NCJ Number
215501
Journal
Journal of Police Crisis Negotiations Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Dated: 2006 Pages: 27-59
Date Published
2006
Length
33 pages
Annotation
This article describes the development and reliability testing of the Crisis Communication Rating Scale (CCRS), a behavioral coding system for verbal crisis communications that may be useful in predicting the outcome of hostage negotiations.
Abstract
Overall, reliability testing indicated that the CCRS was reliable for predicting negotiation outcomes, even when used by independent coders who were not developers of the system. However, the process of training the coders in the CCRS method was challenging and time consuming, taking approximately 30 hours. Recruiting individuals to be coders was difficult because of the time and energy required for training and coding. The CCRS was designed to determine whether the way verbal behaviors were presented during hostage negotiations led to violent or non-violent outcomes. The development of the CCRS involved the examination of the research literature in crisis communication and psychotherapy processes and the solicitation of direct knowledge from professional crisis negotiators. The coding system was designed to rate the behaviors presented by the crisis negotiator and the hostage taker. Coders were provided with examples, marginal code examples, and counter code examples of each behavior while they coded crisis negotiations. Reliability of the CCRS was examined by comparing the results of two independent coders with a set criterion established by the developer of the coding system. The comparisons were conducted with a set of three written training transcripts of simulated hostage negotiations provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and three real hostage negotiation transcripts also provided by the FBI, all of which were coded using the CCRS. The two independent coders were trained using a protocol designed for this research study and the competency of the coders was periodically measured. Inter-rater reliability was determined by using the Kappa statistic. Coders generally achieved either good or excellent Kappa values for each of the 30 codes and coders established a minimum level of agreement across a series of 4 practice coding transcripts. Future versions of the CCRS will contain a decision hierarchy. Tables, notes, references