The Psychology and Law of Workplace Violence

Book excerpt: The Psychology and Law of Workplace Violence examines the causes, risk factors, prevention and legal issues associated with workplace violence. Previous attempts to explain these crimes are often only descriptive and do not identify the basic underlying psychological mechanisms and yet, from the largest violent acts, such as the September 11th "Attack on America," to the smallest violent workplace crime, the psychological mechanisms are the same. This landmark text offers a different perspective to the current concepts of workplace violence and will likely change the way people conceptualize violent crime. Part One of the text identifies eight underlying factors responsible for these crimes, identifies two necessary conditions for their occurrence, and develops several significant, new concepts related to the field. Part Two discusses state and federal legal issues surrounding workplace violence. Workers' compensation, employer liability and employer duties under negligence law, hiring, supervision and firing, the legal aspects surrounding premises security, employee privacy issues, the ADA, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and criminal history inquiries are but a few of the many legal topics discussed. This section is written in a practical, easy-to-understand manner and contains materials that are often available only in law libraries. The final Part Three of the text is a compendium of workplace violence case histories and includes numerous nationally recognizable incidents along with many others that have not been widely publicized. An interesting description of details surrounding each crime and its aftermath is included. What happened to the perpetrator? What happened to the victims? In addition, for many cases, how the case relates to other cases and issues that have arisen from the case are discussed. In this section, which is the largest published compilation of case history material on workplace violence to date, covers over