24/11/2006
Out of 7.1 millions companies in the United States, 5% had an incident within the 12 months related to violence at the workplace, according to the National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Even though about a third of these establishments reported that the incident had a negative impact on their workforce. After the incident, most of these companies did not do much to change their prevention procedures related to violence after the incident. Only 9% of these companies programmed a policy addressing the issue.

Violent incidents which occurred at the workplace were classified in four categories by the NIOSH:

• violence among colleagues,
• violence between an employee and a client/patient/student,
• domestic violence: when the perpetrator has a personal relationship with the victim who was assaulted at the workplace - e.g. family member, boyfriend, or girlfriend,
• criminal violence: when the perpetrator has no legitimate relationship to the business and use violence to perpetrate a crime - e.g. robbery, shoplifting).