Current theoretical research focusing on prison violence suggests that staff culture might influence inmate behavior. Correctional officers have the most interaction with inmates, and a crucial aspect of achieving staff and institutional legitimacy involves treating inmates in a procedurally just fashion. Literature suggests that procedural justice in prisons relies on comprehensive care; inmates require dignity, respect, safety, and individualized treatment focused on successful community reentry. Since correctional officers vary in their capacity to convey legitimacy, individual characteristics such as officer gender might influence inmate perceptions, thereby affecting inmate behavior. The presence of women may symbolize a representative bureaucracy, and women may perform job duties differently based on preconceived attitudes, socialization, and predispositions to avoid violence. This project utilizes four waves of the Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities (1990-2005) to examine the relative effects of the percentage women correctional officers on inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff violence, assess whether these effects take time, and evaluate interactional effects between gender and institutional characteristics. Although some models are supportive of the argument that women officers affect prison violence, findings indicate that other factors are more important determinants.

The prison officer is central to prison life, yet understandings of this role are limited. This thesis argues that the two overarching (and often competitive)conceptualisations of prison officers' work as custodial work or human services work are limited. Eight conceptualisations of prison officers' work from the correctional literature are identified - Para-military officer, Security Officer, Warehouser of prisoners, Public Servant /bureaucrat, Professional, Manager of Prisoners , Therapist and Case Manager. These conceptualisations are defined and related to one another by examining their construction through discourses of prison purpose and prison process (Adler and Longhurst 1994). The thesis develops the analysis of du Gay (1996) that organisations use discourse as a means of constructing work identities for their employees and the work of Halford and Leonard (1999) who argue that workers are active agents in this process and do not always take on the identity the organisation is seeking to promote. The thesis addresses three research questions How has the role of the prison officer been conceptualised by the South Australian Department for Correctional Services over time? How is the role of the prison officer currently conceptualised by personnel working within South Australian prisons, what influences the way the role is conceptualised and what purposes do these conceptualisations serve? To what extent have the new conceptualisations of the role of the prison officer, articulated by the Department for Correctional Services in the last ten years, been adopted by staff within prisons and what determines the influence of these new conceptualisations? These questions are addressed using qualitative research techniques of document analysis and semi-structured interviews. The thesis identifies that in recent decades the Department has emphasised conceptualisations of the role constructed from normalisation and rehabilitative discourses. Interviewees, forty-four working in three South Australian prisons, (both departmental and privately managed), conceptualised the work of a prison officer as complex and unique and identified three influential audiences for the performance of prison officers' work – prisoners, officers and their colleagues, and the Departmental hierarchy. Interviewees constructed the role of the prison officer in terms that would earn respect for the work from each of these audiences and manage the vulnerability of the officer as a worker and a prison officer. Half of those interviewed conceptualised the prison officer based on a Manager of Prisoners. Other interviewees, critical of the role within their prison, described it as a Warehouser and saw the competition between custodial and human services roles as irreconcilable. The thesis argues that Departmental discourse can be seen to have a significant influence on the conceptualisation of the prison officer’s role by those working within prisons, but that it competes for influence with the discourse of the other powerful audiences for the performance of prison officers' work – prisoners and other staff.

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abstract: More than 450,000 people work in public and private correctional institutions in the United States, collectively supervising over 2.2 million jail and prison inmates. The nature of correctional officers' work exposes them to numerous stressors which can have harmful effects on their health and their job performance. Several studies have examined the significance of environmental factors on work outcomes among prison staff. Less attention has been paid to external stressors such as negative images of correctional officers held by the community and correctional officers' perception of their own occupational prestige. This is an important omission considering the negative stereotypes associated with correctional officers and the tendency for media and entertainment outlets to perpetuate these stereotypes. The aim of this dissertation is to examine how perceived occupational prestige among correctional officers influences job stress. Specifically, the perceived occupational prestige associated with family and friends, the general public, and the media are assessed. To do so, the study employs multivariate analyses of data from a survey of 641 correctional officers employed in one Western prison system to examine the impact of perceived occupational prestige on an attitudinal and health measure of job stress. First, correctional officers believe that friends and family hold the most positive opinions about their profession, while the media has the most negative. Second, perceived occupational prestige among correctional officers does not appear to be a significant stressor, except for perceived occupational prestige associated with the media when predicting health job stress. Finally, when possible mediating variables are assessed for officers that had tenure longer than nine years perceived occupational prestige associated with the media has a significant effect on attitudinal and health job stress. In addition, for officers who identified themselves as non-White perceived occupational prestige associated with family and friends is a significant predictor of attitudinal job stress and perceived occupational prestige associated with the general public is a significant predictor of health job stress. This study concludes with a summary of these findings as well as its key limitations, and offers insight into potential policy implications and avenues of future research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Criminology and Criminal Justice 2015

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / The correctional facility, and in particular the job of the correctional officer, remain a unique field of study, as there has not been much research done on the population other than stress-related studies. Although the correctional environment is one of the most dangerous and volatile working environments, there is still a number of correctional officers who remain motivated in their role until the day they retire. Many studies conducted on correctional officers, focused on the negativity associated with the role, resulting in minimal positively focused research. With the recent development in the field of positive psychology and the dimensions of psychological capital it is believed that human resources and psychological strengths assist with improving an employee‟s performance. At present psychological capital is seen as an important concept in helping employees cope with their working environments, resulting in the success of the organisation. Research has also shown a link between an individual‟s psychological capital and their level of work engagement. Having correctional officers being positively engaged in their workplace, will firstly result in the successful operation of correctional facilities and secondly it will allow the department of correctional services to achieve their vision and mission in protecting society from harmful individuals and rehabilitating the inmates to successfully integrate into society again. Data for this present study was collected through a biographical questionnaire, the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ) and the work and well-being questionnaire (UWES-17). A convenience sample was utilized, with 122 correctional officers completing the questionnaires. The data was then analyzed using a statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS). This study found that psychological capital does influence work engagement amongst the sample of correctional officers, specifically the psychological capital dimension hope influencing the work engagement dimension vigour. Furthermore optimism explained the greatest proportion of the variance in work engagement. Recommendations for the organisation and future research were proposed.

Role Conflict and Nonsexual Boundary Violations Among Correctional Officers by Ronald Ruggiero Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Human Service--Criminal Justice Walden University May 2014 Abstract Despite the growing presence of prisons in American society, little is known about challenges experienced in the job performed by correctional officers (COs); specifically, no research has investigated how their intermediary status between inmates and prison management can result in role conflict. This descriptive case study explored role conflict among 10 retired CO's and the presence of inmates who enter prison with a high public profile. It also examined and if nonsexual boundary violations are prompted by COs' role conflict. Role conflict theory provided the framework for the study. Open-ended interview questions were generated to address the study's research questions, which concerned the effects of role conflict on COs' perceptions of prison operations, safety, and employee morale. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed, then analyzed for recurring themes using open and axial coding. Three themes emerged from the analysis: high-profile inmates were described as more popular, more intelligent, and more manipulative than regular prisoners. These differences heightened the possibility for affinity between inmates and CO's, which contributed to perceptions of role conflict among the COs assigned to guard high-profile inmates. This study contributes to social change by providing insight into the challenges of COs' job roles that may influence the training and development for prison staff and management of high profile inmates.

Swedish correctional facilities are under heavy pressure; overcrowding and its difficulties are threatening security. The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of correctional officers' reflections on risk, concerns, consequences of overcrowding and risk minimizing measures existing in custody. Three research questions are asked: How do employees reflect their concerns in relation to work-related risk, and how can ontological security be disturbed? What risks and concerns do employees reflect on in relation to prevailing overcrowding? And how do correctional officers reflect on which risk management the authorities taken to minimize risks for the employees? Little previous research has focused on custody. Nevertheless, research in custody service showed, influencing factors on staff regarding psychosocial factors, exposure to violence and the consequences of overcrowding. This study is based on qualitative interviews where correctional officers reflected over the before mentioned research questions. The result showed a sociologically interesting and social problem that several risks and concerns in relation to how employee’s workplace effects private life. For example, education was found to be a risk prevention measure in order to minimize risks and increase risk awareness among correctional officers. Furthermore, it showed how the phenomena of overcrowding has an impact on and increases solitary work. / Kriminalvården i Sverige är under hård belastning och överbeläggningens placeringssvårigheter hotar säkerheten. Syftet med denna studie är att erhålla empirisk kunskap om häktesanställdas erfarenheter av risk, orosmoment, synliggöra konsekvenser av överbeläggning samt hanteringsåtgärder myndigheten vidtagit i syfte att minimera risker. Vidare ställs tre frågeställningar: Vilka orosmoment reflekterar häktesanställda över i relation till arbetets risker samt hur kan den ontologiska skyddshinnan rubbas? Vilka risker och orosmoment reflekterar häktesanställda över i relation till rådande överbeläggning? Vilka säkerhets- och riskhanteringsåtgärder reflekterar häktesanställda över att myndigheten vidtagit i syfte att minimera risker för de anställda? Tidigare forskning relaterat till häkten är relativt outforskad. Forskning inom kriminalvård belyser bland annat, psykosociala faktorer, våldsutsatthet och överbeläggningens konsekvenser. Denna studie är baserad på kvalitativa intervjuer där häktesanställda reflekterade över tidigare nämnda frågeställningar. Resultatet visar ett sociologiskt- och ett socialt intressant problem, då flertalet risker och orosmoment påträffades i relation till häktesanställdas arbetsplats och hur arbetssituationen påverkar privatlivet. Grundutbildning påträffades vara en säkerhetsåtgärd, vilken syftar till att minimera risker och öka riskmedvetenheten bland häktesanställda. Slutligen påvisade resultatet att utförandet av ensamarbete ökar och påverkas av fenomenet överbeläggning.

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In the United States, approximately 30.3 million or 9.4% of the population have been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. Of these, 8.3 million remain undiagnosed. There are approximately 2 million people incarcerated in detention centers, jails, and prisons across the United States with approximately 80,000 inmates living with diabetes. Correctional officers are not educated to identify and respond to inmates with evolving medical complications, such as low or high blood glucose, which can lead to preventable adverse events, including permanent injury or death. The purpose of this project was to develop an evidence-based education module to teach correctional officers how to recognize the signs and symptoms of low or high blood glucose levels of inmates with uncontrolled diabetes and to rapidly respond with basic medical treatment. The module was validated by 6 experts with 87% agreement prior to being presented to 49 corrections officers in a 1-hour lecture format with cases, guided by Knowles's adult learning theory. A paired t-test demonstrated the average knowledge scores significantly increased from 56% before to 76% after the education module (t = 7.16, p = 0.0001). Although the baseline and follow-up knowledge were low among this group, this project measured only short-term learning outcomes. Because the impact of knowledge acquisition could diminish or disappear with time, future studies to measure the long-term effects of the education on avoiding adverse events are necessary. This project contributes to positive social change by providing correctional officers with an increased likelihood of identifying early and responding appropriately to inmates with an evolving medical emergency.