Safe Cascadia

Is a must see for any CPTED practitioner...

If only to grab a PDF of their voluminous CPTED bibliography.  This 103 page bib is awesome.  I won't pretend to have read it, but I have downloaded my copy and bookmarked this excellent site.

One member of the Safe Cascadia board is Gregory Saville, who is also the writer behind Safegrowth blog, which I enjoy following.  He, Sean Michael, and Joel Warren authored the CPTED bibliography, which was updated in February 2012.

Thank you Safe Cascadia, the crime prevention community is in your debt.

Photo credit: http://www.safecascadia.org/

Horse, Dead, Beating, Continuous

Been batting around some thoughts on workplace violence prevention and response at another blog...

Came across a blurb for the Protective Security Council website and blog.  There was an interesting post titled New Workplace Violence Standards describing the combined impact of the ASIS/SHRM ANSI workplace violence standard and OSHA's recent guidance on enforcement for workplace violence incidents, so I posted a comment thus:

If only the ASIS/SHRM ANSI standard had followed the statistics like OSHA does. Then it might have discussed strategies for preventing the 69% of workplace homicides which occur during robberies, and the 61% of all lost time injuries that occur in health care and social service settings.

http://eclecticbreakfast.blogspot.com/2011/10/half-loaf-is-better-than-none.html

http://eclecticbreakfast.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-osha-workplace-violence.html

The author replied. I continued:

I don't fault OSHA's priorities.  They are going where the statistics demonstrate the harm is the greatest.  By focusing on robbery-homicide they get after 2/3 of workplace murders.  By going after injuries to health care workers they address 2/3 of the lost work time injuries due to violence.  I wish all priorities were as easy to set.  Thanks for mentioning the NCCI Violence in the Workplace study.  Balanced reports on this important issue rarely get much press.  There is also the BJS Workplace Violence, 1993-2009, the CDC Workplace Violence Prevention Strategies and Research Needs, and the classic, if a little dated Work-related Homicides: The Facts by Sygnatur and Toscano and hosted by the BLS.  Another, fine but expensive resource, is the IOFM study 2011 Report on Workplace Violence: Complete Guide to Managing Today’s and Tomorrow’s Threats. These thoughtful documents endeavor to assign appropriate weight to the different categories of WPV, while in most other writing on the topic important distinctions are neglected or ignored.  It is regrettable that the ASIS SHRM ANSI standard does not expend much ink on the issues that result in the most fatalities or injuries.

The Protective Security Council, a Division of Varro Press Inc., is hosting their 2012 annual conference next week in Baltimore, Maryland.

Coming Soon

To a major metro near you...

In his Homeland Security Watch post titled Occupy the Three Little Pigs Christopher Bellavita outlines some of the many variables in play as the spring thaw approaches and the 2012 domestic political season comes to a boil.  Can't improve on it except to encourage you to read it.

He'll Beat Aufidius' Head Below His Knee

And tread upon his neck...

And that's his mother talking!  Coriolanus is a marvelous film adaptation of the Shakespeare play of the same name.  This production was helmed by first time director Ralph Fiennes and is my favorite film based on Shakespeare since Kenneth Branagh's Henry V.  I'd heard of the play before but never read it or seen it performed.  Like others of his plays, this one holds the people of Rome - that malodorous mob of ignorant, fickle curs - in very low regard.  Of course the cynical, backstabbing tribunes of Rome come in for yet another drubbing.  On the plus side, this is a world where television news anchors deliver headlines and analysis in iambic pentameter.  In addition to Fiennes Coriolanus features excellent performances by Gerard Butler, Brian Cox, and Vanessa Redgrave.  I commend it to you.

Sensible Guidance

Against a horrible crime...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken some well-earned knocks over the last ten years for goofy plans, media blunders, and agencies gone wild.

Their recent Human Trafficking Awareness Video for First Responders, an element of the agency's Blue Campaign, is a horse of another color.  Sensible, straight-forward, and well produced, it offers simple advice to first responders - primarily meaning police, fire, and emergency medical personnel - who may encounter victims of trafficking.  It is a nice piece of civic-minded work.

I like this short video (there are others) and related materials for the Blue Campaign so much I forwarded it on to my team, my peers, and members of my professional association.  We may convince ourselves that it cannot happen in our company or at its vendors, so let's just watch it and say we might just encounter it in the homes of the well to do, on the streets of our cities, or in the fields where our meals are grown.  And by knowing a little about the pernicious practice we might recognize it and do something about it.