Education and Correctional Officer Attitudes

The central issue to be explored in this research effort is whether or not the level of a correctional officer's education, operationally defined as a bachelor's or master's degree from an institution of higher education, has a positive impact upon officers' job satisfaction, attitudes toward work, and supervisor/peer relationships. Stress among correctional officers has been identified in the literature as an important concern; Finn (1998), for example, noted that major stressors for such workers include inmate crowding in correctional facilities, an increase in inmate assaults directed against staff, increased gang presence in penal institutions, understaffing, excessive overtime, shift work and its demands, and a combination of role conflict and supervisory demands as well as poor channels of communication and authority. Taken together, says Finn (1998), these stressors often engender higher-than-normal levels of job dissatisfaction as well officer burnout, absenteeism, and turnover. Others, including Childress, Talucci, and Wood (1999) agree that job-related stress emanating not only from the conditions of work in corrections but the organizational structures and systems of such workplaces is endemic.

Robinson (1997) examined the relationship between educational level of correctional officers and job satisfaction,

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Some common words found in the essay are:
Talucci Wood, Peer/Supervisor Relationships, Herrnstein Murray, Reisig Lovrich, Additionally Sachs, Regionalization Program, Crime Delinquency, Criminal Justice, job satisfaction, References Brown, Lovrich Job, correctional officers, robinson 1997, finn 1998, educational achievement, corrections officers, herrnstein murray 1994, reisig lovrich, educational level, improve job, brown 1998, talucci wood 1999, corrections 61 7, improve job satisfaction, childress talucci wood,
Approximate Word count = 823
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page)

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