27. Public Administration Review

What do we know about violent crime in the public sector workplace and what can be done to reduce it? Although public employees were only about 18 percent of the U.S. labor force, they were the victims of about 30 percent of the cases of workplace violence during the years 1987-1992. Public concern about occupational violent crime (OVC) is typically a function of media coverage, as shown by the Oklahoma City bombing, but there is great uncertainty about the level of risk that it actually poses for public workers in general and for specific occupational groups. In this article, the authors review the current state of knowledge regarding occupational violent crime in the United States and conclude that the guidance it offers to public employers is limited. It is apparent that a national database on OVC that includes information on social-psychological, organizational, and other variables is needed if current research needs are to be met. In addition to better information, public employers should approach OVC using a strategy that includes prevention methods based on careful assessments of risks, emergency management techniques and systems, appropriate human resources policies, and management training and preparation. Although needed, government regulations may be difficult to implement in the current political environment. Public employers should assume leadership in the effort to prevent OVC and to deal with its consequences.

Among the many problems confronted by public as well as private employers are injuries resulting from occupational violent crime (OVC) or workplace violence.1 OVC injury is defined as intentional battery, rape, or homicide during the course of employment. The available statistics on OVC in the United States reveal that it is a meaningful risk for many workers and that it may be more widespread and serious in its consequences than these data suggest. To a limited extent, the social-psychological causes of OVC are being explored, but no systematic effort has been made to identify risk factors that may be particularly relevant to the public employer.

There is reason to believe that the public sector is increasingly threatened by anti-government violence involving frustrated clients, terrorist groups with political motives, and individuals who are just plain angry at bureaucrats. The 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City serves as the most recent and horrible example of public employees being murdered while at work. Although it is to be hoped that mass murders of government workers will continue to be rare, existing evidence suggests that the more common types of OVC may pose a growing threat to public employees, and the data on homicides reveal that some groups of government employees are at higher risk than the average worker in the United States.2 The U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that of the nation's nearly one million victims of workplace violence in 1994, 30 percent were federal, state, or local government employees (U.S. Department of Justice, 1994). Under these conditions, public policy makers and human resources managers cannot afford to ignore the potential for OVC or to assume that it may be treated as an extraordinary event that does not merit serious investment in its prevention and the mitigation of its consequences.