KnowYourself

Self-Assessment

Safety, Injuries and Violence

Characteristics of Perpetrators of Workplace Violence

Directions

Indicate whether or not you work with someone who exhibits the following characteristics:
 
 
Yes  No Prior Verbal Threats: If the employee engages in threatening conduct toward other employees or supervisors, this threat should be taken seriously and the employer should respond in an appropriate manner.
Yes No Intimidating Behavior: The employee may exhibit any of the following behaviors: repeated phone calls to the victim, following the victim, and/or leaving messages for the victim.
Yes No Mental Health Problems: Depression, fantasies, irrational/violent thoughts, paranoid delusions, and extreme mood swings all may indicate a potential for workplace violence.
Yes No Obsessions: The employee may be preoccupied with weapons and/or the military, or hurting a specific person. He or she may believe a romantic attachment exists to a co-worker.
Yes No Decline in Performance: Recent excessive and unexplained absences from the job, concentration problems, increased signs of poor health or hygiene and the inability to accept responsibility for errors.
Yes No Stress: Increased stress in the employee's personal life including financial problems, problems in his or her marriage or other relationships, inappropriate display of emotions on the job such as uncontrolled anger or excessive crying.
Yes No Substance Abuse: Some drugs increase paranoia and others can cause aggressive behavior. Alcohol is present in many violent situations. While there is no scientific evidence to substantiate that substance abuse causes violence, it is present in many of the reported cases of violent behavior.

Scoring

For every “Yes” you circled, you have identified a common characteristic of those who commit violence in the workplace. These characteristics should give you reason to be more suspicious or careful in any given situation. However, law enforcement personnel still do not have the ability to predict violent behavior in certain specific situations.  No definite profile has been accepted by the professionals in this area.
 

Source

This checklist was developed from information provided in Chapter 21, Section 3. Workplace Violence: Its Nature and Extent, Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice available at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/assist/nvaa/ch21-3wk.htm

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Copyright 1999.
Judith A. Baker
All Rights Reserved.