page_title: Hostage
section_title: 18 USC 1203: Hostage Taking Act
hierarchical_section_title: Hostage / Legal hostage-taking / Hostage-taking in the United States / 18 USC 1203: Hostage Taking Act
caption_attribution_description: English: Hostage Rescue Team members.
context_page_description: A hostage is a person seized by a criminal abductor in order to compel another party such as a relative, employer, law enforcement or government to act, or refrain from acting, in a certain way, often under threat of serious physical harm to the hostage after expiration of an ultimatum. The 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica defines a hostage as "a person who is handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war."
  A person who seizes one or more hostages is known as a hostage-taker; if the hostages are present voluntarily, then the receiver is known as a host.
context_section_description: Title 18 of the United States Code criminalizes hostage-taking under "18 USC 1203: Hostage Taking Act", which reads:
  (a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure, or to continue to detain another person in order to compel a third person or a governmental organization to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the person detained, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished by imprisonment for any term of years or for life and, if the death of any person results, shall be punished by death or life imprisonment.
  (b)(1) It is not an offense under this section if the conduct required for the offense occurred outside the United States unless—
  (A) the offender or the person seized or detained is a national of the United States;
  (B) the offender is found in the United States; or
  (C) the governmental organization sought to be compelled is the Government of the United States.
  (2) It is not an offense under this section if the conduct required for the offense occurred inside the United States, each alleged offender and each person seized or detained are nationals of the United States, and each alleged offender is found in the United States, unless the governmental organization sought to be compelled is the Government of the United States.
  
  (c) As used in this section, the term “national of the United States” has the meaning given such term in section 101(a)(22) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. § 1101 (a)(22)).
  The Hostage Taking Act is a subsection of the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages. It became enforceable in the United States January 6, 1985.
caption: Hostage Rescue Team agents
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