Violence Against Women and Mental Health – continued from page 25


Recounting studies from Europe, North America, the Middle East, Latin America, South Asia, and South Africa, Violence Against Women and Mental Health chronicles the astounding prevalence of intimate partner abuse, rape, so-called ―honor killings,‖ military sexual violence, sex trafficking, abuse within physician-patient relationships, and workplace violence that tears at the lives of women and girls. For readers of The Workplace Violence Prevention eReport, this book serves as stark reminder of the larger context within which workplace violence against women takes place. Readers confront the reality that violence against women, wherever it occurs, cannot be considered an aberration. In other words, violence against women is not the rare exception to the rule, but rather the rule itself. Unfortunately, this bears emphasizing because those of us who seek to end violence against women are wise to recognize that we confront an ancient and enduring legacy, one as big and old as civilization itself. Still another way to state this: We are not simply trying to restore justice for female members of the workplace, we are seeking to create justice for women in a world where such has never been reliably the case. This legacy—a beast known as patriarchy—will not be an easy take-down.


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Ask the Expert? What can employers do to prevent people with valid access to their facility from doing harm?


The key to understanding how to prevent people with valid access to your facility is to first accept and acknowledge that the possibility of a violent incident occurring is real. The point of this statement is that once we recognize the potential for a problem it puts us in the position to be able to develop a plan to avoid it, reduce the possibility of it occurring or to mitigate the impact should it occur. Consequently, the short answer is to prevent an incident we have to put a plan in place, ahead of time, to accomplish that goal.


Since the question asks about how to stop a perpetrator that has valid access it means the person is familiar with and knows how to enter your facility which means your options for preventing them from entering your facility are significantly reduced. The issue for a person with valid access turns to how do you reduce the likelihood of the person bringing a lethal weapon into your facility since otherwise there is no reason to deny the individual access. At one end of the prevention spectrum is the ‗inspect everyone‘ approach such as the TSA uses at airports. There are also technology based solutions that can automate the ‗inspect everyone‘ approach as well. Whether or not this approach is practical will significantly vary for business and organizational operations although the approach significantly will reduce the likelihood of a weapon getting into your facility.


Another option is to understand that ‗threat assessment‘ begins before you hire an employee or contractor. This means as a pre-hire activity you should be conducting a thorough ‗due diligence‘ or vetting process before you grant someone the means to access your facility. Thus, a background check becomes an essential tool in the hiring process that can help identify problematic behaviors that warrant addition scrutiny. A record of low locus of control (ability to manager anger), violent encounters, domestic violence, criminal history are indicators that warrant an in depth assessment to determine relevance to a specific job opportunity.


It is also critical that organizations‘ hold contingent workers to the same level of scrutiny as their regular employees since in many situations they are working side by side employees and doing the same work. To often organizations depend on the contracting firm they hired to handle the background check on the employee the firm is providing and little to know accountability or assurances that this process is being followed is put in place. Denying an individual that it has been determined does not fit, based on their work history and record, is the ultimate access control and the way to significantly reduce the likelihood of future incidents.


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