Law enforcement officers, security guards, bartenders see highest rates
More than 572,000 nonfatal violent crimes — rape, robbery or assault — occurred against persons age 16 or older while they were at work or on duty in 2009, according to a United States Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics newly released publication, Workplace Violence, 1993-2009. This is about one-quarter of the 2.1 million nonfatal violent crimes that occurred at the workplace in 1993.
Along with the decline in nonfatal workplace violence, the number of homicides in the workplace decreased by 51 per cent from a high of 1,068 homicides in 1993 to 521 homicides in 2009.
Employed persons age 16 or older experienced nonfatal violence outside of work at a rate that was three times higher than the rate of nonfatal violence while at work or on duty from 2005 to 2009.
Law enforcement personnel, security guards and bartenders had the highest rates of nonfatal workplace violence. Males had a higher rate of workplace violence and a slightly higher rate of non-workplace violence than females.
Workplace violence was less likely to include serious nonfatal violent crime than non-workplace violence and violence against persons not employed. Serious nonfatal violence includes robbery, sexual assault, burglary and aggravated assault. About one-fifth of workplace violence from 2005 through 2009 consisted of serious violent crime, compared to almost two-fifths of non-workplace violence and violence against persons not employed.
Simple assault accounted for almost 80 per cent of workplace violence.
