An Overview of Workplace and School Violence Prevention

Abstract The safety of the American workplace began to change in the 1980s. The killings of 14 postal workers by a co-worker at the U.S. Postal Service in Edmond, Oklahoma, in 1986, and numerous other similar homicides in the early 1990s, resulted in workplace violence being one of the greatest concerns of employers in the United States. Considerable attention and research has involved the causes of workplace violence, the types and characteristics of the perpetrators, and the presence of warning signs. A number of comprehensive programs are now available, and are designed to prevent violence in the nation's workplaces and schools. Although workplace homicides have declined by approximately thirty percent over the past decade, the need for further research continues.