Staff beliefs about the Negotiation of Serious Prison Incidents

Negotiation forms an important part of the response to serious incidents in prison, yet staff attitudes toward negotiation have been subject to very little formal investigation. This article presents the first research into a new scale, the Beliefs About Negotiation Scale. Preliminary investigation suggests that the scale has promising psychometric properties. With respect to convergent validity, the scale has overlap with the Attitude Towards Prisoners Scale. Divergent validity was demonstrated through the more positive attitudes toward negotiation among negotiators and incident commanders, in comparison to tactical staff and general staff. The implications for these findings are considered.