When does one make the transition from being “kidnapped” to being “taken/held hostage”? From a public perception standpoint my WAG is that it depends on of whom the kidnapper/hostage taker is making demands (from an individual or corporation, kidnapped; from a government, hostage) but is there a legal distinction?
My perception is that kidnapped implies the whereabouts are unknown, maybe moving around, whereas “held hostage” implies a know location and a demand.
Examples: A girl is taken by a man and they disappear. She was kidnapped.
A man enters a bank and is now holed up in the bank with hostages. The hostages serve as a bargaining point. “Stay away and give me what I want or I kill the hostages.”
Legally - at least in Virginia - the distinction is meaningless.
Kidnapping is completed by:
See Va. Code § 18.2-47.
- Rick
“Secretes a person”? "Human secretion"is a crime? 
I think the main distinction is, as I said, that kidnaping implies unknown whereabouts more than “beign held hostage” does. It also implies more of a common crime than being held for political demands but the meanings mostly overlap.
Note that it was common for peoples in old times to exchange hostages as a guarantee thet they would keep their pacts. It was nothing illegal or criminal.
OTOH, kidnapping has always had a criminal connotation.
I agree with sailor.
They are, now, very similar terms. Kidnapping implies some level of secrecy to me, though, and hostage taking is more overt. Not ironclad, though.
I like the distinction that hostages are used as collateral of some form.
Re unknown vs known location, I think back to the hostages held in Lebanon in the 80s. Their whereabouts where unknown but they were referred to as “hostages.” That situation, though, is muddied by the politics involved as well as the temporal proximity of the Iran hostage crisis.
But then there’s Patty Hearst. AFAIK she was never referred to as a hostage, but then the demands in her case were not limited to either the private or the public sector.
In order to be kidnapped, you must be taken by force or by false pretense from your place of abode or employ…“taken away from” is the operative phrase.
Surely someone that has been kidnapped is being held hostage. Rather than the known/unknown location I think that differentiating between the two has some relevance as to whether the capture of (an) individual(s) was planned or not.
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A group attempts to rob a bank, the police arrive and the group are forced to take hostages - This was not part of the plan and so is a hostage taking
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The group now attempts to kidnap the child of the bank manager, demanding ransom - This is a planned action and so is a kidnapping.
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Hi Opal!
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The group belong to a paramilitary group in some jungle. They hold prisoner several gap year students who thought it would be nifty to live with the monkeys - This scenario puts my idea down the toilet. I guess it would come down to private / governmental demands.
Cite?
You’ve quoted the common-law definition, which has been replaced by statutory definitions pretty much everywhere. Is there any jurisdiction in which your defintion is still correct?
- Rick
I don’t think so. Hostage implies the person is being held as leverage so third parties will do or not do something.
Websters says hostage is [
If a girl is taken and raped she was kidnaped but not really held hostage.
If one must use “Hi Opal!” then one ought to use it correctly. It’s only used as the third and last item of a list. If your list ithout “Hi Opal!” is three items or longer, no “Hi Opal!”.
Somebody saw “Karen Sisco” on USA last night, didn’t somebody?
It sounds like kidnapping sort of includes being held hostage. I.e. you are kidnapped if you are held against your will. But you might also be kidnapped and held as hostage pending the payment of a ransom.
Actually, no. The question just popped into my head yesterday on the way home from work.
As always I have to preface this by saying the law in your state may be different. In NJ there is no distinction between kidnapping and hostage-taking. Both fall under criminal restraint . The confusion may come at the federal level. If someone is kidnapped then it falls under federal jurisdiction and the FBI is called in. This is because the assumption is made that the victim may be taken across state lines. There is a federal kidnapping statute which defines kidnapping as taking someone for money. There is also a federal statute for hostage taking .There are some very specific differences in the laws which you can read for yourself. Hope this is what you are looking for.
I think I remember on Maury Povich :rolleyes: He had a guest which a stalker broke into her house and held her against her will.
As he was dragging her to his car, he was apprehended at the front gate to her lawn by the police.
He avoided Federal kidnapping charges because she was not yet taken away from her own property.
As you can see from Otto’s cite, the person on Maury Povich would not have broken federal kidnapping law even if he had removed her from her own property.
So… no.
- Rick
My complete agreement follows the end of this quip. I’d noticed a sharp decline in ‘Hi Opal’ for the last 18 months or so…and now it’s perked back up. I’m not sure why.
If you must use it, it has to be number 3…like a filler.
-K