ng programs either for employees or managerial staff
             Those numbers hide the real seriousness of the problem: 1,000 people
             were murdered in 1998, according to the U.S. Department of Justice
             (Atkinson, 2000). There were an additional 2 million non-lethal incidences
             of violence, and the Department of Justice believes that much workplace
             aggression goes unreported. The American Management Association's survey
             found that 52% of workers had experienced violence within the three-year
             reporting period. However, these reports included verbal threats, pushing
             and shoving, and fights. Only 3% included serious assault such as gunshots
             or sex assaults (Atkinson, 2000). Nevertheless, employers must be
             concerned about all forms of significant aggression, as such events could
             In addition to the human toll reflected in those statistics, workplace
             violence costs businesses billions of dollars every year from insurance
             costs, expenses related to lawsuits, security, public relations work and
             lost worker productivity (Speer, 1998a). Lawsuits are very costly; the
             average award is over two million dollars in fatal cases. Even non-fatal
             lawsuit awards are costly: one employee won $870,000 after a supervisor hit
             him during an argument (Speer, 1998a). In other cases multiple victims
             have received multi-million dollar awards (Johnson, 2000).
             The risk to businesses is both serious and complex, because lawyers
             seek out all possible targets for their plaintiffs when filing suits. In
             addition to the actual company involved, they may include the owner of the
             building, parent corporations, any security companies or consultants used
             by the company, and any other entity related in any way to the incident
             Of course, plaintiffs have to prove liability, meaning that employers
             may not be held liable under all circumstances. In addition, in some
             states, such as North Carolina, law prohibits...