structural:summarization, stylistic:style_transfer, information:highlighting, linguistic:voice_change
Motives

There are varied motives for kidnapping. They particularly across perpetrators, such as individuals, enslavers, cults, criminal gangs, and insurgent groups.

The kidnapping of adults is often for ransom or to force someone to withdraw money from an ATM, but may also be for sexual assault. Kidnapping of children is usually done by one parent or others. Children have also been kidnapped for the commission of sexual assault.

In the past, and presently in some parts of the world (such as southern Sudan), kidnapping is a common means used to obtain slaves and money through ransom. In the 19th century, kidnapping in the form of shanghaiing (or " pressganging ") men supplied merchant ships with sailors, whom the law considered unfree labour.

Mexican gangs are estimated to have made up to $250 million in kidnappings from Central American migrants.

Kidnapping has been identified as one source by which terrorist organizations have been known to obtain funding.

According to a 2022 study by political scientist Danielle Gilbert, armed groups in Colombia engage in ransom kidnappings as a way to maintain the armed groups' local systems of taxation. The groups resort to ransom kidnappings to punish tax evasion and incentivize inhabitants not to shirk. A 2024 study argued that insurgent groups are more likely to engage in kidnappings "under two conditions: to generate support and reinstate bargaining capacity when organizations suffer military losses on the battlefield and to enforce loyalties and display strength when organizations face violent competition from other non-state actors."

Bride kidnapping is a term often applied loosely, to include any bride "abducted" against the will of her parents, even if she is willing to marry the "abductor". It still is traditional amongst certain nomadic peoples of Central Asia. It has seen a resurgence in Kyrgyzstan since the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent erosion of women's rights.

Express kidnapping is a method of abduction used in some countries, mainly from Latin America, where a small ransom, that a company or family can easily pay, is demanded. Express kidnapping is also used for an immediate ransom in which the victim is taken to an ATM and forced to give the captor money.

Tiger kidnapping occurs when a person is kidnapped, and the captor forces them to commit a crime such as robbery or murder. The victim is held hostage until the captor's demands are met. The term originates from the usually long preceding observation, like a tiger does when stalking prey. This is a method which has been used by the Real Irish Republican Army and the Continuity Irish Republican Army.

Kidnapping has sometimes been used by the family and friends of a cult member as a method to remove them from the cult and begin a deprogramming process to change their allegiance away from the group.