Violent Customers Increase in Today's Economy

In recent years, the U.S. economy has been simply terrible. The bad economy also influences many people negatively. Because of the bad economic environment, the job market has been severely weak, causing many people to commit crimes such as murders. There are a variety of bad behaviors that are caused by the bad economy. Some people feel discriminated against or ostracized. Some involve in heated arguments due to insignificant matters. Some feel strong displease to the service of retail businesses. Some even commit murders to vent the extreme anger in their heart.

In June 2010, a customer in Maryland was eating at an Applebee restaurant. Because of the argument on the bill with Applebee employees, this customer was kicked out of the restaurant. Fumingly angry, the customer took out his gun and shot the security guard at this Applebee restaurant. The security was immediately killed. In 2009, one doctor was involved in an argument with a patient in Kentucky. The argument was started and fueled by the painkiller prescription. The patient killed the doctor in the argument and following struggle. In California, a man killed eight employees of a law office in San Francisco. The reason was just because the man did not like the service of this law office. Back to Maryland, another man intentionally damaged the furniture, killed one person and injured another just because the two delivery men were late in delivering his furniture.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that murders in restaurants, hotels, shops, law offices, hospitals, etc. due to the customers feeling unfair treatment and seeking revenge had already caught up with the number of employees committing murders because of similar feelings. Since 1997, murders in offices had steadily decreased. Yet, alarmingly, murders by customers in offices had increased exponentially.

Statistics showed that from 1997 - 1998, there were 60 murders caused by unhappy customers. While from 2007-2008, there were 133 such murders, indicating more and more customers were not pleased by services and treatment. From 1997 to 2008, there were a total of 500 such murders. About half of them occurred in public buildings and area, such as restaurants and stores. In the murders, about twenty percent involved office, medical and social service employees.

Criminologists had pointed out that the feeling of rejection and depression would increase the possibility of aggressive behavior. In recent years, the increase in violence by customers could be attributed to many different factors, including bad economy and inhumane management by big companies. In this complicated society, many people began to feel helpless and irritated against tedious processes. For businesses, customer violence is much hard to solve than employee violence because companies cannot screen the customers like they do for their employees. Companies must improve their relationship with customers to minimize the chances of customer violence.