Law enforcement officers from across the country—as well as an international team from Singapore—are converging on Texas State University Jan. 13-15 for the 36th Annual Competition and Seminar for Crisis Negotiations.
The program is not open to the public.
Teams will be conducting mock hostage negotiation exercises from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. both Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday’s schedule will focus on classroom sessions.
Approximately 30 teams are participating in 2026, with municipal and state law enforcement units coming in from across the U.S., including representatives from Oklahoma and California. Local teams include Hays County, Austin, Comal County, New Braunfels, Round Rock and a consolidated Central Texas team. Competition judges hail from across the U.S. as well as Austria, Canada, Germany and Scotland.
Hosted by the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Texas State, the Hays County Sheriff's Office and the San Marcos Police Department, the negotiator training seminars provide basic and advanced training for hostage/crisis negotiators and personnel involved with critical incident situations. This includes police, correctional officers and jailers, tactical and special operations team members, other crisis response personnel, administrators and managers.
For further information, contact Wayman Mullins at the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at (512) 557-5025 or the Texas State Office of Media Relations at (512) 245-2180.