Thoughts on Violence Assessment and Prediction

Susan M. Sciara spent 11 years working for an agency of the Federal Government that is commonly associated in the public’s mind with workplace violence. She headed the Threat Assessment Team, trained supervisors how to identify Pre-Incident Indicators, interviewed countless disgruntled employees with violence on their minds, trained the Postal Inspection Service on the psychology of violence and prediction and assessed over 1000 threat cases. She has spoken to numerous professional groups and was a board member of the Chicago Chapter of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals. She consulted on and contributed to Workplace Violence Prevention: A Practical Guide, which is used by a number of Fortune 500 Companies. She also helped write the policies and procedures on workplace violence for a major airline.

Susan will be joining us here through Saturday. Please feel free to offer comments or ask her questions.



The assessment of threats of violence is an evolving practice – a blend of art and science. When the field of threat assessment first emerged in the early 1990’s, there was little research and much of what was believed was based on anecdotal information from few cases. Since the early days, a great deal has been learned through research and by thoroughly studying crime scenes and looking for commonalities. The fact that over the years there have been more crime scenes makes for a better understanding of what is still a relatively rare event – the workplace mass homicide. The following compose what is the current thinking in the field of threat assessment and prevention.

Profiles are not particularly helpful.

The year 1986, for all intents purposes, put workplace violence on the map as far as most Americans were concerned. That was the year Patrick Sherrill killed 15 co-workers, injured six others and then killed himself in the Edmond, OK Post Office. Prior to this, the majority of Americans felt safe at work. The idea of the person who works next to them turning on them and killing them was a foreign concept.

In the years that followed, Americans were inundated by media stories recounting violence at one workplace after another. We were told workplace violence is the fastest growing crime; that workplace violence is the number one killer of women at work. “Experts” were quick to rise to the occasion and develop profiles of the typical perpetrator of workplace violence. He was described as a middle-aged, white male with a military background who is a loner and chronically disgruntled. Thousands upon thousands heard this portrait in the media, in corporate trainings and from the experts themselves. Unfortunately, while this profile may fit some or many of the perpetrators of past violence, it is not helpful in the least in determining if someone poses a threat to anyone.

As the research into mass homicides in the workplace improved, more information emerged that identified the kinds of behavioral cues that individuals exhibit prior to the act. Gavin de Becker, a national expert on the prediction of violence, calls them Pre-Incident Indicators or PINS. I will discuss PINS in more depth in an upcoming essay. The important thing to remember is the predictors of violence are behaviors, not individual characteristics or demographics.

Violence is situational.

Many articles, books, and videos have discussed the “potentially violent” individual. The problem with this thinking is that there will never be a group of personal characteristics that one can use to determine if someone will become violent at some future time. Violence is situational and we all have the capacity to become violent depending on the circumstances. There is a big difference between the potential for violence and the intent for violence.

Violence is the product of the interaction among three factors:
- An individual who sees violence as a means to an end,
- A setting that permits, facilitates, or does nothing to stop the violence, and
- A precipitating event, or “final straw” in the perpetrator’s life.

Without all factors there is no violence. Any one of these can be manipulated or intervened in to prevent the violence from occurring. Focusing solely on an individual without looking at the setting and the stressors being brought to bear is incomplete and unlikely to be successful.

One-time assessments are not useful.

An assessment of the risk of violence is not and cannot be a one-time event. Since the risk is based on situational factors, those factors can change, along with the risk. Each situation must be continually monitored to determine what is changing in the individual’s life. Are the factors that are likely to escalate the violence increasing or decreasing?
What about the factors that are likely to mitigate against violence such as steady employment, financial resources, a marriage and children? A subject can appear to be low-risk only to have that risk quickly escalate when the spouse leaves, is suspected of having an affair, employment is terminated, and/or heavy drinking clouds the judgment. Real cases are never static but always produce an ebb and flow.

Susan’s posting continues tomorrow…