Workplace violence is a reality whether it happens at warehouse, plant, parking lot, hospital or treatment center, and office or while sitting in your car taking notes. It should not be swept under carpet. The average out of court civil suit settlement is in range of $300,000 to $500,000; jury rendered verdicts awarding $1 Million dollars plus. A clear reporting system should be implemented and all employees should be trained and encouraged to report all incident

Training and Security Awareness makes good sense. While all supervisors and managers should receive some form of orientation on Threat Assessment and Risk Management all employees should receive training also. Key to fair and equitable determination of an incident is total analysis of available information about participants, incident and environment. Knowledge of how to conduct a fact-finding investigation should be part of Threat Assessment Training for supervisors in determination of type of disciplinary action or deciding criminal prosecution. Companies wishing to gain a perspective of their workplace violence potential risks should begin with a security survey of all employees and environment. Training to assist employees in identifying warning signs of workplace violence and what steps to take to de-escalate incidents before eruption is next. Essential to a good workplace violence prevention program is policy and plan to deal with incidents. Unfortunately, some companies have paid little to no attention to implementation of asecurity policy and plans because, "We don't have a security problem here".

2. Are we really safe...

Linda Lockwood, PhD, Metropolitan State College of Denver says that workplace violence is obviously a serious problem that must be better understood in order to prevent its occurrence. Its cost to our society is measured in terms of dollars and human life. For instance, it's second greatest cause of death in workplace for men and first greatest cause of death for women (E. Gonzalez, Confronting workplace violence psychologist traces everyday causes, Rocky Mountain News, October, 1999). Recent headlines underscore reality that workplace violence is a phenomenon, which affects every institution and workplace, and that perpetrator is a microcosum of our society.

Nevertheless, we must guard against potential acts of violence by doing something; being aware, holding participants accountable and providing support services. Employee security checklist and opinion surveys are essential tools available to security consultant to assist in assessment and evaluation process. They will tell you that lights in parking lot are not working, that they feel insecure visiting clients or patients alone or that a reduced hospital staff on weekends leaves hospital security short of staff. Preparation will help to minimize injury and risk of fatalities.

3. What studies show...

Actually, our friends are like so many other people who use their computers primarily for communicating with family and their friends by email, sharing personal pictures, playing a few games, doing a little research now and then, making airline and hotel reservations, and maybe even balancing their check books.

Surfing internet for them was just a sometime thing, not necessarily a must-do daily routine.

They were aware of computer viruses and had even heard of firewalls. Occasionally, public comments on TV and in newspapers about wide sweeping virus attacks with odd names like ‘MyDoom’, ‘Sasser’, and ‘Bagel’ caught their attention.

After those reported epidemics were no longer news items, they simply put them out of mind, and resumed use of internet.

When they purchased their computer a few years ago, it came with virus scanning software but not a Firewall program. So, they believed ‘they were protected’!

The general public didn’t really care about Trojan Horse dangers then, because no one was really making an effort to inform them of insidious efforts of Hackers, spammers, and malcontents who were flooding internet with their poison.

Even today, there are computer users who believe that they don’t need a firewall. They aren’t aware that Firewalls help stop some of viruses and worms that are hidden in email attachments and other downloaded information.

They aren’t aware of new strains and variants of worms, adware and other spyware programs that crop up nearly daily, or that there are over 70,000 identified computer viruses.

They aren’t aware because for past few years, their chances of actually being infected by a computer virus were very small, and spyware and adware weren't even discussed in general news media.

Not so any longer!

Some authoritive researchers have determined that internet is so dangerous today, that an unprotected computer connected to internet is likely to become infected within 20 minutes of going on line.

A protected computer today MUST HAVE an up-to-date Firewall program, up-to-date virus scanning software, up dated Spyware scanning software programs, and latest updates from manufacturers of their web browsers (MicroSoft’s Internet Explorer in particular).

Unfortunately for our friends, they were not aware that their anti-virus program needed to be brought up to date on a regular basis. A few years ago, maybe a monthly update would have saved them from their virus grief.

(Actually, they had never updated their anti-virus program at all).