AN INTERVIEWING STUDY ON INVESTIGATION AND PREVENTION OF KIDNAPPING

AN INTERVIEWING STUDY ON INVESTIGATION AND PREVENTION OF KIDNAPPING[1]
Abstract
In recent years, kidnapping, which combines violence with fraud, has not only caused enormous social costs, but also intensified fear among the general public. If such fearful crime cannot be eradicated, then the negative impact will harm public prestige of the police and the government. Previous studies have either aimed at analyzing the conventional cause and effect for serious crime or emphasized preventing kidnapping and reinforcing investigative strategies. Few studies have simultaneously taken both investigation and prevention into account from various perspectives derived from the criminals, hostages and victim’s family. Therefore, this study is mainly devoted to interviewing criminals who have already been sentenced, hostages, victim’s family and police officers who have practical experience. The finding of the interviews will be used to facilitate investigation and prevention of kidnapping by police officers. Results from the study indicate that police officers should elucidate their situation and appropriately explain the investigative procedure when interacting with the victim’s family. In addition, police officers should teach the victim’s family how to negotiate with the kidnappers with a positive attitude to ensure the safety of the hostages. Furthermore, this study suggests that the prosecutor, police officers, victim’s family and the press should work together in order to successfully rescue hostages. Results of the field study on surveying kidnapping should provide the basis for a useful reference.
Keywords: kidnapping, interview, task force, forum
1. INTRODUCTION
Kidnapping is one of the most fearful crimes of violence to impose terror on society. The ransom not only incurs heavy social costs on the general public, but such crimes also often inflict immense injury upon the hostages and their family. If the hostage is a celebrity, who is popularly reported on by the press, then the case becomes headlines, which causes society to become more unsettled. According to statistics, one kidnapping case occurred every five days on average in Taiwan from 1997 to 2006, with every case damaging a family and extensively affecting security of the whole society. Recently, in 2004, a well-known kidnapping case, led by a criminal surnamed Zhang, happened in Taiwan. This case is a serious organized crime involved many gangsters who had terrifying firepower. These kidnapping cases had immense effects on public security in Taiwan resulting from several serious abductions happening one after another which committed by the organized crime group. For example, earlier, in 1995, the criminal Zhang together with another infamous gangster surnamed Zhan kidnapped the head of a travel agency and demanding a ransom of two hundred million Taiwan dollars, causing social uproar. Afterwards, in 2004, the criminal Zhang again committed several abductions, including kidnapping a famous host in Nantou, Taiwan and demanding a ransom of one hundred million Taiwan dollars; kidnapping the boss of a pawnshop in Tainan City, Taiwan and demanding a ransom of fifteen million Taiwan dollars; kidnapping a young transportation official in Tainan District, Taiwan and demanding a ransom of thirty six million Taiwan dollars; and kidnapping an important influential boos of video arcades in Taizhong City, Taiwan and demanding a ransom of two billion Taiwan dollars . At that time, the degree of satisfaction with the government based on questionnaire surveys dropped sharply when compared with previous years.

Under such circumstances, the government and the police must strengthen their procedural mechanisms and enhance investigative strategies to minimize the rate of occurrence of kidnapping as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, safety of the hostages must be the top priority when the police take action to tackle such crime, otherwise, should there be an unsuccessful rescue or errors during the investigative process, then the hostages might be harmed or killed. Naturally, such outcomes are unacceptable to the victim’s family, and perhaps the victim’s family would rather pay the ransom in exchange for the hostages’ return and decide not to trust police to handle the case. On the other hand, regardless of the difficult task of maintaining the safety of the hostages, the majority of citizens would rather the government did not give in to the criminals, and expect that the government and the police solve such crime in the shortest time possible. In reality, because police officers need to both protect the hostages from injury and arrest the criminals, thus, the investigation of kidnapping, including communication with victim’s family, negotiation with kidnappers, organization of a task force, preventive strategies, and so on, deserves an in-depth study.

Previous research in kidnapping can be generally divided into two categories: criminology theory and empirical study. Criminology theory, which involves the scientific study of crime and criminals, includes differential association theory, techniques of neutralization theory, deviance subculture theory and labeling theory, and emphasizes that criminal behavior of a person may mainly be influenced by frequency of learning, techniques of rationalization, location of environment and social control (Sutherland, 1937;. Sykes and Matza, 1935; Tarde, 2000; Burgess, 1921; Shaw and McKay, 1942; Becker, 1963; Hirschi and Gottfredson, 1983; Sheu, 2007). Whereas, other theories covered by criminology theory include routine activity theory and victim factor theory, analyzing the relationship between victim and crime claimed that the person who has the victim prone together with other accessible targets will likely induce offenders to commit crime (Cohen and Felson, 1979; Sparks, 1981; Huang, 2006). In addition, Clarke (1995) proposed the situational crime prevention theory in accordance with the concept of defensible space and believed in that the reinforcement of rational choice theory, environment ecology and routine activity theory will effectively decrease the possibility of crime. Other previous empirical studies have emphasized the social cost and techniques for investigating kidnapping (Miller et al., 1996; Walker, 1999; Brand and Price, 2000; Mayhew, 2003). The above surveys imply that the social cost amounts to around NT forty five billion every year to tackle serious crime and recover social stability, wherein the social cost includes the expenditure for preventing crime and reducing fear of crime, the cost of maintaining the judicial system and loss to the victims. In view of the high social cost incurred due to kidnapping, Huang and Hou (2002) proposed several principles by which the police should abide when negotiating with kidnappers. Yang (2005) analyzed 31 cases of kidnapping sentenced by the Court during 1996-2003 in Taiwan, and presented some suggestions to avoid kidnapping. Yet the analysis was just undertaken according to criminal cases recorded in documents instead of face-to –face interviews.

Despite the numerous investigations associated with kidnappings or abductions, most of the earlier studies concentrated on the reasons for and consequences of kidnapping or disclosed techniques for successfully rescuing hostages. In fact, the majority of successful rescuing of hostages and arresting of the kidnappers primarily relied on an understanding of certain characteristics of the kidnappers and complete communication with the victim’s family. Theoretical mechanisms may not be enough to tackle kidnapping cases because of the different practical situations involved in every crime. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to interview the criminals, the hostages who survived, the victims’ families as well as police officers who were members of the task forces, and explore their experiences and observations. The above results were recompiled, paraphrased and presented in a forum for discussion. After a period of discussion by experts, a great deal of valuable experience and practical techniques were extracted, including how to communicate with victims and their family, how to negotiate with the criminals, how to successfully rescue the hostages and solve the case, to facilitate the government and the police when investigating kidnapping cases in the future. The following contents of the paper begin with the description of the groups interviewed, followed by some findings from in-depth interviews and suggestions from the forum. We conclude with an elaboration on the research and extensions for future research.
2. PROFILE OF INTERVIEWED GROUPS
In order to better understand the causes, characteristics and phases of kidnapping from various perspectives, we visited and interviewed 44 people, after which we further assimilated the results of the interviews and discussed with focus groups to extrapolate strategies to prevent kidnapping/abduction. The main reason we adopted an interview method is that the interview is a kind of quality method with evolutionary procedures associated with inductive and deductive procedures, and is appropriate for scientifically exploring social phenomena. In addition, the numbers of kidnapping examples are limited and not suitable for statistical analysis. According to “grounded theory” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), researchers can arbitrarily stop visiting interviewees if the interview data is repeating. The variety of examples, in this study, have covered the general cases, thus the results from the interviews are valid.

There are four types of interviewees regarding their viewpoint, experience and motivation concerning the kidnapping: criminals, hostages, victim’s family and police officers. The requirements for being a candidate for interview and their background are described as follows. The requirements of the criminal candidates were that they were principal offenders or accomplices, sentenced to over eight years and they were between 25 and 55 years old when they committed the abduction. This study interviewed thirteen criminal candidates who met the above requirements. The occupations of these criminals were various, such like manager, solder, service personnel, fishery, cement industry and vagrants. Their level of education included college, high school, junior high school and elementary school. However, most of them were from low education. Regarding the profiles of the criminals, please see the details in Table 1. For the hostages, we visited nine victims, including eight men and one woman, and their level of education was from elementary school to Ph. D. It is noted that, in this study, the victims were normally rich and were not acquainted with the kidnappers. Further details about the hostages can be seen in Table 2. For the victim’s family, we visited eight people, including four men and four women. Most of them were rich and had good businesses. Three of them were acquainted with the kidnappers, but all of them insisted that they had no resentment against the kidnappers. More details about the victim’s family can be seen in Table 3. Regarding the police officer candidates, we chose those who had worked at least over 13 years at police stations investigating crime since graduation and had joined task forces at least twice to tackle kidnapping cases. Table 4 portrays the details of the police officers.
Table 1 Criminals’ profiles and their description of the crime
No.
Ag.
Oc.
Ed.
Ac.
Pr.
Abbreviated description of crime
C1
52
Agency
C
No
11/0
Asked creditor repaying debts unsuccessfully and thus kidnapped the creditors.
C2
37
Food industry
H
No
12/6
Pretended to be a police officer to investigate prostitutes and committed crime. The criminal was arrested by real police when victim’s family paid ransom after several remittances.
C3
29
Broker of call-girl
J
No
14/0
Kidnapped a person who had a sexual trade with the call-girl because the criminal was a broker and coveted the person’s wealth.
C4
35
Staff
E
No
10/2
The criminal was employed as a guardian to guard the hostage due to illegal immigration without regular jobs.
C5
34
Soldier
C
Yes
9/10
The criminal dispatched from military. Because his pension was defrauded by others so that he kidnapped his friend’s girlfriend to compensate the loss.
C6
26
Gambling lookout
J
No
3/10
Help his friend to kidnap his friend’s sister-in-law because his friend coveted his father-in-law’s wealth.
C7
32
A labor of tailor
H
Yes
20/0
Kidnapped a manufacturer of mobile phone cards because the criminal saw the victim’s luxuriously decorated house when he visited the victim about a mobile phone.
C8
28
Communication
H
No
8/6
Helped his friend asking creditor to pay debt off but eventually kidnapped the creditor for ransom.
C9
36
Sailor
H
No
10/8
Was acquainted with a gambling friend, and was tempted to join the kidnapping due to lack of money.
C10
25
Guardian of call-girl
H
No
12/0
The criminal was one of the accomplices in the case C4, but only partly participated rather than the whole kidnapping.
C11
28
Cement laborer
J
No
9/0
Joined a business with friends and kidnapped the victim because his friends had land disputes with the victim.
C12
30
Vagrant
E
No
Life sentence
The criminal habitually committed crime and was successful in several kidnappings. Part of a crime syndicate.
C13
31
Vagrant
J
No
To be waited
Kidnapped a victim who planed to drive a car at parking lot and then robbed possessions at victim’s house.
Note: Ag: age; Oc: occupation; Ed: education; Ac: acquainted with victims; Pr: prison term (y/m); E: elementary; J: junior high school; H: high school; C: college; U: university; G: graduate school
Table 2 Victim’s profiles and their description of kidnapping circumstances
No.
Ge.
Ag.
Oc.
Ed.
R/P
Pe.
Abbreviated description of kidnapping circumstances
V1
Male
43
Service
H
Rich
No/no
The victim was a busy temple worker and preferred social activities. One day, he was accidentally kidnapped by an unknown person after he received a friend’s call.
V2
Male
12
Student
E
Rich
No/no
The victim was kidnapped while playing a video game.
V3
Male
50
Business
C
Rich
No/yes
The victim was kidnapped because one of his tenants was envious of his wealth and familiar of his regular routine.
V4
Female
61
Business
H
Rich
No/yes
The victim had no fixed working schedule, and was kidnapped in his store at night, so he thought the criminal must have known his daily schedule.
V5
Male
46
Business
E
Rich
No/no
The victim ran a business which was not entirely legal, but profitable, and he was kidnapped because of high profits of business.
V6
Male
49
Public officer
C
Well-fixed
No/no
The criminal kidnapped the wrong hostage at the beginning. Afterward they accepted the consequence of a mistake and directly ransomed the wrong hostage instead.
V7
Male
54
Business
C
Rich
No/yes
The victim was followed and kidnapped when pulling his car over to the side of the road.
V8
Male
59
Business
J
Well-fixed
No/no
The victim ran a betel nut business, and believed he had no enmity with others, so he thought the criminal randomly kidnapped him because of lack of money.
V9
Male
53
Doctor
G
Rich
No/no
The criminal was envious of the hostage’s business and high reputation.
Note: Ge: gender; Ag: age; Oc: occuption; Ed: education; R/P: rich or poor; Pe: Personal enmity/acquainted; E: elementary; J: junior high school; H: high school; C: college; U: university; G: graduate school
Table 3 Profiles of the victims’ family
No.
Gender
Ages
Occupation
Education
Rich/poor
Relation with victim
Personal enmity/
acquainted
F1
Male
68
Business
U
Rich
Father
No/no
F2
Female
64
Housewife
U
Rich
Mother
No/no
F3
Female
52
Actress
H
Rich
Mother
No/no
F4
Male
63
Business
H
Rich
Husband
No/yes
F5
Male
69
Business
E
Rich
Father
No/yes
F6
Female
48
Housewife
U
Rich
Mother
No/no
F7
Female
49
Housewife
U
Rich
Wife
No/no
F8
Male
43
Farmer
J
Rich
Father
No/yes

Table 4 Profiles of police officers
No.
Type of police station
Official rank
Ages
Education
Years of work
P1
Metropolis
Commander
43
U
20
P2
Metropolis
Deputy Commander
42
G
20
P3
Urban area
Section Chief
37
U
13
P4
Suburban
Section Chief
45
C
26
P5
Country
Section Chief
38
C
17
P6
Country
Section Chief
46
U
26
P7
Suburban
Section Chief
46
C
26
P8
Suburban
Section Chief
49
G
26
P9
Central police
Section Chief
49
U
25
P10
Urban area
Section Chief
47
U
23
P11
Urban area
Section Chief
51
C
30
P12
Urban area
Section Chief
37
C
17
P13
Suburban
Section Chief
52
U
30
P14
Suburban
Section Chief
51
U
29
Note: E: elementary; J: junior high school; H: high school; C: college; U: university; G: graduate school
3. FINDINGS FROM INTERVIEWING
After interviewing the four groups totaling 44 candidates, we obtained a considerable amount of data, including the cause and motivation of kidnapping, techniques of the crime, injuries to the victims and mental harm to their family, interaction between family and police, operation of task forces, and so on. The results of the interview were categorized into four aspects as follows,
3.1 Motivations for Kidnapping and Methods – Criminal Perspectives
From our interviews we learned that the main motivations for kidnapping was to procure money or valuable possessions, while other reasons for kidnapping involved illegal gains, instigation or influencing factors from surroundings. In order to specify the motivations for kidnapping, we generalized six types of motivations based on our interviews with chosen criminals. In the main, criminals exploited the situation in which debts were owed by the victims or they helped friends collect debts as an excuse to gloss over their crime. In fact, the criminals were basically unsatisfied with the repayment of debts owed, and finally demanded more after kidnapping the victim. In some cases, because some of the criminals and victims earned their living through illegal activities, thus, the criminals rationalized their behavior because they considered the victims’ activities were also illegal. In any case, in this study, no matter what kind of motivations the criminals commit kidnapping, we found that most of the criminals neither stood the poverty in life nor resisted the outside temptation of valuable possessions. Accordingly, once given the opportunity instigated by friends, they hastily committed the crime without further consideration of the consequences. Besides, admittedly, in order to escape from police custody, many fugitives tend to commit kidnapping to raise living expenses during their hiding. The above findings and descriptions were depicted in Table 5. In this table, in addition to the six types of motivation, comparisons between motivations and corresponding crime theories were also carried out.

Table 5 Different types of motivation for kidnapping and relevant analysis
No
Motivation
Interpretation by interviewed candidate
Analysis/Corresponding crime theory
1
Collect debts as an excuse to gloss over their crime
C1: For the purpose of repayment of a three-hundred million debt, I directly forced the creditor to solve the problem by other means.
C8: One of my friends asked me to help him collect debts, but the creditor’s family reported the incident to the police and accused us of kidnapping with a gun.
C11: We were paid a commission to collect their debts…
The repayment of debts is often used by many criminals as a specious argument, but, in fact, they were basically unsatisfied with the repayment of debts owed, and finally demanded more after kidnapping the victim. Technique of neutralization theory seems to appropriately explain the state of mind that criminals of serious felonies tend to rationalize their crime.
2
Involved in illegal business/
activities
C3: I suspected the guy reported my company to the police, who then came and arrested several of my hookers, so I asked his family to pay a five million ransom. I have to confess that I could not tolerate myself to his prosperity.
C7: At the beginning, I quarreled with him because of the poor quality of mobile phone cards I bought from him for my friends. Afterward, I couldn’t get reasonable compensation for the loss of the poor quality of credit card, so eventually I decided to kidnap him.
C10: I was in charge of a call-girl business, and I was so angry when they kidnapped our girls. While I was negotiating with them, we kidnapped them instead. They were also illegal and wrong because they kidnapped our girls at the first place.
Some members of the criminals made a living from illegal businesses, and they were accustomed to extravagant lifestyles. In addition, they rationalized their behavior if the kidnapped person was also involved in illegal business. Social control theory states that people who have the trait of low social control cannot easily resist temptation and are prone to commit crime.
3
Sad plights in life plus instigation of friends
C2: My family was poor and some friends told me of an easy way to obtain lots of money in a short time.
C4: I could not find a suitable job after illegally immigrating to Taiwan. Afterward, I was hired to guard hostages, but I believe I was innocent.
C6: My friend owed me a great deal of money and asked me to help him stage a false kidnapping for a ransom from his father-in-law.
C9: I liked gambling but lost a lot of money. I was fed up with poverty and my friend suggested I find some cunning scheme to get money, so I kidnapped somebody.
C13: I owed lots of gambling debts so I had no choice.
Most of these types of criminals live in poor environments or are of low cultural background. Such socially disadvantages combined with the instigation of friends easily resulted in them committing crime. The culture conflict and differential association theories may interpret the circumstances.
4
Wish to have fast advancement in their career
C5: I was defrauded of my pension because I hoped to quickly accumulate more money after I left the army. But I failed and I was not able to put up with the burden of routine work.
C7: I was not satisfied with my income, and I wished I could enjoy a high lifestyle, but it was like a nightmare when lured into committing crime.
These types of criminals are not satisfied with their current income. Attracted to pleasure activities and wasting their money may easily lead these types of people with low social control to commit crime.
5
Have an opportunity to learn /commit crime
C2: My friends told me how to quickly get money, and I also learned of such methods from the newspaper.
C4: My friends told me that I was only in charge a small part of the job and if I were arrested by police, I might be accused to liberty offence only.
The criminals’ environment /friends provide opportunities for them to learn how to commit crime or teach them wrong concepts.
6
In order to escape from police pursuit
C12: We had no choice because we had to escape from police pursuit. Thus, we had to raise a large amount of money during our escape and we didn’t mind committing kidnapping one more time.
The criminal was labeled a bad student when he was a child. Labeling theory seems to explain the reason he committed the crime later in life.
On the other hand, we also explored various kidnapping techniques revealed by criminals when talking with them. Most of the criminals together with their accomplices would deliberately plan and share the whole kidnapping similar to an organized crime syndicate. There were two objectives for planning in advance and sharing responsibilities: one was to impede police investigation, and the other was to more easily and safely commit the crime. The first objective included concealing the place where hostages were confined or escaping from a misleading route for fear that the police or the hostages would learn of the location, and also making use of the hostages’ mobile phone, public phones, a phone-card or easy-pay phone-cards to avoid revealing their location when they communicated with the victim’s family. In addition, when they asked for the ransom, they intentionally, repeatedly changed the locations where both sides originally agreed to meet so as to hinder the police in their tracking of the offenders. Sometimes the criminals would injure the hostage and even send pictures or video footage to the victim’s family showing the hostage’s status and painful voice in order to frighten the family not to report the kidnapping to the police or to make them more willing to agree to pay the ransom. The second objective for planning in advance and sharing responsibilities included surveying the kidnapping location several times or following the victims in advance. Moreover, when kidnapping the hostages, the criminals would normally make the hostages take sleeping drugs and tie them up for easy control. Some of the more cunning kidnappers even reviewed the kidnapping procedure to ensure police officers had not already begun tracking them. They had also prepared several escape routes in advance in case of a police raid.

Some of the factors that enabled police officers to successfully rescue the hostages from the criminals were also obtained from the interviews. We summarized the factors under three captions, including alert and meticulous investigation, advanced technology and cooperation. According to recollections made by the kidnappers C2, C5 and C11, detailed investigations revealed that the criminals were apparently aware that somebody was tracking them one week before being arrested by the police. One of kidnappers recalled: “This situation occurred whenever we went shopping, but we did not find out what was wrong?” “We had no time to react when police entered.” “Our awareness of something being wrong proved to be correct later on.” From this, we learned that monitoring of criminals’ behavior and patiently tracking their activities before police officers prepare to rescue hostages are essential procedures when tackling kidnapping. However, it is noted that police officers must follow such procedures with the utmost caution; otherwise the whole undertaking will come to nothing.

During informal talks, some of the criminals, C7, C9 and C11, referred to matters concerning police equipment, and the majority of the criminals believed that the main reason they were caught was due to advanced equipment used by the police, including video monitoring, telephone monitoring and telecommunication recording. Without doubt, advanced technologies play an important role in investigating crime and in particular kidnapping. In addition, criminals C2, C3 and C7 acknowledged that they were arrested when they appeared to receive the ransom. Hence, they believed that the information police officers obtained of knowing the exact location for paying the ransom must be provided by financial institutions or the victim’s family. Therefore, cooperation between police officers, financial institutions and victim’s family is a crucial element to tackling kidnapping. Furthermore, police officers were able to efficiently narrow down the area of escape that the criminals would use and thus enabled pursuing other accomplices in cases where one of the criminals was arrested in advance. Some members of the criminals revealed on thing they feared the most was being betrayed by friends or accomplices and they also admitted that a sophisticated skill of inquiry adopted by police officers and a strategy with family affection, such as parents’ and friends’ persuasion could loose their mental protection. Consequently police officers may as well adopt such techniques which can successfully rescue the hostages.
3.2 Features of Kidnapping and Ransoming – Victim’s Perspectives
Reviewing the kidnapping procedures from different perspectives would enable the police to investigate the crime more effectively. From the previous section, our interviews with the criminals have enabled us to learn of the main reasons for them committing the crime and some of the methods they adopted to carry out the kidnapping and their escape plans. In this section, we interviewed the victims who have various viewpoints from criminals to extract some useful information, including various features about the kidnapping methods and ransoming methods. Being familiar with the features of kidnapping could help the public know how to prevent being kidnapped. For instance, victim V1 and victim V2 suspected that kidnappers had observed their surroundings in advance and were familiar with their daily activities. Victim V3 believed that he was followed by kidnappers, while victims V5 and V7 guessed that their friends had perhaps provided the kidnappers with inside information about their daily activities. In contrast to the above victims, victim V4 and V8 were kidnapped by criminals with weapons. Generally speaking, from the victim’s perspective, they thought criminals would prefer observing the victim’s daily life before kidnapping and then take advantage of opportunities to kidnap with weapons when the victims were unprotected. In addition, in order to avoid revealing their identity and location where the victim was detained, normally the kidnappers would blindfold the victim and seal their mouth with adhesive tape. Such features of kidnapping were similar to the methods extracted from the criminals’ perspectives since most of the victims believed the kidnappers followed them for a period of time before deciding on kidnapping them, while most of the criminals admitted that they planned the crime before kidnapping the victim. Therefore, from the above interpretations, it seems to know that criminals perhaps carelessly leave some traces while they were following the victims. In other words, if police officers could track every kidnapping process in detail, they should find out some helpful information concerning investigating kidnapping, such as the photographic pictures from video monitors equipped on the road. Table 6 is the summary of the features of kidnapping from the victim’s perspective.

Apart from the above features of kidnapping, we also extracted four types of ransoming methods according to the interviews with the victims. Usually, kidnappers would find a third party or allow a designated person, such as the hostage’s family, to pass on messages for both sides and even ask the person to hand over the ransom money in order not to leave any trace to the police officers. In addition, according to the description made by victim V1, the initial ransom amount was the highest, and was normally beyond the ability of the victim’s family to pay. According to previous cases that police officers successfully rescued hostages from kidnappers, one of main reason was that the victim’s family patiently negotiated with the kidnappers to reduce the ransom amount using various excuses. Hence, the police should teach family of the kidnapped person how to deal with kidnappers and encourage them only to concede after communicating with the kidnappers several times since the time delay provided by the victim’s family bargaining with the kidnappers is often a golden opportunity for police officers to rescue the hostage. Table 7 represents the ransoming methods extracted from the interviews with victims.
Table 6 The summary of kidnapping methods
No.
Feature
Victim’s description
1
Became familiar with the hostage’s daily schedule by observing their environment
V1: It was about 10:00 pm, and had just finished taking a bath when one of my friends phoned me to play cards, so I rode a motorbike to my friend’s house, and on my way there I suddenly realized that someone was following me, so I tried to escape, but their car collided with my motorbike and they kidnapped me. I believe they must have waited for some period of time outside my house.
V2: I was kidnapped when I was playing a video game at video arcade.
2
Kidnapped the hostages while following them
V1: On my way to my friend’s house, I suddenly became aware that someone was following me and so I tried to escape, but their car collided with my motorbike and they kidnapped me.
V3: I regularly left my office to have a meal with clients, and while walking to the parking lot that day, I turned right at the corner next to xxx school when several people got off a truck and blocked my way, after which one person forced me to get on the truck with a gun.
3
Kidnapped the hostages using inside information provided by an acquaintance or friend
V1: During the time I was kidnapped, the kidnappers seemed to know that my family would report the incident to the police, so they continuously changed their cars that detained me for fear that the police would them. In particular, they knew various details about my daily habits.
V5: One of the kidnappers asked me whether I knew who he was or not while guarding me in a bathroom. I was afraid of being killed if I recognized him. I was curious about why he would ask me such a question at that time and I guessed that one of them might be an acquaintance of mine.
V7: Unless acquaintances or friends, few knew my night activities.
4
Directly entered a house or store to kidnap the victim
V4: I didn’t leave my store until 10:00 pm because something occurred coincidentally that needed my immediate attention. They entered my store from the half-closed door and kidnapped me using knives and adhesive tape.
V8: When I opened the betel nut booth, they got out their car and forced me to get in. They had guns so I didn’t resist.
Table 7 Summary of ransoming methods
No.
Ransoming method
Victim’s description
1
Asked a third party to pass on the messages and hand over the ransom money.
V1: They originally demanded a NT$ 100 million dollar ransom, but agreed to reduce it to NT$ 50 million dollars through Mr. xx’s negotiations with the kidnappers, and eventually was able to reduce the ransom even further. The final ransom was NT$ 25 million dollars. All of them used Mr. xx’s cell phone to communicate. When my wife agreed to pay, they also asked the third party to handle collection.
V5: I tried to communicate with them and promised to find a person whom the two sides could agree to handle collection of the ransom.
V7: They asked me and my family to find a hoodlum to be a broker. But where can we find a hoodlum? I pondered for a while.
2
One of the kidnappers was in specific charge of the ransom.
V4: The kidnapper directly asked me for my husband’s telephone number and demanded a NT$ 10 million dollar ransom. The kidnapper was responsible for the ransom from beginning to end.
3
Asked a single person from the victim’s family to pay according to the kidnappers’ instructions.
V8: My wife asked them to allow her to hear my voice to ensure that I was still alive, but they disagreed. After that, they wanted to record my voice to eliminate my wife’s worries, but I didn’t agree because my recorded voice could be used by them repeatedly. Finally, they agreed to let us speak a few words before my wife conceded to paying the ransom according to their instructions.
4
Asked a specific person to pay the ransom.
V3: When they wanted me to pay the ransom, I suggested that they allow the chief of finance in my company to pay the ransom, because I told them Mr. xx knew my business well.
V9: The kidnappers assigned one of my friends to pay the ransom and forbade others to accompany him.
3.3 Obsessive Nightmares -- Victims and Their Families’ Perspectives
Kidnap victims and their families undergo a great deal of grief and stress, and understanding the grief and stress that kidnap victims and their families have to undergo will benefit police officers when communicating with them and winning their trust. The after-effects of kidnapping that hostages suffer from include both physical injuries mental trauma. The physical injuries were commonly caused by kidnappers while the hostages were being detained or resistance by the hostages, but such injuries quickly healed after being rescued by the police. However, in contrast to the physical injuries, mental trauma left unhappy memories or permanent damage in the minds of the hostages. In particular, the majority of the victims repeatedly suffered from recollections of terror during the period of kidnapping whenever the TV or magazines reported similar matters. Sometime, they would worry too much about whether strangers were following them or not, and such nervousness and anxiety lasted for a long period of time. If victims of kidnapping did not accept psychological treatment or see a doctor for mental therapy, then victims of kidnapping and their families might suffer from depression or other mental diseases, such as perpetual hurt, compulsive memories, hallucinations, rage, mental swings and distracted mind, …etc., and interfere with their subsequent daily lives,. The following typical examples described by victims depict several types of mental injuries representative of the hostage’s grief. We represented the mental injuries as main symptoms, side symptoms and characteristics, and are depicted in Table 8.
V1: I have a normal life now, but the terror of being kidnapped reoccurs whenever I see similar reports on the TV, in newspapers or magazines. Because I did not know whether I would survive or die as time evolved. I was extremely depressed, anxious and scared at that time. Such mental pressure pounded like waves in my mind and still exist. My wife was also subjected to such heavy stress that she could not sleep well during the harsh 10 days.
V3: Now I will pay great attention to whether somebody is following me because the dark shadow of the kidnapping is still present in my mind. I was also worried that the kidnappers would hurt my family if they did not succeed in getting the ransom. And this scared feeling has lasted a long period of time.
V4: Actually I am still stressed, because I heard that the accomplices of my kidnappers were not prosecuted or didn’t sue them at law.
Table 8 Mental injury types of the hostages
Type
Main symptoms
Side symptoms
Characteristics
Stress syndrome
Victims experienced the terror of upcoming fatality
Recall experience to the mind
Memories of the kidnapping repeatedly remind the victims of the incident.
Nightmares
Dream the processes of being kidnapped.
Imagine kidnapping
Fear of being kidnapped again.
Mental pressure
Stressed out by related reports of kidnapping.
Fear and anxiety
Nervous about related reports of kidnapping.
Victims generate reactions of escapism and numbness
Avoid recalling the incident
Avoid recalling and talking about the details of the kidnapping.
Inability to recall the incident
Unable to recall memories of the painful incident.
Less social activities
Uninterested in social life.
Distrust
Excessively cautious of other people/events.
Isolation
Feel alone and unhappy
Emotionless
Feel less energetic towards everything
Victims have some irrational physiological reactions
Insomnia
Unable to eat and sleep well
Irritable
Lose temper/ out of temper
Distracted
Unable to focus on handling something
Offensive
Usually causing gastralgia or other uncomfortable symptoms due to anxiety.
Alarmism
Easily shocked by trivial things

Similar symptoms happened to the victims’ families because they had to endure huge mental pressure and injuries when suddenly facing such a drastic event. The mental pressure and injuries were caused by the uncertainty of safe return of the victims and time to wait for the outcome of this crisis. The symptoms included fear, worry, anticipation, sorrow and sublimation. Three types of general symptoms were categorized in this study according to the interviews with the victims’ families. The first type involved scary emotions and reactions therefore, which were described as follows.
F2: I was like a fish out of water when listening to the news. The time waiting for the criminals next message was frankly like torture combined with fear because I had no idea what next step I should take. …I cried for several days and had an emotional breakdown because my son had still not returned home one day after paying the ransom.
F3: It has been nine years since I encountered the misfortune. I was full of sorrow from crying everyday in the beginning, and only now have my tears dried. Perhaps the kidnapping was just a bit of social news because I am not a celebrity, but it was really a catastrophic event for me.
F7: When I received the news, I could hardly believe the fact that my husband had been kidnapped, and that the terrible thing actually happen to my home. Usually I feel unsafe when my husband is not at home or is returning home late because of the frequent reports on TV and the mass media concerning kidnapping.
The second type of mental injury incurred by the victims’ families was worry for the hostage’s safety.
F1: The thing that worried me most was imagining the possibility of my kid being abused, hurt or maltreated by the kidnappers and being locked up in a small cage. I seemed to hear his crying and whispering in my ears and seemed to see tears on his face. Whenever I imagined such things, I could not eat, sleep and felt depressed. Sometimes, I imagined that it would be better if he died in a car accident than being kidnapped because of the endless suffering during the ten months in which was too much for us to bear. Later on, the despair was replaced with anxiety after I learned of the news that my son was already dead.
F6: Till now, I worry about my family’s safety when they return home late and this feeling of anxiety occurs all the time.
In general, the victim’s family looked forward to the hostage’s safe return. As the victim’s family F2 described: “I definitely hoped my son could come back but a feeling of hopelessness immediately came over me when my son did not return according to me my expectations.” This family’s description seems to show that the family knew if the police could not successfully rescue the hostage, the family’s anticipated emotion would dramatically become a despaired mood. Accordingly, the police should take into full consideration the depressed state of family members and place safety of the hostage as a top priority, thereby increasing the chances of successfully saving hostages and effectively tackling kidnapping.
F2: I definitely had the hope of my son’s safe return. The torture combined with fear more than I could bear, so I was relieved after paying the ransom. But unfortunately, despair immediately came over me because my son didn’t return as expected. Such anticipation turned into a significant wound that has left me with an eternal scar in my memory.
F3: I was not able to recover from the sad memories, in other words, I didn’t forgive them for their heartless behavior. I believe that those who commit crime should be strictly punished otherwise they are bound to commit other crimes again.
Regardless of the torture they had to undergo, most of the victims’ families praised police efforts, and would rather believe that the majority of people in the world are good natured. Some of the families even devoted their time as well as wealth to help the public or the police attack serious crimes rather than go on suffering from the sorrow of kidnapping. Like victim families F1 and F4, when they learned that their loved one would never return, they detached themselves from the suffering and participated in activities involved with public welfare. Their statements were as follows,
F1: I told my wife that we have only one son and now he has left us forever (died). We knew that he liked to plant flowers before his death so we planned to buy a garden to remember him and send saplings to children who were interested in gardening. I hoped when the small trees start to grow, it would indicate that the torch of life continue to be handed down
F4: I would like to donate some of my income to upgrade the video monitoring system in our community to improve the security of our citizens. I hope my contribution will help to reduce the rate of serious crime, even though my donation is small compared to the total social resources of the government.
3.4 Factors of Successful Rescue – Task Force’s Perspectives
According to the above statements, victims as well as their families would feel great relief if police successfully rescued hostages from kidnappers. Hence, researching the key factors for a successful rescue naturally becomes one of the critical tasks when investigating kidnapping. In this study, we extracted some useful information from the interviews, and we also carried out extensive analysis from police officers’ perspectives and provide several recommendations on rescuing hostages to an elite group of senior officials who had participated in the operational investigation of kidnapping.

Most of the task force members believed that the time when the victim’s family or citizens who witnessed something concerning the kidnapping and reported the details to police officers is the prime time to rescue hostages from kidnappers. If the police officer receiving the reports could immediately inform their coworkers patrolling in the vicinity, then the police might either rescue the victims while the criminals were escaping, or the task force could obtain precious information, which could benefit subsequent investigations if the police officer could deliberately consult with the reporter regarding the kidnapping processes. In addition, the task force should try to earn the trust from the victim’s family, because cooperation from the victim’s family is also a vital factor in the successful rescue of the hostage.
P2: We cannot unreasonably expect the victim’s family to obey our instructions word by word, but we should instead persuade them to work with the police. As to the recommendations, I think the police must show professional ability and advanced investigative skills to eliminate anxiety from the victim’s family. Anyway, the hostage’s safety is the primary concern of the family.
P4: For those kidnapping cases I participated in, I preferred to communicate with the victim’s family about our goal which was to ensure the hostage’s safety. Such communication reassured the family that the police have really considered the hostage’s safety and that the police officers understood the family’s grief, so both sides (the police and the family) reached a consensus when rescuing the hostage.
P7: From my experience, I generally prefer telling them about some successful cases to boost their confidence.

Members of the task force are recommended to make sure whether the hostage is still alive or not when they start processing the investigation. Without firm assurance of the hostage’s safety, the task force should not hastily trigger off the arresting kidnappers, otherwise the hostage could be killed by the kidnappers during the rescue process. Moreover, some of the main factors endangering the hostage include interaction between the hostage and the kidnappers, such like the hostage is acquainted with the kidnappers, and the hostage knows the escaped track or not. Police officers should regularly inform citizens to notice the information by making use of various opportunities, such as anti-crime publications.
P8: The police can instruct the victim’s family to ask a few personal questions when communicating with the kidnappers about the ransom in order to find out whether the hostage is safe or not. For example “who is the classmate who sits next to the hostage?”, “where did the hostage go last weekend?” and so on.
P9: We would rather accept the fact that the victim’s family pay the ransom than learn of the bad news that the hostage has been killed by the kidnappers because of our investigations. We can still catch the kidnappers after the ransom has been paid, but we cannot bring a dead hostage back to life.
P1: Generally speaking, the kidnappers would not tend to kill the victim at the beginning because their purpose is ransom not murder. There are many factors endangering the hostage, including the victim recognizing the kidnappers, the place where the hostage is held and whether the kidnapping is reported by the mass media.The greater the accumulation of negative factors, the greater the possibility of the hostage being killed.

Apart from police offers paying full attention to the initial reporting of a kidnapping by the family and/or citizens and adopting investigative techniques that earn the confidence of the victim’s family, most of the interviewed police officers thought that the task force should follow several rules to effectively tackle the serious crime of kidnapping. First, the task force should have an explicit instruction system.. In other words, chief of the task force (normally the police station commissioner) should fully authorize professionals to act on his behalf while he/she merely plays a supervisory role of organizing the task force, including assigning complicated jobs, mastering the programs of investigation and making decisions on press releases. Next, the different subgroups of the task force should trust and fully cooperate with each other. For instance, the tasks assigned to the various subgroups should be undertaken adequately and results from the assigned tasks should be presented and appropriately discussed in task meetings. Without question, cooperation also includes working with other groups, such as telecommunication companies and financial institutions, with which friendly relationships should be built during normal times. Third, it is important to employ an expert negotiator with experience of communicating with criminals, and it is noted that the negotiator, when communicating with the kidnappers, should clearly inform the kidnappers the standpoint of the task force using common language rather than formal legal terminology. Nevertheless, the task force can occasionally apply certain recommendations, such as handling part of the communication with the kidnappers or persuading their relatives to soften the kidnappers’ attempt. Trying such methods may sometimes be more effective than formal communication via the negotiator. Finally, members of the task force should filter out the useless information and further analyze the useful messages to appropriately allocate tasks to police officers, otherwise, the enormous tasks would waste money and time for the task force. Furthermore, the task force should be equipped with essential modern facilities and equipment, including (a) facilities to analyze communications (b) audio and video monitoring systems (c) global positioning systems (GPSs) (d) facilities to test DNA (e) fingerprint recognition equipment (f) facilities to collect crime scene evidence (g) money-dying devices (h) facilities to investigate internet IPs, and so on.
4. INTERVIEWS AND DISSCUSSIONS WITH EXPERTS
From our interviews, we obtained a number of valuable opinions as well as various perspectives about kidnapping covering motivations and methods of kidnapping, victim’s injuries and several factors to take into account to successfully rescue hostages. However, despite the large amount of productive data from interviewing the strictly chosen criminals, victims, victims’ families and task forces, some of the viewpoints expressed may by subjective and made from a personal perspective. Hence, the findings may not become empirical rules because of their subjectivity, and can not be used for reference by other researchers unless they are thoroughly examined and discussed by experts in forums. Accordingly, we invited 12 experts with rich experience in exploring, investigating, judging or reporting kidnapping cases to discuss the issues addressed by the interviewees in a meeting to form a consensus. The experts included four professors each having over twenty years experience teaching criminology or researching crime related fields at university, a judge in the supreme court who has served in the district and high courts and sentenced over ten convicted kidnappers, a prosecutor in the supreme prosecutors office who has served in the district and high prosecutors office and investigated over ten kidnappings, a press reporter social press with over fifteen years experience who has reported over twenty kidnappings and five superior police officers who have experience in investigating ten kidnappings.

In order to narrow down the problems and complications associated with kidnapping, we summarized the opinions and recommendation we got from this study and presented to the invited experts with the following new issues to discuss and share information about.
(1) What are the serious consequences on the safety of the community, in terms of damage to society and injury to the victims as well as their families? What are the responsibilities of the government and how can citizens avoid such a horrifying crime?
(2) Apart from the known methods mentioned in the above section, what are the novel and derived methods of kidnapping? And how can the task force effectively and efficiently tackle the novel methods?
(3) In order to tackle kidnapping, how should the judicial system and other groups collaborate with police officers to respond to public requirements?
(4) What are other’s suggestions in terms of your professional perspective?
After the forum, we recorded the experts’ ideas in detail and extracted the following results according to the above issues.
4.1 Devote Entire Manpower to Prevent Kidnapping
The majority of experts agreed that kidnapping has an enormous impact on society, in particular affecting social safety because of the invasion of the victim’s freedom by the criminals, as well as the harm done to the hostage in order get a large amount of money in ransom, thereby not only causing physical injury to the hostages, but also permanently injuring the minds of their families. The tormenting nightmares for hostages and their families have been explained above. Hence, all of the experts appealed to the government to pay serious attention to such crimes and provide all facilities possible for the investigation of kidnappings. Apart from instigating investigations with the highest standards of integrity, the experts also recommended that it would be better if the police instructed citizens on how to avoid kidnapping, and for the police to add auxiliary facilities, such as video monitoring equipment and lighting to counteract kidnapping. In addition, the government should encourage communities to install video monitoring equipment and develop joint defense. On the other hand, regarding school safety, the experts suggest police officers should add police patrols around schools. The experts also indicated that the government should trace criminals’ movements after being discharged from prison and enforce the reeducation of people with a high tendency for crime. In conclusion, the experts consider the best way to prevent kidnapping is to solve the case and successfully rescue the hostages, and then let citizens know the severe consequences of kidnapping.
The experts also presented a variety of methods to prevent kidnapping as follows. With respect to the enhancement of citizens’ alertness as well as government improvements, the experts suggested that people who are rich or own a large enterprise should live in a generic life to avoid being a target of kidnapping by criminals. In addition, citizens should be alert to strangers in their neighborhood. However, should an unfortunate citizen be kidnapped, the experts suggested that the hostage do their best to remember some important facts, such as the number of kidnappers, their features, pronunciation, clothes and car license, because such facts provide important information for the task force to investigate.
4.2 Organizing a Task Force to Investigate Kidnapping
According to the interviews with the criminals, hostages, victims’ families and police officers of actual kidnapping cases, the experts considered that the kidnapping procedure could be summarized as follows: trigger the motivation, draw up the kidnapping plan (including vehicles, weapons, subject, communicating skills for criminals, procedure for kidnapping, places to hold the hostage and the ransom), organize and assign tasks, observe the environment of the kidnapping scene and simulate the kidnapping procedure, execute the kidnapping, hide and guard the hostage using terror, drugs, violence or injury, demand the ransom, avoid police investigation, stipulate how to pay the ransom (at a specific location, freeway, rail, …etc.), decide whether to set free or kill the hostage, share out the money and flee. In addition, according to the descriptions in the above section given by the hostages when interviewed, the conventional kidnapping methods adopted by the criminals could be summarized into four types: (1) going into the victim’s house and directly kidnapping the victim by a gun, knife or other weapons (2) waiting for the target in a parking lot, on the way to work or when going to school, or tracking the victim and kidnapping by force, (3) adopt some tricks (car accident, debt, visit) to kidnap, and (4) randomly kidnap the seemingly rich kid . It is clear from our study that there is no significant variation in the kidnapping methods. However, the methods for getting the ransom have changed considerable with time, from the “cast package” to remitting the ransom money and had money laundry done by the money through a third party, which the police now pay particular attention to and have increased efforts to prevent.

According to the various kidnapping techniques, the experts presented several improvements along with the key factors to efficiently solve the crime, which were more detailed than those provided by the police officers in the above section. First, the government should set up a task force to investigate serious kidnappings, wherein the task force must be organized into several subgroups which, if possible, should include maintaining, documentation, surveying, investigating, forensics, communication, supply and consulting subgroups to individual to take responsibility for different tasks. In addition, the members of the task force should constantly practice in preparation for handling a kidnapping case and be regularly updated and trained with professional skills. Second, the task force should be equipped with high tech facilities in normal times, and be supplied with the best equipment available when a kidnapping occurs. Third, the priority of the task force should be the safety of the hostage before starting operations and endeavor to gain the trust and help of the victim’s family. Particular attention should be paid to some of the recommendations, including keeping secret and camouflage when taking actions. In general, if the press learns of an operation in advance, then exposure of the police rescue operation by news released by the press would result in the operation failing. Thus, it is preferred that the task force carries out their operations at a separate and secret place. Fourth, the government should build a data base of kidnappings with records of various methods and types of kidnapping to be used as reference for other task forces. Fifth, the government should build international connections with other countries to prevent kidnappers from escaping abroad and further arrest the criminals who took advantage of far distance between countries and were still at large. However, despite the various types of prevention, the experts believe that the best method of prevention is to emphasize the education of children at home and school. Hence, successful education and the building of a complete crime tackling network could effectively restrain kidnapping together with other serious crimes.
4.3 Unite Departments to Tackle Kidnapping
Despite the hard work of police officers in solving kidnapping cases, the criminals will commit crimes again if the judicial system randomly allows bail for the suspects or doesn’t give an appropriate sentence. In addition, a kidnapping situation will worsen if the press just wants to hastily cover the tabloids with reports of the kidnapping without considering the safety of the hostage or provide a detailed report that may induce others to imitate the kidnapping, thereby creating a negative influence on our society. Consequently, the experts hope the public can attentively consider these problems, and the experts presented several viewpoints as follows.

Regarding kidnappings, the judges should consider the social cost the public has to bear and the long suffering and grief of the victims when sentencing the kidnappers and be cautious when making decisions to allow bail for suspects or giving parole for convicts. Furthermore, in order to recover social safety, the experts also recommended that the courts should detain and prosecute the suspect kidnappers, and provide more manpower to quickly finish prosecution and sentencing suspects to meet the expectations of the public. With regard to the conduct of mass media, the experts appeal to the press to follow some basic principles. The police together with the press should keep investigations secret. Before taking any action or reporting, the first priority of the police and the press is to consider the safety of the hostage. As for the balance between keeping investigations secret and maintaining the public’s right to know, it is preferred that the police actively communicate with the press and set up a standard operating procedure (SOP) so that the press can follow the rules and report news of kidnappings when they occur. The consulting team in the task force should take charge of this task. In brief, the press should not only play a supervisory role, likewise, the judges should not only be arbitrators, but also consider the public welfare at the same time.
4.4 Experts’ Suggestions and Bottlenecks (impasse, deadlock)
In spite of quite a few instructions, there are several real obstacles that may hinder police investigations if the criminals buy e-pay cards to replace traditional phone cards or employ satellite phones and internet phones, and the like. In addition, if the kidnappers ask the victim’s family to remit money via illegal banks or ask them to remit money to oversea banks, then these methods of paying the ransom will definitely add considerable difficulties to police investigations. Moreover, the criminals occasionally make false reports of a kidnapping to citizens, when in fact they want to cheat the victim out of money. Such situations make the police feel indecisive. Nevertheless, a portion of the experts were worried that misuse of internet phones would add the difficulties in investigating kidnappings, thus, they appealed to the government for proper supervision of internet phones and encouraged the government to review techniques on tracing messages from internet phones. In addition, the experts also suggested that manufacturers develop movement positioning systems (MPSs), that is, combine mobile phones with cell site identification and assisted global positioning systems. Applying such hi-tech mechanics would assist in quickly identifying the locations of mobile phones, and such techniques will certainly become an effective instrument in future crime investigations by the police.

Finally, apart from the kidnapping and ransoming methods mentioned in the above sections, the experts also imparted numerous useful recommendations on how hostages can maintain their sanity while kidnapped. First, in order to survive, hostages might as well cooperate with the kidnappers, that is, hostages might as well pretend to sympathize with the criminals’ situation and even show hostility toward the police. Second, hostages should have the will to survive and not casually drink unknown beverages, and only drink essential water and eat food. Hostages also need to prepare to escape at any time whenever an opportunity arises or take advantage to reveal any clues to a third party and police officers. On occasions, hostages could pretend to be sick or weak to be freed from the attention of the criminal, or feign a relationship with the kidnappers, such as chatting about coming from the same county in order to reduce their alertness. Hostages can often take advantage of opportunities to escape when the kidnappers are not paying attention. And third, it is most important for the hostage to tell the kidnappers that killing or hurting them is of no help whatsoever in obtaining the ransom. This will remind the kidnappers of their objective, which is the ransom money and greatly assist in the hostages surviving.
5. CONCLUSIONS AND EXTENSIONS
In this study, detailed interviews, including interviews with criminals, hostages, victims’ families and police officers, were undertaken to provide an understanding of how best to investigate and prevent kidnappings. Not only did we hope to understand the cause and effect of kidnappings, but also understand some of the novel methods used to commit kidnapping and corresponding methods to prevent kidnapping. After discussions and sharing of information by experts in a forum, objectives and complete concept on preventing kidnapping emerged, containing organization of the task force, reviewing of hi-tech facilities and cooperation between various institutions, and which included appeals to the government and the public to take kidnapping seriously. The study should be helpful in counteracting future increase of kidnapping incidents. Several important conclusions were derived from the interviews and the forum, and are asserted as follows.
1. The main motivation for kidnapping is to get money and valuable possessions. Therefore, we suggest that people who are rich or own a large company to have a more low-key lifestyle lest they easily become a target for criminals to commit kidnapping.
2. Conventional crime theories include social control theory, techniques of neutralization theory, culture conflict theory, labeling theory and differential association theory, which were used to classify the motivations of kidnapping derived from our interviews.
3. An organized task force is the prerequisite to effectively tackle kidnapping. The leader of the police task force responsible for a kidnapping case should organize the personnel according to the situation and investigative strategy of the case. It’s necessary to assess the professional ability and specialty of each member and assign the appropriate tasks accordingly. Most importantly is that the group members should cooperate with each other and develop teamwork, such as sharing criminal information to facilitate investigation.
4. While interacting with the victim’s family, the police should empathize with their situation and appropriately explain to them the investigation procedure. After the case is closed or finished, the police should encourage them to seek therapeutic help.
5. The following recommendations are offered to hostages to survive when they are kidnapped: (1) lower your attitude, listen attentively and concur with the criminals’ opinions; (2) maintain the will to survive; (3) prepare to cry for help and escape at all times; (4) refrain from casually eating any food offered by the kidnappers, but try to eat enough to keep alive; (5) advise the kidnappers that by keeping them alive they have a better chance of collecting the ransom money in the future; (6) act ill to obtain some sympathy; (8) refrain from arguing, screaming or crying; stay calm.
6. Police officers should regard the safety of hostages as the top priority and instruct the victim’s family how to face the kidnapping with a positive attitude. In addition, police officers need to receive regular training on how to negotiate with kidnappers, establish standard operating procedures (SOPs) in order to effect an immediately response, and communicate with the press.

Despite the above investigative strategies and precautions, several matters remain that deserve further research, for example, the government setting up a “post facto follow-up system” for the survivors and their families. Furthermore, the government should not only assist in the recuperation of victims and their families, but also concern about their needs and respond to their suggestions for future domestic safety policies. Finally, future undertaking of a cost study and a long-term survey regarding kidnapping are suggested to build an integrated system for preventing kidnapping.

REFERENCES

黃富源、范國勇、張平吾合著（2006），（犯罪學概論），臺北：三民書局。
Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders. New York: MacMillan
Brands, S. & Price, R. (2000). The Economic and Social Costs of Crime. UK Home Office Research Study 217.
Clarke, R. V. (1980). Situational crime prevention : Theory and practice. British Journal of Criminology, 20.
Cohen, L. E. & Felson, M. (1979) . Social Change and Crime Rate: A Routine Activity Approach. American Sociology Review, 44: 588-608.
Mayhew, P. (2003). Counting the Cost of Crime in Australia, Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 247, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra.
Miller, T. R. Cohen, M. A. & Wiersema, B. (1996). Victim Costs and Consequences: A New Look. Washington D.C.: National Institute of Justice.
Shaw, C. R. & Mckay, H. D.(1972). Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Sparks, R. F. (1981). Multiple Victimization. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology. 72,2:772-776.
Sutherland, E. H. (1937). The Professional Thief. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Walker, J. (1999). Estimates of the Cost of Crime in Australia in 1996, Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 72, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra.
Spark, R. F. (1981a). “Multiple Victimization, Evidence, Theory and Future Research,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Vol. 72(2): 772-776.
──(1981b). “Surveys of Victimization: An Optimistic Assessment.” Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research, 3: 1-60.
Sykes, G. M. and David Matza, Techniques of Neutralization, A Theory of Delinquency, H. L. Voss, Society, Delinquency and Delinquent Behavior, 1970.
[1] 本文業獲得2009年Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences論文研討會採用，訂於2009年3月14日於Boston發表。