WORKPLACE VIOLENCE

Physical attack or assault resulting in death or physical injury of an employee in a place of business is the standard definition of workplace violence (a topic that attracted national attention in 1987), but victimologists have argued strongly that psychological and verbal abuse ought to be included in this definition.  The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) therefore defined workplace violence in 1991 as any physical assault, threatening behavior or verbal abuse occurring in the work setting. These violent acts include homicide, forcible sex offenses, kidnapping, assault, robbery, menacing, reckless endangerment, harassment, disorderly conduct, berating language, physical or verbal threats or vandalism of personal property. About the only thing that is not included (and sometimes is) in the definition of workplace violence is terrorism.

Each year, at least 1,000,000 people are victims of workplace violence, and about 1,000 of these cases are homicides.  Accurate numbers are hard to come by since at least 50% of the more minor incidents go unreported and there are other reporting problems.  In some states, more people die from being murdered at work than in traffic accidents. Homicide is the second leading cause of death for most retail, industrial, and office jobs, accounting for 17% of all injuries, and females are three times as likely to be murdered than males.  Homicide is the first leading cause of death for people who work in mobile occupations which come in contact with unstable or volatile persons, such as taxicab drivers, health care workers, social service, school or criminal justice settings, and males are three times more likely to be the victim of homicide.  Homicide in the retail domain is often associated with robbery or attempted robbery, where resistance increases the risk of violence about 50 percent.  Homicide in other domains is more likely to involve the unexpected presence of someone who is not supposed to be at a certain place.  Most workplace violence incidents involve persons known to each other, and no place or occupation is immune from violence.

The following are the domains (places) where workplace violence occurs, and the relative frequency of occurrences based on analysis of Labor Department statistics:

Victims of workplace violence are most likely to be 25-44 years of age, white (75%), slain with a firearm (80%), and come from a middle-sized city (population: 80,000-500,000).  Gender depends upon the domain. Perpetrators are most likely to be 30-60 years of age, a middle class white male (97%) employees (41%), ex-employees (46%), or domestic partners of an employee or a client (13%),  familiar or comfortable with firearms, intent on revenge, lethal in his intentions, and quite capable of murdering several individuals in the short course of his crime. In addition, the perpetrator will sometimes kill randomly and take his own life at the crime scene or somewhere in the proximity.  The attack is often well-planned, and interestingly enough, well-telegraphed by the perpetrator long before the incident, but some sort of denial, ignorance, or dismissal takes place among supervisors and coworkers who downplay the significance of warning signs.  In some cases, the perpetrator is a model employee, but most often they are disgruntled. Nearly 100% of fatal workplace violence is acquaintance crime.

Nonfatal assaults are more scientifically researched than homicides.  Precious little data exists on workplace homicides other than news media reporting (which may be distorted).  Each year, approximately 500,000 employees need an average of five days off work to recover from nonfatal assaults, totaling $55 million in lost wages and productivity. The most common forms of nonfatal assault are (in descending order): unarmed physical attack, shooting, stabbing, and rape. Attackers typically include co-workers, ex-employees, customers, visitors, relatives, and robbers.  60% of nonfatal workplace violence involves acquaintances or persons known to the victim, and 40% are attacked by strangers.

CATEGORIZATION EFFORTS

There have been numerous efforts to categorize or classify the types of workplace violence. Incidents are typically divided into categories based on relationship between the assailant and the victim or workplace:

• Strangers with no legitimate relationship to the worker or workplace entering the premises to commit a robbery or other violent act.
• Current or former customers, clients, or patients, some of who may be inherently violent (such as prison inmates, drug abusers and mental health patients). Situational violence may also occur when otherwise non-violent people lash out in frustration at delays in receiving, or denial of, services.
• Current, former or prospective employees; co-worker violence may occur between supervisors and subordinates or between employees of the same rank.
• Anyone who has a personal relationship with an employee -- even someone who is not a current or former spouse, partner, relative or friend entering the premises to harass, threaten, injure or kill an employee with whom he or she has a personal dispute.

OSHA offices also categorize incidents based on relationship, type of occupation, and relative risk. Their typology is not intended to be mutually exclusive, however:

• Type 1 events (60%) -- The offender has no business being in the workplace and usually enters the area to commit a robbery or other criminal act.  Late-night retail establishments are most at risk of this event.
• Type 2 events (30%) -- The offender is someone who is the recipient of an object or a service provided by the workplace. Hospital workers, police officers, correctional workers, social service providers, and teachers are particularly susceptible to this type of event.
• Type 3 events (10%) -- The offender has some employment-related involvement with the workplace as a disgruntled employee, ex-employee, or prospective employee. Retail establishments are most at risk, although other occupation categories may experience this rare event. 

Other categorization efforts look at the motivation behind the crime, and sometimes the target of the violence:

• Robbery -- The event is seen as a crime of opportunity since the target (usually some high-risk cash business) is often attacked during late evening or the early morning hours.
• Domestic or misdirected violence -- The event is a private problem, such as a domestic dispute, which has spilled over into the workplace.
• Employer-directed violence -- The event involves an employee or former employee who feels they have been disciplined or discharged unfairly.
• Terrorism and hate crimes -- The event involves someone motivated by political revenge or hatred of the government, and the random killing of innocent people.

UNDERSTANDING WORKPLACE VIOLENCE:
HARASSMENT/OBSESSION IN FAST FOOD JOBS

One of the things we know about workplace violence is the fact that it's tied into a complex web of relationship expectations that are built up along certain cultural expectations about the meaning of work.  Restaurants are typically the kinds of places where we meet people. Customers expect to be able to chat with other customers, and they expect the employees to provide some kind of "atmosphere" that reflects the personalities of the workers.  Customers also expect good service, value for their money, and to get it quick.  The fast-food industry generally consists of low-end, low-wage, time-consuming, stressful jobs that are demeaning and degrading.  Take a look at the people working behind the counter the next time you go into one of these stores, and you'll see that the personnel consist mainly of economically exploited immature, pessimistic, angry teenagers who pay more attention to the verbal banter going back and forth between coworkers than with customer service.

Fast food restaurants, like many other occupations, are breeding grounds for harassment, specifically co-worker harassment.  Most of it is nonsexual in nature, involving insults, barbs, or provocations traded back and forth between the coworkers relating to who got the most drunk at last night's house party, who's got the "hots" for whom, who drives the fastest car, who's the biggest brown nose with management, or who couldn't operate a cash register if you trained 'em for twenty years, etc.  At this level of deskilled occupation, assignment becomes important, and some of the most devalued job assignments are dishwashing, stocking, taking out the garbage, and cleaning tables or parking lots. Employees in these positions are the constant target of ridicule and harassment by other employees. Their anger consists of a perceived occupational blockage in being labeled only capable of being a dishwasher, for example, for the rest of their lives, perhaps being promoted to fry cook in a year or two.  The other employees fantasize with futility over how their cooking or cashiering positions might possibly prepare them for careers as a chef or in the information economy.  The fact is, however, that these are dead-end jobs.

In addition, management and supervision are typically lax, unskilled, and often part of the ongoing harassment dynamic.  Females make up an extraordinary number of fast food managers, and they have to deal with constant come-ons, requests for time off, drunken/threatening behavior, tardiness, and absenteeism.  Worker scheduling and discipline consumes at least 50% of the manager's time.  Employees always have disputes and ongoing grudges against their supervisors over hours scheduled ("She cut me back to 15 hours a week"), assignments ("She put me down to close every night this week"), and discipline ("You mean I'm fired just for coming in five minutes late"). The turnover in personnel also supports the bringing in of fresh, psychologically unscreened, new applicants.

A second type of workplace violence resembles stalking and consists of sexual obsession. Another one of the things about the meaning of work in our society is, that like church and school, the workplace is traditionally considered an appropriate place to find one's life partner or spouse.  Hence, unmarried employees (and even married ones sometimes) look at their place of work as a pool of potential new boyfriends or girlfriends.  Culturally, part of the expectation is that it's better to find your mate at work than having picked him or her up in a bar or tavern, and there are other expectations, both practical and impractical. Sexual obsession is sometimes called love obsession or romantic stalking, and it occurs in at least three varieties:

• The spurned ex-lover or spouse whose primary motivation is revenge

• The delusional erotomaniac who engages in bizarre, unrealistic fantasies

• The pathological dependent who finds it difficult to function without the attention of another

The second type is a DSM IV subtype called delusional disorder, subtype erotomanic, and it's not all that commonly diagnosed in cases of workplace violence because it requires the offender to believe that their victim is in love with them.  Much more common are cases in which the victim has clearly communicated something like "I wouldn't go out with you if you were the last man on Earth", and the offender simply refuses to give up, and more closely fits the diagnosis of dependent personality disorder.  The coworker relationship is more of a power struggle than a romantic entanglement.  This type of offender is much more likely than the erotomaniac to write letters, make telephone calls, engage in gift giving, and keep the victim under surveillance.  Also, the erotomaniac tries to keep their financial condition in order (so that they are worthy of their victim), while the dependent personality lets their finances and material condition deteriorate in a rapidly escalating  pattern of attempts to maintain some kind of relationship, any kind of relationship, even one where the victims is constantly telling them to "get lost".  The whole pattern is similar to various other kinds of disorders, such as histrionic and borderline, where the person gets some kind of (presumably) sexual thrill out of making advances that are constantly rejected.  Victims will, of course, find it to be a very disturbing form of harassment, and at the risk of promulgating stereotypes that feminism hopes would be put to rest, almost every place of work in society has something similar in the form of an "office tease" or "looker".  It's not so much the psychological characteristics of the parties involved, but the sociological role expectations people bring to work with them.

INTERNET RESOURCES:
Dr. Irene's Verbal Abuse/Love Addiction/Codependency Website
Gunman shoots 5 Dead at Wendy's 05/25/00
The Mindless Jobs and Waitressing Sucks Webpage

PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUSE IN THE WORKPLACE

The terms "psychological abuse or injury" refer to a legal convention known as "pain and suffering".  Generally, courts do not distinguish between the two with "pain and suffering" including physical pain, fright, nervousness, grief, worry, mortification, shock, humiliation, indignity, embarrassment, apprehension, terror, and ordeal.  In most cases, the abuse aggravates a pre-existing condition or prior susceptibility.  Susceptibility by itself is no defense at law to a liability claim, and neither are pre-existing conditions which are degenerative by nature, or only have their degenerative nature temporarily exacerbated.  At law, abuse in the workplace must be shown to be greater than "life is tough for everybody" and less than (but similar to) permanent physical deficits of an organic etiology with great practical consequences.  Most legal arguments focus on "precipitate or triggering" events with legal causation defined as anything understandable and credible (Frye standard).

Collecting monetary damages for psychological abuse will often require medical or expert proof of a "soft tissue" injury.  Soft tissue is everything but the bone or vertebrae, and the pain is located in the nerve endings.  The victim's complaints are regarded as subjective or psychosomatic, but nonetheless real since soft tissue injuries don't normally result in objective symptoms like swelling or bleeding.  Soft tissue injuries result, however, in scar tissue, which is permanent, and cannot be fixed with surgery.  The pain and suffering, in the form of severe restrictions on the victim's range of motions, mobility, and resumption of normal activities, is permanent. Perhaps this diagram, commonly used as demonstrative evidence, will provide an overview of how many layers of soft tissue there are:

With numerous exceptions, negligent conduct which results in psychological injury only is not actionable. Actually, the law is clearer on trauma caused to bystanders of workplace violence. Some courts, under a clear and convincing standard, have allowed recovery for emotional disturbances caused by witnessing injuries to a third party victim, but usually only when the bystander was in a "zone of danger", had a special relationship to the victim (close friend or family member), or was under a legal duty to be cognizant of the victim's safety.  An example of legal duty would be such as a lifeguard's responsibility for a drowning swimmer.  Another legal doctrine is the theory of premises liability, which considers whether the employer failed to exercise reasonable care in securing the premises (Lopez v. Rouse Co. 1994).  

Some of the principles of vicarious liability can be used in criminal charges against an employer, not just in attempts to recover money awards under civil law.  Workplace violence is one such area, and criminal charges are appropriate if the offender commits an act of violence with the employer's actual or apparent authority.  In addition, criminal penalties are possible for attempts to conceal "serious dangers" or any fraudulent misrepresentation of safety and security.  Under the respondeat superior doctrine, an employer can be held liable for injuries to others caused by an employee, but two conditions apply. First, the act of violence must occur within the course and scope of employment.  This usually requires that the employee uses the employer's equipment or is motivated by their job duties.  Secondly, the employer must have had knowledge that the employee is violent but did nothing to correct the problem; thus, the forseeability standard is applied.  For example, an employer is liable if an employee reports sexual harassment, the employer does nothing, and the employee is later attacked or injured.

Other forms of civil liability exist for employers.  Negligent hiring is the term used to describe not doing an adequate background check on an employee during the hiring process.  Negligent supervision refers to situations in which it cannot be known that the employee had violent tendencies before hiring, but later develops them on the job, and the employer fails to discharge or discipline the employee.  Negligent training applies to jobs in which dangerous instruments or potential weapons exist, and employees are not sufficiently trained on proper use of such equipment.  

The most common form of psychological abuse in the workplace is supervisor bullying. Examples of this behavior includes yelling or screaming, use of derogatory names, the "silent treatment", withholding of necessary information, aggressive eye contact, negative rumors, explosive outbursts of anger, and ridiculing someone in front of others. So-called "back-stabbing" coworkers also play a part in these behaviors. Perpetrators are typically suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, and display other symptoms indicative of a serial offender pattern.. 

INTERNET RESOURCES:
Bully Online: Profiles of Workplace Bullies (UK)
Campaign Against Workplace Bullying (US)
Foundation for the Study of Workplace Trauma
MyBossSucks.com

WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION

Discrimination in the workplace most commonly involves sexual, racial, or disabilities discrimination. Sexual harassment claims, of which the most common forms are quid pro quo (an exchange of sexual favors in return for keeping a job or getting a promotion), sometimes are considered in this category.  Sexual discrimination can also take the form of unwelcome sexual advances or verbal comments of a sexual nature, in which case it constitutes a hostile work environment, however, this is the most common form of racial discrimination. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the area where claims of racism and sexism are made.  In order to prove hostile work environment, a plaintiff must show (1) unwelcome harassment; (2) based on race; (3) which is so severe and pervasive that it alters the conditions of employment and creates an abusive atmosphere; and (4) some basis for imputing liability to the employer. Courts use a totality of circumstances test to see whether the actions were severe or pervasive enough to alter the conditions of employment or create an abusive atmosphere.  Congress has outlawed discrimination on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin", but it has not yet seen fit to include "sexual orientation". A handful of states (Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, NJ, and Wisconsin) and cities (NY, LA, Chicago) do, however, protect sexual orientation or "affectional preference", but employees who get fired on account of health reasons (AIDS or HIV) have to file disability discrimination suits. Gay and lesbians are not a protected class of people set up by the "equal protection" clause of the Constitution. Federal guidelines prohibit workplace discrimination on the supposed characteristics of an entire class of people.  So-called "glass walls" (job assignment) and "glass ceilings" (lack of promotion) are contemporary concerns.

Gender, racial, and disabilities discrimination commonly involves various Civil Rights Acts that have been passed into law in the United States, and some of these are as follows:

(1) The Civil Rights Act of 1866 - this one is enforced by private lawsuits only.  It is Part 42 of the USC (United States Code), and the subparts are referred to by Section (1981, 1982, 1983):

    (a) 42 USC Section 1981 - deals with private employment. It allows the victim to sue for compensatory and punitive damages if discriminated against by a private employer.

    (b) 42 USC Section 1982 - deals with parks & playgrounds. It allows the victim to sue if they are discriminated against by their neighbors while using sidewalks, common playground equipment, common areas outside the curtilage, etc. It doesn't come up much except in some gated community or homeowner association cases.

    (c) 42 USC Section 1983 - deals with actions by government officials, and allows what are called "class action suits" by a victimized group in society.

(2) The Civil Rights Act of 1964 - this one is enforced by the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), and their policy is to first issue an injunction (stop) order before prosecution.

    (a) Title II - deals with public accommodations. It lays out a laundry list of places (hotels, restaurants, gas stations, theatres, barber shops, taverns, health clubs, golf courses, swimming pools) were discrimination is not allowed. The victim must prove they were victimized through clear and convincing evidence.   It comes up a lot with so-called "private" clubs, and the courts have ruled that private must not simply be a for-profit organization. To be legally private, the club must have self-governance and member-ownership.

    (b) Title III - deals with state facilities other than school and colleges. It's mostly used to desegregate prisons and jails.  Action must be initiated by the Attorney General of the State who is supposed to monitor these things.

    (c) Title VI - deals with financial assistance programs, all federal aid, like AFDC, Student Grants/Loans, etc.  It doesn't apply to private banking programs.

    (d) Title VII - deals with all matters of employment (hiring, firing, compensation, comparable worth, job transfer, etc.) It only applies to employers with 15 or more employees and engaged in interstate commerce. This area of law has produced the distinction between "disparate treatment" (individual victimization) and "disparate impact" (group victimization).   Disparate treatment, to be proven, requires a showing of intent (usually quid pro quo; intimidation, ridicule, an insult).  Disparate impact, to be proven, requires a showing of statistics, and a social scientific interpretation of those numbers.   There are exceptions, however, in this area because something called BFOQ (Bona Fide Occupational Qualifier) allows employers to do a job audit and discriminate against people who have, say, disabilities, if there is no way to make reasonable accommodations for them, or the job skills require discriminating.

    (e) Title VIII (of the 1968 Civil Rights Act) - deals with real estate. It outlaws "refuse to rent" signs and policies as well as plain talk about what percentage of minorities might live/move in/move out of a neighborhood.  To be proven, race must only be shown to be a significant factor, not a deciding factor.

Constitutionally, discrimination cases are tested by the court using one of three tests:

• Minimal Scrutiny - applies Rational Basis Test, if legitimate government interest involved, used in public health & safety cases mostly.
• Strict Scrutiny - applies Compelling Government Interest Test, if compelling (not just rational) interest & law is narrowly tailored, used in race & religion cases mostly, reverses burden of proof.
• Intermediate Scrutiny - complicated test devised primarily to deal with gender discrimination cases

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 protects workers age 45 and above from various forms of blatant age discrimination, but subtle forms remain, such as downgrading job descriptions, lessened expectations of job performance, and newfound ways by management to put someone "out to pasture" such as "emeritus" status which has been regularly used in academia for many years to push elderly college faculty out.

Victim trauma reactions vary in response to harassment, bullying, and discrimination.  Suicide is quite common.  Far more subtle, however, are behaviors that psychoanalysts refer to as regression -- childlike drawing, doodling, scratching on desks, writing graffiti on walls.  Regression is a way of denying one has a need to be seen or heard.  It eventually leads to anger, and then to work rage, where the worker may engage in sabotage or terrorism. 

INTERNET RESOURCES:
Stress and Other Workplace Afflictions

GOING "POSTAL"

Despite the headlines, relatively few workplace homicides involve stressed-out workers "going postal", yet the news media promulgates this type of workplace violence as the norm.  In all fairness, such events do lend themselves well to sensationalism.  Here's a sample of some notorious cases from 1986-1999.

• July 29, 1999: Mark Barton, 44, walks into a day trading firm in Atlanta about 3 p.m. and began shooting, then walked across to street to another brokerage firm and continued shooting; 9 people were killed, and a dozen others wounded..
• April 15, 1999: Sergei Babarin, 71, opens fire in the Mormon Family History Library in Salt Lake City, killing two people and wounding four others before police shoot him to death.
• March 18, 1999: Walter V. Shell, 71, turns himself in after allegedly shooting to death his attorney and one of his clients in Johnson City, Tenn. Shell blamed the lawyer for a $100,000 loss in a dispute over his ex-wife's will.
• Jan. 14, 1999: Di-Kieu Duy, 24, allegedly opens fire in a Salt Lake City office building, killing one person and wounding another.
• March 6, 1998: Matthew Beck, 35, a Connecticut Lottery Corp. accountant involved in a pay dispute, fatally shoots the lottery president and three of his supervisors before killing himself. One of the victims also was stabbed.
• Dec. 18, 1997: Arturo Reyes Torres, 43, walks into a maintenance yard in Orange, Calif., with an AK-47 and kills his former boss and three others. Torres, who blamed the supervisor for getting him fired, is later shot by police.
• Oct. 7, 1997: Charles Lee White, 42, opens fire with a rifle at the San Antonio paging company where his ex-girlfriend worked, killing her and another woman before shooting himself to death.
• Sept. 15, 1997: Arthur Hastings Wise, 43, allegedly opens fire at an Aiken, S.C., parts plant, killing four and wounding three others. Wise had been fired two months before from his job at the plant,
• June 5, 1997: Daniel S. Marsden, a plastics factory employee in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., fatally shoots two co-workers and wounds four others after an argument at work, then kills himself less than two hours later.
• April 3, 1995: James Simpson, 28, a former employee at a refinery inspection station in Corpus Christi, Texas, shoots and kills the owner of the company, his wife and three workers before shooting himself to death.
• March 14, 1994: Tuan Nguyen, 29, recently fired from a Santa Fe Springs, Calif., electronics factory, uses a still-valid security code to gain access and shoots three people to death before killing himself.
• Dec. 2, 1993: Alan Winterbourne, 33, an unemployed computer engineer, opens fire in a state unemployment office in Oxnard, Calif., killing three state workers and injuring four others. Winterbourne flees, killing a police officer before police fatally shoot him.
• July 1, 1993: Gian Luigi Ferri opens fire with two assault weapons and a pistol in the San Francisco law offices of Pettit & Martin, killing eight people before taking his own life.
• Oct. 16, 1991: George Hennard crashes his pickup into a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, then opens fire and kills 24 people, including himself.
• June 18, 1990: James Edward Pough goes on a shooting spree in a General Motors Acceptance Corp. office in Florida, killing 10 people and wounding four others before killing himself.
• Sept. 14, 1989: Joseph T. Wesbecker, a 47-year-old pressman on disability for mental illness, kills eight people and wounds 12 others at a printing plant in Louisville, Ky., before taking his own life.
• Feb. 16, 1988: Richard Wade Farley, 40, angry that a former co-worker at ESL Corp. in Sunnyvale, Calif., had rejected his advances, storms into the company building and shoots seven people to death with a shotgun before surrendering. Farley is currently on California's death row.
• Aug. 20, 1986: Pat Sherrill, 44, a postal worker who authorities say was about to be fired, opens fire at a post office in Edmond, Okla., killing 14 people, then fatally shooting himself.

In recent years, there's been an interest in "profiling" the lethal employee.  One of the first attempts to do so was by Anthony Baron (1993) which is a widely published checklist that says there's a 90% probability of lethality if the offender has one or more of the following characteristics:

• History of violence
• Psychosis and/or projection
• Romantic obsession
• Chemical dependence
• Depression
• Pathological blaming
• Impaired neurological functioning
• Elevated frustration level
• Interest in weapons
• Evidence of personality disorder
• Vocalization of violent intentions prior to act
• Evidence of strange or bizarre behavior over time

Kelleher (1997) offers a somewhat different checklist which finds that certain features, like impaired neurological functioning, are uncommon, and that other features, like psychosis and personality disorders, are unknown.  The most common features are:

• History of violence
• One or more triggering events within a year
• Social isolation
• Romantic obsession
• Chemical dependence
• Severe or chronic depression
• Elevated frustration level
• Interest in weapons
• Vocalization of violent intentions
• Strange or bizarre behavior

A history of violence is the most reliable indicator. Often, the lethal employee has been an angry person since they were a young man, and they usually have a tendency toward pathological blaming.  A triggering event can be any incident, however minor, but usually is a series of incidents that threaten the person's ability to cope.  A socially isolated individual will have lived alone for many years, recently changed job locations, or suffered a separation or divorce.  The connection between social isolation and workplace homicide is strong. Romantic obsessions occur in a number of variations. Chemical dependence, or addiction, is assumed to be common.  Depression is the most common psychological disorder in the United States, and between 7-15% of people with it act out violently at some point. Elevated frustration is exhibited by an unwillingness to work with others and (sometimes) harassment toward coworkers or suicide gestures.  It generally takes a few years before the frustration becomes chronic enough to be called "elevated".   Kelleher calls the interest in weapons a "weapons fetish" and says they are preoccupied with weaponry or paramilitary subjects. Another strong indicator is a vocalization, or otherwise acting out, of violent intentions prior to committing a violent act.  A final, often overlooked, indicator is that fellow employees are often able to notice significant changes in behavior; hence, manifestations of strange or bizarre behavior are anything that causes concerns to coworkers.

Workplace violence has become a breeding ground for litigation wherein victims seek compensation for injuries. Such victims have the burden of establishing that the violence and injuries were foreseeable and that the defendant's conduct (their employer's) was unreasonable. The 1991 state supreme court case of Woodson v. Rowland (or the Woodson theory of recovery) puts forth a stringent burden in proving that the employer's conduct was "substantially certain" to cause violent act or injury. Since most state Worker's Compensation programs prohibit recipients from suing their employers, victims who intend to sue cannot collect worker's compensation. The more creative approach is to sue parent corporations, security consultants, security services, employee assistance programs, or any entity that played a role or shares responsibility.   

INTERNET RESOURCES:
Killers in the Workplace

LITTLE OR NO CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM RESPONSE

Generally, the criminal justice system takes a "hands off" approach to the problem of workplace violence. The area of study is inundated by contradictory research, numerous consultants, and news media hounds.  Federal law requires employers to provide a place of employment "free from recognizable hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious harm to employees".  OSHA further requires the keeping of OSHA Form 200 (Injury and Illness Log) and federal law also requires paperwork in the form of Workers' Compensation claims.  There are no requirements to document employee complaints, incidents with supervisors, or reports of suspicious activities (these are referred to in industry jargon as "low-intensity conflicts or threats"). Victimologists also concur with the relative infrequency of at least a Type 3 event, which are often called "rare events".

The Postal Service has experimented with various predictive instruments, but so far, none have achieved much scientific validity and reliability.  There are, however, numerous preventive checklists and risk assessment instruments.  It's unknown how well private business has incorporated this knowledge into standard operating business practices.  They tend to be little more than safety and security audits, or indicators of employee behavior needing supervisor intervention, and as an example include:

1. Persistent blaming or unwarranted criticism of coworkers, supervisors, or the organization
2. Unexplained, persistent mood changes
3. Evidence of depression or social withdrawal
4. Unprovoked outbursts of anger or aggression
5. Significant changes in work habits (tardiness, performance decline)
6. Evidence of substance or alcohol abuse
7. Refusal to follow work directives (work errors)
8. Bizarre or outlandish behavior in social get-togethers with coworkers
9. Argumentative, threatening, or combative behavior among coworkers
10. Persistent discussions that revolve around the subjects of weapons or homicide 

INTERNET RESOURCES:
AFSCME Workplace Violence Security Checklist
American Industrial Hygiene Society Checklist
BLS Report of 2000
Nurses and Workplace Violence
OPM Workplace Violence Report of 1999
OSHA Workplace Violence Report of 1999
OSHA Article on Workplace Violence
School Violence Links
Workplace Violence Research Institute
Workplace Violence from a Law Enforcement Perspective

PRINTED RESOURCES:
Baron, A. (1993) Violence in the Workplace. Ventura, CA: Pathfinder.
Baron, A. & E. Wheeler (1994) Violence in our Schools, Hospitals & Public Places. Ventura: Pathfinder.
Campbell, R. (1995) Substance Abuse in the Workplace. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Fox, J. & J. Levin (1994) Overkill: Mass Murder & Serial Killing Exposed. NY: Plenum.
Green, G. (1990) Occupational Crime. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Kelleher, M. (1996) New Arenas for Violence: Homicide in the American Workplace. Westport: Praeger.
Kelleher, M. (1997) Profiling the Lethal Employee: Case Studies of Workplace Violence. Westport: Praeger.
O'Connor, T. (1997) "Social Correlates of Workplace Violence" J. of Security Administration 20(1):28-39.
Smigel, E. & H. Ross (1970) Crimes Against Bureaucracy. NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Last updated: 06/19/03
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