Secondary Trauma: The Personal Impact of Working with Criminal Offenders

This is a great article explaining how and why community corrections officers experience traumatic stress on the job and related efforts to address this problem. Sections cover: stress-it comes with the job; number of primary traumatic incidents for officers-28% experience four or more incidents; secondary (indirect ) traumatic stress (STS) or compassion fatigue--symptoms and number experienced-44% of 3-4 symptoms; vicarious traumatization (VT) due to empathetic encounters with victimized individuals and number of incidents experienced-56% of 4 or more; corrections fatigue-symptoms and number experienced-67% of 5 or more; unintended negative consequences of evidence-based practices (EBPs) on trauma exposure; managing stress in the workplace; Maricopa County Adult Probation Department (MCAPD) pilot program to address the impact of trauma exposure; employee stress management model-pre-incident prevention strategies (i.e., Officer Specific Training, and Administration Specific Training), post-incident interventions (i.e., Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Team, Individual Crisis Intervention (ICI), and stress assessments), and the evaluation of pre/post measures; and author observations.