Preventing violence against public servants

Abstract

Preventing violence against public servants From safety science, we have learned that in light of increasing demands and system complexity, we must adapt our approach to safety. We have to include new practices to look for what goes right, focus on frequent events, remain sensitive to the possibility of failure, to be thorough as well as efficient, and to view an investment in safety as an investment in productivity. But most people still think of safety as the absence of accidents and incidents (or as an acceptable level of risk). In this perspective, which is termed Safety-I, safety is defined as a state where as few things as possible go wrong. According to Safety-I, things go wrong due to technical, human and organizational causes – failures and malfunctions. Humans are viewed predominantly as a liability or hazard. The safety management principle is to respond when something happens or is categorized as an unacceptable risk. Accordingly, the purpose of accident investigation is to identify the causes and contributory factors of adverse outcomes, while risk assessment aims to determine their likelihood. Both approaches then try to eliminate causes or improve barriers, or both. However, the Safety-I view does not explain why human performance practically always goes right. The reason that things go right is not people behave as they are told to, but that people can adjust their work so that it matches the conditions. As systems continue to develop, these adjustments become increasingly important for successful performance. The challenge for safety improvement is to understand these adjustments, beginning by understanding how performance usually goes right. Despite the obvious importance of things going right, safety management has so far paid relatively little attention to this view – Safety-II.QC 20160810Violence and Threat Risk Assessment in government agencie