Velvet glove and iron hand: Police crisis negotiators' experience of interpersonal and coercive role demands in relationships with suspects.

Abstract

While law enforcement increasingly recognizes the potential of interpersonal methods as alternatives to the use of force, the police officer's own experience of encounters with citizens has received little attention. Like physical skills, the mastery of interpersonal skills should require attention not only to the "how-to" but also to the officer's experience of using them. Specifically, if the use of interpersonal skills with the public is to reduce--and not create a higher risk of--violence, it cannot involve the officer's simple replacement of the use of force with a "soft" approach. Rather, the interpersonal skills must comprehend the more complex psychological demand from the situation to be prepared both to use force against citizens to maintain order and to manage the emotional pulls and tugs that inhere in noncoercive, interpersonal interactions. Understanding the officer's "feel" of these conflicting demands and what psychological strategies might keep them in balance should improve police use of these methods. To gain that understanding, thirteen police negotiators were asked to participate in intensive semi-structured interviews. Using qualitative grounded theory methodology, interview transcripts were analyzed into a hierarchical structure of categories that became the frame for an explanatory theory. Three types of negotiator experience are identified. The impersonal and dominating types of experience are associated with the officer's reconciliation of the conflicting role demands through avoidance of conscious affective engagement with the suspect and through heavier reliance upon team support to maintain control. The third type features the negotiator's conscious emotional engagement in certain relationships and appears to be associated with a variety of strategies for reconciliation of conflicting role demands. One strategy involves integration of conflicting affects through tolerance of ambivalence, higher self-other differentiation, and reflectivity. Certain benefits of performance--including enhanced ability to assess threat, more efficient bonding with the suspect, more capacity to function autonomously, and reduced negotiator stress levels--appear to be associated with this strategy. Other potentially less successful strategies may be associated with heightened emotional stress, however. The study culminates in training and debriefing recommendations for improved use of interpersonal skills through better affect management.