NCJ Number
132432
Journal
Security Management Volume: 35 Issue: 9 Dated: (September 1991) Pages: 138,141-142,144
Date Published
1991
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article reviews company options in using effective security and crisis-management techniques within cost-control parameters to address threats of violence in the workplace.
Abstract
The article focuses on security options in two cases: one involving company steps to prevent an apparent threat of violence by an employee and another that involved actual violence by the estranged husband of a company employee. In the first case, the company's crisis-management team provided onsite protection for the two threatened principals and increased off-hours physical security at the facility. It did not, however, address the possibilities of sabotage or business disruption as a priority. In this case, the major cost was in personnel assigned for executive protection. The only cost variable related to how long the protection team should be onsite before the principals arrived. Also, given that the potentially violent employee was terminated by the company, a decision must be made as to how long the extra security should continue. In the second case, the existing security measures were inadequate, since the employee's husband was able to enter the work facility to wound and kill a number of persons. The company was aware of the threat, but did not provide security sufficient to prevent the violence. Issues that must be considered are the target of the threat, means to prevent the subject from entering the work facility, steps the public police can take, additional mechanical and electronic security required, and the role of company security personnel in the development of a strategy to prevent specific threats of violence. Security cost factors stem from assessments of the risk of violence, the likely consequences of such violence, and the range of security options available to the company.