As Part of OSHA Settlement, Prison Operator Must Take Steps to Protect its Workers from Violence
The GEO Group Inc. has entered into a company-wide settlement agreement with the Labor Department requiring the company to implement comprehensive procedures and policies to protect its workers from workplace violence in every correctional and adult detention facility that it manages in the U.S. "This corporate-wide settlement agreement will have a far- reaching effect and impact on correctional officers and other staff nationwide," said Teresa Harrison, OSHA's acting regional administrator. "This agreement is the first of its kind in the corrections industry that addresses the hazards associated with workplace violence." In June 2012, OSHA cited the company for workplace safety violations at a prison facility that it managed in Meridian, Miss. Under a three-year agreement, the willful citation has been reclassified as a serious violation and the company will pay a $13,600 fine. As part of the agreement, the company must hire a third-party consultant to develop and maintain a workplace violence prevention program and conduct onsite workplace violence safety audits at each of the 42 correctional and adult detention facilities that it manages across the country. The GEO Group also must create a corporate-level workplace violence coordinator position and develop a workplace safety committee at each of its facilities.
Read more
Quit Abusing 'Active Shooter' Term Until recently, the term "active shooter" was relatively obscure. But within the past year, fueled by catastrophic mass murders across the nation, "active shooter" has become widely feared as the modern-day boogeyman armed with a gun. Probing the active shooter data reveals a pattern far different from the impression left by the deadliest shooting sprees. Among the 110 active shooter cases identified since 2000, nearly three-quarters resulted in fewer than four fatalities, which is the usual threshold for mass murder. In sharp contrast to the "active shooter panic" is that mass shootings are not on the rise. Over the past three decades, according to official homicide data reported annually by law enforcement agencies nationwide, there have been on average about 20 mass shootings a year, with neither an upward or downward trajectory. The only increase has been in publicity and dread. The reason why the rampant misimpression about a raging epidemic in active shooters matters so greatly is in how it drives public opinion and public policy on guns, mental health and security. Excessive alarm, fueled by misleading news reports, leads to knee-jerk responses that are not necessarily for the best.
Read more
Workplace Violence: Be Prepared: Businesses and Employees Should Also Be Trained and Prepared For Violence
Minnesota school students are now required to practice how to respond to an active shooter in the building. Schools practice because of an increasing number of deadly events all across the county – including twice in Minnesota —where students have been victims of violence.
So it only makes sense that if schools have a plan and students and teachers know how to implement it, that businesses and employees should also be trained and prepared for violence in the workplace, said Vikki Sanders, during a business presentation Thursday at the Minnwest Technology Campus in Willmar. Employment Plus sponsored the event.
Sanders, from the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry’s workplace violence prevention resource center, said in the past government efforts to address workplace violence was considered a waste of taxpayer money. That changed with the Oklahoma City bombing, she said, and public perception has continued to evolve as shootings have occurred in shopping malls, military bases, an Amish community and a movie theater.
Read more 4
Fort Hood Shooting Focuses Attention on Military Mental Health
With numbing regularity, mental health professionals make notes indicating that troubled soldiers aren't a threat to themselves or others —judgments often made just days before the suicide. "The diagnostic tools we have are so crude that even the best-trained providers made (erroneous) determinations," said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the former vice chief of staff of the Army. "It should be sobering." That scenario played out with tragic results in the case of Spc. Ivan Lopez, the Fort Hood soldier who killed three of his fellow soldiers, wounded 16 others and killed himself. A month before the rampage, a psychiatrist examined Lopez and concluded he showed "no sign of likely violence.” In the wake of the killings, Fort Hood officials have promised a thorough review of the post's mental health system and fixes if outside investigators find gaps. But Lopez's case suggests that the underlying problem goes deeper than any shortages of mental health professionals or shortcomings in prevention efforts. Despite unprecedented investment in its mental health program, military and medical leaders still lack a basic understanding of what causes individual soldiers to kill themselves and, far less commonly, others. And, the scale of the problem is potentially vast.
Read more
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26