Preventing and Managing Violence in Organizations

Organizations of all types and sizes, whether they are a business, educational institution, healthcare provider, or house-of-worship, need to plan for the possibility of violent acts that may impact its people, assets, and activities. Preventing and Managing Violence in Organizations: Workplace Violence, Targeted Violence, and Active Shooters provides a comprehensive approach to addressing workplace violence, active shooter and assailant events, and other forms of targeted violence. The book takes a unique perspective that the prevention and management of violence in an organization is a risk and business management issue, rather than a siloed security issue. As such, the book’s objective is to help organizations develop a program for preventing and managing violence that can be integrated into their day-to-day overall business management approach.

The main theme of the book is that any program to prevent and manage violence in an organization needs to be an inclusive process: where everyone in the organization is viewed as a risk maker and risk taker, and therefore, a risk manager. The emphasis is on building a risk and security awareness culture in the organization so that everyone throughout the organization is aware and part of the solution. The book recognizes that many, if not most, organizations do not have a dedicated chief security officer to oversee the prevention and management of violence. It also recognizes that many resource allocation decisions are made by business managers, not the security manager.

While other books approach this issue from a security perspective, this book takes the perspective that providing a safe and secure environment within the organization, and protecting its people, assets, and activities, is a business management imperative. Therefore, the book emphasizes the need to promote a risk and security awareness culture that is integrated into the organization's system of management and all its activities and functions. The "Introduction" section of the book includes a brief description of violence in organizations and the imperative for integrating the prevention and management of violence into the organization’s overall business management strategy. The "Framework" section helps business, human resource, risk, security, and safety managers build a programmatic framework to support prevention and management of violence in all the organizations activities. The "Tactics and Control Measures" section provides tactical and operational advice and tools on methods to prevent, respond to, and recover from potentially violent events. For organizations that have adopted an ISO, Robust Process Improvement, or Six-Sigma management systems approach, they will immediately recognize that the elements described in the framework can be integrated seamlessly into their overall management system approach.

Preventing and Managing Violence in Organizations illustrates a systems approach for preventing and managing violence in organizations that can also be used for managing other types of operational risks. Security managers will find the book useful for integrating security in the organization’s day-to-day activities—as an integral part of these activities—rather than an add-on activity. Security professionals will be able to present their program from a business and risk management perspective.