NCJ Number
194843
Journal
Security Journal Volume: 15 Issue: 1 Dated: 2002 Pages: 63-81
Date Published
2002
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This paper presents a case study in which primary, situational, and tertiary prevention and security measures were developed for a social assistance office (SAO) in a mid-sized Canadian city, following a particularly frightening incident.
Abstract
In January 1999, the SAO received a letter from a local welfare recipient in which he threatened to come to the office with a shotgun because of the way his requests for financial assistance were allegedly ignored. The same individual repeated his threat in a phone call to the SAO the next day. The same SAO had also previously received two bomb scares. These threats by desperate people who come to the SAO for critical assistance must be taken seriously. Client-initiated violence against social workers is of particular concern for women's security, because women are often disproportionately represented in public-sector service professions such as social work. In the case study used for this paper, 86 percent of the SAO staff were women. In the current study, the threat and risk assessment found bottlenecks in service delivery that contribute to client frustration, hostility, and threats; a lack of unified safety and security policies, procedures, and documentation; insufficient training for personnel in the area of nonviolent conflict resolution, anger diffusion, and general security and safety awareness; a lack of coordination in security policies and procedures; insufficient signs for emergency situations; and weaknesses in security technology designed to delay, deter, or detect offenders. Security recommendations based on the threat and risk assessment encompassed primary, secondary, and tertiary security measures. The recommendations were guided by principles and strategies that are general to crime and violence prevention in the workplace. 1 figure and 34 notes