possibly end the crisis without fatalities. Prisons now act out crisis situations involving the taking of hostages in order to be prepared if a duplicate of the Attica Riot would somehow take place. The acting scene is a necessary part of training for Corrections Officers employed by the prisons. The Germs used time which only delayed the killings of the hostages by the terrorists and at the end it shows that there was no way out for these innocent victims.

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