Predictive Modeling in Hostage and Barricade Incidents

The study examined 534 hostage and barricade incidents. Its objective was to present an integrated and formalized vision of current conceptualizations of critical incidents to optimize decision making. To this end, logistic regression and recursive partitioning models are presented and compared. In all, 18 distinct static and dynamic individual and situational factors were used to predict various outputs during this type of situation. Results highlight the importance of considering the origin of the emergency call and being barricaded in one’s home in the assessment of perpetrator’s propensity for violence, the fact that time is not always on the police’s side during critical incidents, and the relatively minor importance of hostage taking in the general comprehension of these high-risk events.