THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, July 25, 1994                  TAG: 9407250054
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                         LENGTH: Short :   48 lines

REPORT WARNS OF INCREASE IN VIOLENCE IN WORKPLACE

Every time a gunman bursts into a workplace and opens fire, the nation is shocked at the transformation of a place of apparent civility and safety into a killing field.

But a Justice Department report released Sunday says one-sixth of all violent crimes in America occur in the workplace.

``The workplace is the scene of almost 1 million violent crimes every year,'' said Lawrence A. Greenfeld, acting director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. ``About 10 percent - or 100,000 - of these violent workplace crimes involve offenders armed with handguns.''

An estimated 8 percent of all rapes, 7 percent of all robberies and 16 percent of all assaults occur at work, according to the report, which includes data from 1987 through 1992 by the National Criminal Victimization Survey of U.S. households.

The survey does not include information on homicides, since it was based only on interviews with victims.

But data from other sources - the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health - indicate that 4 percent of all homicides also occur in the workplace.

They can range from the slaying of a taxi driver to Gian Luigi Ferri's rampage through a high-rise San Francisco law office on July 1, 1993, when he killed eight people and wounded six to avenge imagined wrongs.

``I think it's expected, and I think it's increasing,'' said Jack Levin, Northeastern University professor of sociology and criminology.

With the decline of neighborhoods, the breakdown of community and increased mobility for the sake of a new job, ``the workplace is becoming a focal point'' for many people's lives, he said.

``For many people, work is everything, and even the threat of job loss has become the threat of losing everything,'' he said.

Levin said some data show the number of bosses killed at work has doubled over the past 10 years, with three to four a month slain by a disgruntled worker or ex-worker.

KEYWORDS: VIOLENCE WORKPLACE by CNB