WORKPLACE VIOLENCE TODAY
Revisiting the Issue of Threat Assessment in the Workplace: How Accurate Can We Predict Future Violence? By Joseph A. Davis, Ph.D., Faculty, CSUF Crime & Intelligence Analysis Program, and Instructor, California Department of Justice, ICI - Institute of Criminal Investigation.
In light of the recent series of murders in Santa Barbara, the issue of violence prediction
and dangerousness again has surfaced. The assessment of dangerousness is not a mental health diagnosis, but rather a clinical impression based on the individual's past history of violence and to include a multitude of many other factors. As a subjective opinion, predicting
violence and future dangerousness bears the weight of much scrutiny and due diligence in the workplace. Threat assessment evaluations have inherent social and legal ramifications, and the responsibility must be accepted with the knowledge that accuracy may not always be achieved. No criminal act causes more concern to society than crimes which seriously injure or kill its citizens while at home, in a social setting, and particularly, while at work. Consequently, many people regard offenders who carry out these violent crimes with fear, believing involuntary commitment to a maximum security setting for an undetermined length of time or their death, to be the only choice as an absolute precaution against any future acts of violence. The issue of predicting future dangerousness has led many threat assessment professionals, as well as those in the judicial and law enforcement field, to debate heavily over the ability to accurately predict with any certainty the probability of future violent behavior or "dangerousness" of a person in question.
While there is no scientifically confirmed set of techniques or protocols for predicting the dangerousness of a person, corporate America has called for scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, criminologists and various security conscious investigative personnel to do the impossible; predict future behavior.
Human behavior, in general, may be defined as an individual's overt reaction and response to the environment. Dangerousness is loosely defined as the potential to commit a physical act of violence upon another person. Since behavior itself is based upon unquantifiable variables (both external and internal stimuli), the capability of predicting behavior, violent or otherwise, is quite limited. Similarly, the term dangerousness used by clinicians in diverse settings is, in fact, an abstract word for which a definition has not been codified or standardized for uniform interpretation by mental health professionals. In short, predicting future behavior is risky business.
Read m ore
Pass a copy of this edtion of The Wokrplace Violence Prevention eReport to a colleague in Human Resources, Security, Safety and/or Risk Management.
16
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