I am sure that you would agree with me when I say that a common misconception for Domestic Violence (for those outside of policing) is that violence between the parties occurs only in the home. When I was new to law enforcement I had the same delusion until experience taught me otherwise. Once I responded to an office building for a call where the enraged boyfriend walked into his girlfriends work cubical and pointed a cocked and locked .45 at her head threatening to blow it off. We arrested him. Another time I arrived at a hospital where an angry husband followed his wife to work (she was a nurse) and as I entered the floor she worked on he had just finished punching her several times on the side of her head. I arrested him. A shift officer I worked with responded to a hospital where an irrational husband followed his wife to work and shot her at the front doors to the emergency room. The officer encountered him at the scene and shot the suspect multiple times. Another time our entire day shift was not at shift change, because they were at an office building where an estranged husband fought with his soon to be ex-wife. He killed himself with a gunshot to the head while standing at the front doors of the business as they finished their argument. What's the commonality to these tragic events? They are all Domestic Violence (DV) incidents spilling over into the workplace.
DV is not just an isolated incident happening within the confines of a home. Often times, the event occurs outside of the home and usually there are multiple victims. When was the last time you responded to a business for a "fight-in-progress" call only to determine that the combatants were husband/wife or some statutory qualifying derivative? How many victims did you have? Did you count co-workers as victims? Maybe they are not a direct-impact victim of DV, but how about as a person who has suffered a form of victimization based on what they saw or experienced?
Psychologists refer to that as secondary victimization. DV incidents at work are rather common. According to a Justice Department study (see below the "Workplace Violence Prevention and Response Guideline"), there were approximately 18,700 DV type events happening within the workplace each year, and these are the known incidents. Typically, the true account of incidents, compared with those that are reported or known are thought to be two to three times greater than what is declared. Loss of work days, productivity, etc., due to DV incident at work are well documented and account for millions of work days and dollars lost per year. However, the true cost is not known. If adding the secondary victimization dimension to the time and money lost equation for workplace DV then the problem is horrendous.
Considering the substantiality of this threat for those in the workplace, how can law enforcement train private security personnel working at locations where an incident occurs to address a DV crisis prior to police arrival? The guideline below provides a few ideas:
An Integrated Plan: Businesses, institutions, or corporations often have workplace violence prevention plans, but often these plans fail to recognize domestic violence as being a public matter, or one that impacts individuals outside of the home. Crime Prevention Police Officers, as a partnership building process, can assist organizations with developing a plan that includes response procedures for their security personnel responding to a domestic situation. The plan should be a reflection of a policy where the employer makes a commitment to support domestic violence victims and proactively provides for a safe work environment.
Multidisciplinary Approach/Internal: Various departments within the business should work in concert with one another to address the problem. For example, human resources (HR), legal advisor, senior management and the security director need to work as a problem solving team in support of the victim, organization, victim advocate groups, judicial system and law enforcement. If the DV offender is an employee, then HR is certainly tasked with navigating labor and legal challenges pertaining to disciplinary issues.
Multidisciplinary Approach/External: How does the institutional security staff interact with the law enforcement when police officers arrive on-site to issue a protection order? Who gets a copy of the court order? How do you protect the privacy of the employee/victim while at the same time protecting the rights of other employees? If the offender and victim work for the organization and a protection order is in effect, how do they remain separated and still serve the employers need as efficient employees while at the same time adhering to the judicial order? These questions pose legal and logistical complexities that cannot be addressed at the moment the sheriff deputy arrives to serve the protection order. A security director's professional relationship with either the police or court officials can be a huge benefit to managing these problems ahead of time.
Awareness Training: In addition to security personnel being DV trained, the supervisors, upper management and employees should be trained in how to recognize physical evidence of domestic violence. Recognition of symptoms can become the first step in a threat awareness process where employees, for example, notice a battered co-worker and they notify their immediate supervisor who advises security. This sets the stage for initiating Employee Assistance Program benefits for the victim and can fall within the scope of the workplace violence prevention strategy that would concentrate on preventing the abuser from escalating violence against the victim in the workplace, and ultimately affecting others.
DV incidents at work are not unique to specific localities or rare events. The same is true regarding who it affects. Victims represent every race, ethnicity, profession, age group, and socioeconomic standing. The age old supposition of "action is faster than reaction" holds true to the management track of policy and procedure formulation. The time to figure out how to handle a workplace violence situation is not when the aggressor arrives at your office building seconds from inflicting damage, but rather inside of the relative comfort and safety of a boardroom during a planning session instead.
