The CORRECTIONAL Orientation and Role Conflict of Correctional Officers

Job burnout has long been recognized as a common occupational hazard among correctional workers. Although past studies have investigated the effects of job-related characteristics on correctional staff burnout in Western societies, this line of research has largely been absent from the literature on community corrections in China. Using data collected from 225 community correction workers in a Chinese province, this study assessed the effects of positive and negative job characteristics on occupational burnout. Positive job characteristics included job autonomy, procedural justice, and role clarity. Negative characteristics included role conflict, job stress, and job dangerousness. As expected, role clarity tended to reduce burnout, whereas role conflict, job stress, and job dangerousness were likely to produce greater burnout among Chinese community correction workers. Male correctional officers were also subjected to a higher level of burnout than their female coworkers. Implications for future research and policy were discussed.

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Occupational Stressors among Federal Correctional Officers Working in Different Security Levels

Criminal Justice and Behavior ◽

10.1177/0093854886013003005 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 317-327 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

GARETH L. LASKY ◽

B. CARL GORDON ◽

DAVID J. SREBALUS

Keyword(s):

Role Conflict ◽

Correctional Officers ◽

Severity Index ◽

Self Esteem ◽

Prediction Equation ◽

Brief Symptom Inventory ◽

The Other ◽

Security Level ◽

Occupational Stressors ◽

Security Levels

This study investigated distress and self-esteem levels of 147 federal correctional officers working in that system's six different security level institutions. The General Severity Index (GSI), a scale of the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), was used to measure distress; the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES) operationalized the other dependent variable. In addition, 13 variables were used as part of a multiple regression analysis to determine a prediction equation for the two outcomes studied. Lack of participation in decision making and years of continual employment were significantly related to distress, whereas responsibility for people and role conflict were related to self-esteem. Federal correctional officers across all security levels scored in the “clinical” range on the GSI and yielded high SES scores. Differences among security levels were not significant.

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Role Conflict Among Correctional Officers in Treatment Oriented Correctional Institutions

International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology ◽

10.1177/0306624x7802200207 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 22 (2) ◽

pp. 149-155 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Mark Pogrebin

Keyword(s):

Role Conflict ◽

Correctional Officers ◽

Correctional Institutions

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The study of structural relationship between correctional officers' burnout, job satisfaction and role conflict: A test of the relationship between factors across correctional officers' attitudes toward inmates

The Korean Journal of Industrial and Organizational Psychology ◽

10.24230/ksiop.22.2.200905.319 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 22 (2) ◽

pp. 319-343 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

박혜련 ◽

이뻐라 ◽

정선아 ◽

Minsun Park

Keyword(s):

Job Satisfaction ◽

Role Conflict ◽

Correctional Officers ◽

Structural Relationship ◽

The Relationship

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Preventing Suicide in Prisons, Part II

Crisis ◽

10.1027/0227-5910.28.3.122 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 28 (3) ◽

pp. 122-130 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Marc S. Daigle ◽

Anasseril E. Daniel ◽

Greg E. Dear ◽

Patrick Frottier ◽

Lindsay M. Hayes ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Suicide Prevention ◽

Mental Health Professionals ◽

Task Force ◽

International Association ◽

Correctional Officers ◽

Community Services ◽

Correctional Systems ◽

Prevention Activities ◽

Prison Systems

Abstract. The International Association for Suicide Prevention created a Task Force on Suicide in Prisons to better disseminate the information in this domain. One of its objectives was to summarize suicide-prevention activities in the prison systems. This study of the Task Force uncovered many differences between countries, although mental health professionals remain central in all suicide prevention activities. Inmate peer-support and correctional officers also play critical roles in suicide prevention but there is great variation in the involvement of outside community workers. These differences could be explained by the availability of resources, by the structure of the correctional and community services, but mainly by the different paradigms about suicide prevention. While there is a common and traditional paradigm that suicide prevention services are mainly offered to individuals by mental health services, correctional systems differ in the way they include (or not) other partners of suicide prevention: correctional officers, other employees, peer inmates, chaplains/priests, and community workers. Circumstances, history, and national cultures may explain such diversity but they might also depend on the basic way we think about suicide prevention at both individual and environmental levels.

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