A report on a study project presented to the Department of Social Work School of Human and Community Development Faculty of Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Art in Occupational Social Work, October 2017 / Correctional officers face many stressors in their workplace settings such as guarding violent prisoners and ensuring the safety of everyone in the prison setting. The stressors they face may lead to occupational stress for some. The study aimed to understand the coping strategies used by correctional officers when dealing with occupational stress. To investigate the research aim, a qualitative approach and case study design were utilised. Convenience sampling was used to select 25 correctional officers employed at Leeuwkop prison, Medium B and Maximum facility. Semistructured interviews schedules were used where one-on-one interviews were conducted to collect data. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data gathered.
The study revealed that correctional officers face many stressors in their work environment such as leadership style, prison violence, uneven ratio between inmates and correctional officers as well as shift work. These stressors have different impact on their professional and personal lives such as; aggression towards their family, psychological effects, society high expectations which prevent them from living their own lives and also some felt that their work isolates them from their families. To cope with occupational stress, the study revealed that correctional officers engage in sporting activities within the prison such as soccer, others make use of employee assistance programmes and some resort to less conventional ways of coping such as absenteeism and alcohol use. Recommendations were provided to curb the challenges experienced by correctional officers which included; the need for more advertisement of employee assistance programmes, hiring more correctional officers to even out the ratio between correctional officers and inmate, the need for more occupational social workers services within the prison and lastly the need for more South African research on correctional officers coping strategies. / XL2018
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/24424 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Raphadi, Thulisile Faith |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (88 leaves), application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf, application/pdf |
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