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>> 221 10 Workplace Violence Prevention and Aftermath Allen K. Hess and Clara E. Hess Workplace killings typically take just minutes, but workers and their companies have been left profoundly traumatized. In the months that follow, some companies have lost business and seen employees quit. Survivors have been too devastated to return to work. And family members often face lengthy criminal trials and questions that will never be answered. “No one is ever the same, no organization is ever completely the same after a tragedy like this,” says Mary Tyler, a psychologist at the Office of Personnel Management in Washington who specializes in workplace violence. “It’s a new normal.” —USA Today, 2004 Violence has become all too common in our workplaces. These tragic outbursts of mayhem have disparate causes and involve innumerable types of disputes. However, all events of workplace violence share two distressing features: they cause tremendous pain and anguish to the workplace involved and they contribute to a broader environment of fear in the workplace. Who can say his or her office is immune? Indeed, a violent attack can occur in nearly any work environment: a school or university, a factory or store front, a community theater or shopping mall, a hospital or taxi cab. Attacks can be carried out by employees, customers, clients, spouses, or strangers. And despite the sensationalized media focus on violence done unto a coworker, these attacks account for only 4–15% of total workplace homicides (Braverman , 1999; Sygnatur & Toscano, 2000). The remainder demands attention. Between 2004 and 2008, U.S. workplaces averaged 564 work-related homicides annually (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010). From 1993 through 1999, an annual average of 1.7 million people were victims of violent crime while at work in the United States (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2001). The vast majority of these incidents were either simple assaults (75%) or aggravated assaults (19%; Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2001). While these statistics are staggering, it is widely believed that workplace violence is underreported. Most violent or threatening behavior—including threats, verbal abuse, 222 > 223 be considered under the broader term workplace aggression, which encompasses all activities meant to harm another at work (Neuman & Baron, 1998). In contrast, we treat workplace violence as a more discrete term reserved for inherently violent behavior. Several factors distinguish workplace violence from aggression, especially the intent of the perpetrators and the severity of their behavior (Anderson & Bushman, 2002; Greenberg & Barling, 1999; Kraus, Blander & McArthur, 1995; Neuman & Baron, 1998). The discussion and analysis presented in this chapter are limited to workplace violence. After a series of violent attacks by postal employees in the mid 1990s inspired heightened academic interest in this issue, the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) developed a model that delineated three forms of workplace violence, based on the perpetrator’s relationship to either the victim or the workplace (Cal/OSHA, 1995; Howard, 1996). This typology was later modified to separate the third category into two, creating the current four-category system recognized by Barling, Dupre, and Kelloway (2009) and the U.S. Department of Justice (2004). We will briefly review the four broad categories, referred to as Types I—IV, before providing a more detailed analysis of each. Type I workplace violence occurs when the offender has no legitimate relationship with the victimized employees or organization and enters the workplace to commit a criminal act such as armed robbery, terrorism/protest violence, and random violence. Type II is violence caused by the workplace ’s customers while being served; perpetrators generally include customers , clients, inmates, students, or patients and their families while victims include clerks, nurses, social workers, teachers, and guards. Type III occurs when the perpetrator is a current or former employee who targets other past or present employees. For example, sexual harassment at work falls into this category. Type IV violence arises from a non-work relationship between the perpetrator (such as a current or former spouse, relative, friend, or acquaintance ) and an employee. We will now examine these four types of violence in greater detail, including their prevalence, common causes, event characteristics, the motivations of offenders, and the types of people who become perpetrators. Type I—Criminal Intent Type I violence occurs when a perpetrator who has no legitimate relationship to the workplace enters the affected workplace to commit a robbery or other criminal act. Noteworthy is that more than 65% of workplace homicides occur during a robbery (Sygnatur & Toscano, 2000). 224 > 225 of clients or patients acts aggressively towards an...

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