"Happy contented people have no desires to attack, it is the weak ones who are cruel."
~ Audrey Saint Violet, 1996
Workplace and Targeted Violence
Violence in the workplace can have devastating affects on a business, let alone the human toll from injury or loss of life. However, relatively few employers have established effective programs to combat the problem of workplace violence. As a result, an intelligence bulletin from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reported that each week, an average of 20 workers are murdered and 18,000 are assaulted at work. Non-fatal assaults' at work result in millions of lost days and cost businesses' millions of lost work days. And the most disturbing finding, homicide is the leading cause of death for women in the workplace. Read more ...
New Study of Targeted Violence Affecting U.S. Institutions of Higher Education
April 16, 2010, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have released a study of targeted violence incidents on U.S. campuses of higher learning. The June 2007 Report to the President on Issues Raised by the Virginia Tech Tragedy included a recommendation that the Secret Service, Department of Education, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation explore the issue of violence at institutions of higher education. This collaborative effort examines the scope of the problem of targeted violence at U.S. institutions. In total, 272 incidents were identified through a comprehensive search of more than 115,000 results in open-source reporting from 1900 to 2008. The incidents studied include various forms of targeted violence, ranging from domestic violence to mass murder. The findings should be useful for campus safety professionals charged with identifying, assessing, and managing violent risk at institutions of higher education. Link to online and PDF versions: http://www.fbi.gov/publications/campus/campus.htm
Safe School Initiative
Joint Message from the Secretary, U.S. Department of Education, and
the Director, U.S. Secret Service:
"Littleton, Colorado; Springfield, Oregon; West Paducah, Kentucky;
Jonesboro, Arkansas. These communities have become familiar to many
Americans as the locations where school shootings have occurred in
recent years. School shootings are a rare, but significant, component
of school violence in America. It is clear that other kinds of
problems are far more common than the targeted attacks that have taken
place in schools across this country. However, each school-based
attacks has had a tremendous and lasting effect on the school in which
it occurred, the surrounding community, and the nation as a whole. In
the aftermath of these tragic events, educators, law enforcement
officials, mental health professionals, parents, and others have
asked: "Could we have known that these attacks were being planned?"
and, "What can be done to prevent future attacks from occurring?""
Read more ...
Solutions
It
is of no surprise that adolescent attackers upon their schools are
mirroring their adult counterparts in the workplace. These
catastrophic events in the schools and the workplace do not occur in a
vacuum, and have many warning signs if one knows what to look for.
Fortunately, solutions are available through threat assessments and
active threat management interventions. But these solutions also do
not occur in a vacuum. The development and implementation of a threat
management team, advance training in the arena of threat assessments,
and an integrated systems approach can provide a proactive, reactive
and systematic solution to effectively mitigate violent and
threatening behaviors in the workplace, and in the schools.
Information on this site will hopefully provide you with some
direction in your attempts to effectively address targeted violence in
your setting.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, or would like to know more about the wide array of discreet professional forensic services available throughout the U.S. to meet your needs. ~ Dr. Manny Tau
