Nancy T. Ammerman

“ Both the seriousness with which agents treated Ross and the lack of seriousness with which they treated various theologians demonstrate again the inability of agents on the scene to make informed judgements about the information to which they had access and their inability to seek out better information. It also demonstrates the preference given to anti-cult psychological tactics over strategies that would meet the group on grounds that took faith seriously. ”

“ They must have at least as much "clout" in a situation as the person commanding the firepower. And, it is my sense that it may be important for the behavioral scientists to have some autonomy, to be something of an outside eye. Once a team of enforcement persons has begun to formulate a plan for dealing with a group, that plan is likely to take on a life of its own. The same dynamics that hold the religious group together also hold the enforcement group together. They are as determined to stick together against their "enemy" as is the group they are facing. ”

“ Finally, they should have understood that any group under siege is likely to turn inward, bonding to each other and to their leader even more strongly than before. Outside pressure only consolidates the group's view that outsiders are the enemy. ”

“ Taking the long view, not belonging to such a community is more abnormal than belonging to one. No matter how strange such commitments may seem to the rest of us, they are widely sought by millions of people. ”

“ And alongside all that religious fervor and experimentation has been our First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty. Only when there is clear evidence of criminal wrong-doing can authorities intervene in the free exercise of religion, and then only with appropriately low levels of intrusiveness. ”

“ In the culture of the law enforcement community, neither training nor experience prepares agents for taking behavioral scientists seriously. And in the crisis situation, behavioral scientists are out-ranked and out-numbered. ”

“ Law enforcement people are more aware than ever of the need for additional insight and training, and academics are more aware of their obligation to the public.
That new cooperation might take a number of forms. The various training facilities for federal law enforcement might host a series of consultations in which a small group of academics and a small group of agents work together for 2-3 days on problems and potential problems facing law enforcement. ”

“ The training for all agents should include units in the behavioral sciences and units that give attention to the nature of political and religious groups. These units should emphasize both the rights of such groups to exist unhindered and the characteristics of high-commitment groups that may be relevant to future efforts at law enforcement. ”

“ Such units should be aimed not so much as making every agent an expert as at sensitizing agents to the complex human dimensions of the situations in which they may find themselves. When they hear behavioral scientists advising them later, it will not be the first time they have heard such voices in the law enforcement community.
2. Advanced training. Incidents like Waco are, fortunately, relatively rare. Not everyone in federal law enforcement needs to be an expert on such situations. However, it appears that there is a need for a standing group of specialists in managing this sort of crisis. ”

“ It is important to see that new religious groups are usually more threatening to cherished notions about how we all ought to order our lives than to our physical well-being.
The corollary to their provocation of neighbors is that they themselves are likely to perceive the outside world as hostile. ”

“ Gordon Melton Institute for the Study of American Religion Box 9079 Santa Barbara, CA 93190-0709 Prof. Anson Shupe Department of Sociology Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, IN 46805 Prof. ”

“ These same persons seem to have been major sources for the series of stories run by the Waco newspaper, beginning February 27. It seems clear that people within the "anti-cult" community had targeted the Branch Davidians for attention.
Although these people often call themselves "cult experts," they are certainly not recognized as such by the academic community. The activities of the CAN are seen by the National Council of Churches (among others) as a danger to religious liberty, and deprogramming tactics have been increasingly found to fall outside the law. ”

“ A number of social scientists have written accounts of everyday life in such religious groups, and those accounts can help readers to understand the sense of coherence and belonging that outweigh, for the believers, any freedom of choice they give up. ”

“ No one ever had the responsibility of imagining what the people in the compound were like, how they might be thinking, etc. With dozens of federal law enforcement agencies, it would not be cost effective to set up behavioral science units in each one, but all of them need such expertise available to them. ”

“ They know that religious beliefs have to be taken seriously, and they know that it takes more than understanding an individual personality to understand the dynamics of a group. They could benefit from additional training and from access to reliable outside experts (about which I will say more below) , but they had the basic social science knowledge they needed to analyze this situation. ”

“ They should also have understood that new groups almost always provoke their neighbors. By definition, new religious groups think old ways of doing things are at best obsolete, at worst evil. Their very reason for existing is to call into question the status quo. ”

“ It is essential that persons in federal law enforcement use this occasion to think pro-actively about the kinds of situations they are likely to encounter in the future and to seek out now the expertise they will need in confronting those situations.
VI. A last word.
Finally, the presence of expert knowledge is of no use if behavioral scientists are kept marginal to the actual decision-making being done. For knowledge about human behavior to have any effect, scientists must be involved early and often. ”

“ The leader must discover the right elements to combine in a workable program, generate solutions to unexpected obstacles, choose and train capable leaders, and elaborate upon the initial ideas or vision that motivated the founding of the group....The group formally or informally gives feedback in the form of approval or disapproval of the leader's actions. ”

“ And isolation decreases the availability of information that might counter their internal view of the world. In this case, the federal government already enjoyed a particularly condemned place in the group's worldview. Taking that fact seriously might have changed the minds of federal agents who argued that using outside negotiators is always a mistake. Persons other than federal agents might have been able to assume a genuine third-party position in this case, translating and mediating between Koresh and the outside world. ”

“ In traditional hostage situations, a strategy which has been successful has been negotiations coupled with ever increasing tactical presence. In this situation, however, it is believed this strategy, if carried to excess, could eventually be counter productive and could result in loss of life. Every time his followers sense movement of tactical personnel, Koresh validates his prophetic warnings that an attack is forthcoming and they are going to have to defend themselves. According to his teachings, if they die defending their faith, they will be saved. ”

“ However, throughout much of the world and throughout much of human history, such neat divisions have not been the norm. People have lived in tightly-knit communities in which work, family, religion, politics, and leisure (what there was of it) fell under one domain. ”

“ The best account of the Jonestown tragedy is John R. Hall's 1987 book, Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History (New Brunswick: Transaction) . Also helpful is David Chidester's 1988 account of the religious dynamics of the People's Temple, Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple and Jonestown. ”

“ The most successful leaders are continually adjusting and reacting to that feedback" (p. 11) . Other essays in that book examine the relationship between groups and their charismatic founders, from the Shakers to the Moonies.
Understanding that the relationship between leaders, followers, and practices is a fluid one might have led agents to take more seriously the possibility of suggesting alternative apocalyptic interpretations to Koresh. Such a strategy was suggested (and attempted) by Houston theologian Phillip Arnold and University of North Carolina professor James Tabor. ”

“ They defy conventional rules and question conventional authorities. Not surprisingly, then, new groups often provoke resistance. A number of social scientists have examined the relationship between marginal religious groups and the surrounding society. ”