Non-Fatal Workplace Violence in Lincoln, Nebraska, 1996-1997 (ICPSR 3717)

Version Date: Oct 1, 2003

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Principal Investigator(s):
David O'Neil Washington, University of Nebraska at Lincoln

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03717.v1

Version V1

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Summary

This project investigated non-fatal workplace violence in Lincoln, Nebraska, over an 18-month period. Workplace violence was defined as any behavior by an individual that was intended to harm workers of an organization, including all instances of physical and verbal aggression and violence. The principal investigator coded all cases of non-fatal workplace violence reported to the Lincoln Police Department during the study period with regard to 17 factors, including the type of workplace violence, the intimacy level of the perpetrator (boyfriend/husband, ex-boyfriend/husband), whether a weapon was mentioned, whether threats had been made, and the intensity level of violence. The goals of this project were (1) to present epidemiological information concerning non-fatal workplace violence, (2) to address the different types of workplace violence and differences across those types, and (3) to analyze risk factors associated with higher and lower intensity violence.

Citation

O’Neil Washington, David. Non-Fatal Workplace Violence in Lincoln, Nebraska, 1996-1997  . [distributor], 2003-10-01. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03717.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (99-IJ-CX-0062)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

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Time Period(s)

1996-01-01 -- 1997-06-30

Date of Collection

1999

Data Collection Notes

  1. The user guide, codebook, and data collection instruments are provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.

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Study Purpose

This project investigated non-fatal workplace violence in a metropolitan Midwestern city with a population of approximately 200,000. Workplace violence was defined as any behavior by an individual that was intended to harm workers of an organization, including all instances of physical and verbal aggression and violence. The principal investigator studied one police department's criminal records of workplace violence incidents over an 18-month period to create a proactive and reactive cluster model for assessing risk factors associated with varying levels of violence intensity. The goals of this project were (1) to present epidemiological information concerning non-fatal workplace violence, (2) to address the different types of workplace violence and differences across those types, and (3) to analyze risk factors associated with higher and lower intensity violence.

Study Design

With the cooperation of the chief of police, the principal investigator identified workplace violence incidents in the Lincoln Police Department computer database. All combinations of police contacts (i.e., rape, physical assault) and location codes (businesses) that satisfied workplace violence definition parameters were targeted. An initial computer search tagged approximately 1,000 cases. Closer scrutiny of the criminal incident summaries on the computer printout enabled researchers to rule out ineligible cases that did not meet the parameters of the workplace violence definition. This portion of the project produced approximately 400 eligible incident reports. The next step involved the manual retrieval of actual criminal incident records. This final stage of identification resulted in a net total of 254 incidents filed with the Lincoln Police Department over the investigated 18-month period that qualified as workplace violence incidents. Four researchers coded the cases on 17 factors, including the type of workplace violence, the intimacy level of the perpetrator (boyfriend/husband, ex-boyfriend/husband), whether a weapon was mentioned, whether threats had been made, and the intensity level of violence. Two teams randomly coded 20 percent of the 254 non-fatal workplace violence incidents. Teams A and B were separated and instructed to individually code their half of the 20 percent of randomly chosen cases, exchange the cases once done, and discuss discrepancies that may have occurred. Reliability for the initial step was held at a threshold of .90 and no coding fell below .91 using a Kappa coefficient. Subsequent to the first round of coding, cases were exchanged between Teams A and B and the initial process was repeated. For the purpose of this project, California's Occupational Safety and Health Association (Cal/OSHA) categorization of workplace violence types was used. In the first type of workplace violence (Type I) the perpetrator had no legitimate relationship to the workplace and usually entered the workplace to commit a robbery or other criminal act. In the second category (Type II), the aggressor was either the recipient or the object of a service provided by the affected workplace or the victim. Finally, in the third category (Type III) the perpetrator had an employment-related involvement with the workplace, such as an assault by a current or former employee, supervisor or manager, current/former spouse or lover, relative or friend, or some other person who had a dispute involving an employee of the workplace.

Sample

Not applicable.

Universe

All cases of workplace violence handled by the Lincoln Police Department between January 1, 1996, and June 30, 1997.

Unit(s) of Observation

Incidents.

Data Source

Data were obtained from case records from the Lincoln Police Department.

Data Type(s)

Description of Variables

Variables include location of the incident, type of violence, level of injury, threats, motives, property damage, use of weapon, time of year of incident, relationship between victim and offender, presence of witnesses, whether the offender had a prior criminal record, scale of violence intensity, and workplace violence typology. Demographic variables include the age, sex, and ethnicity of the victims and offenders.

Response Rates

Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales

The principal investigator created scales for type of violence and violence intensity.

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Original Release Date

2003-10-01

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • O'Neil Washington, David. NON-FATAL WORKPLACE VIOLENCE IN LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, 1996-1997. ICPSR version. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska [producer], 2003. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2003. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03717.v1

2003-10-01 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.