Corrections Stress

In recent years there has been a notable increase in research on the ways that correctional occupational stressors can erode the health of correctional employees (Ferdik & Smith, 2017). This increase parallels correctional administrators’ and other stakeholders’ heightened concerns regarding relationships between occupational stressors and employees’ health, performance, and work engagement. These concerns were articulated in a 2017 resolution of the American Correctional Association called the ACA Resolution Supporting Correctional Employee Wellness 2017-1.

Office for Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center
Learn more about the impact of vicarious trauma on individuals and on organizations, as well as resources designed to help you identify and address vicarious trauma proactively.

This two page handout provides statistics on corrections officer wellness and suggestions on what policymakers can do to address it.

A publication of Desert Waters Correctional Outreach.

Defines compassion fatigue, who it affects, sign & symptoms, contributing factors, what can be done, and how to develop a compassion fatigue prevention toolkit.

Newsweek, May 2014.

Report on "the mental health of corrections officers, who, according to one study, have rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) comparable to military combat veterans."

The VTT includes tools and resources tailored specifically to these fields that provide the knowledge and skills necessary for organizations to address the vicarious trauma needs of their staff.

This article summarizes the findings of a recent study, "Prison Employment and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Risk and Protective Factors". The study concludes that "Correctional employees experience some of the highest rates of mental illness, sleep disorders and physical health issues of all U.S. workers."

When women report abuse from the men in their custody.

The sexual harassment began in 1994, Paula Purdy says, shortly after she started work as a corrections officer at the Denver County Jail. Colleagues made demeaning comments about her body. One male captain made her so uncomfortable she avoided him. But the worst abuse came from inmates, who would make sexual remarks and masturbate at her as she did rounds in their housing areas. Purdy says she reported the behavior to her bosses, but there were few consequences. “I would get emotional at work several times a day,” she said.

This Oregon DOC study " examined the mediating process of perceived stress on the relationship between perceived dangerousness of the job and the negative employee well-being outcomes of work-family conflict and symptoms of psychological distress, as well as the moderating effects of family supportive supervisor behaviors on this process. As part of a larger study, survey data were collected from 1,370 state correctional officers."

Prison conditions have been at the center of long-standing debates among corrections scholars. Interestingly, this debate has focused on inmates alone while paying little attention to the potential impact of prison conditions on staff. Addressing this limitation, the study draws on survey data collected from a stratified random sample of prison staff working at all federal prisons in 2007 to examine the impact of prison conditions on staff well-being (substance use, psychological symptomatology, physical duress, and sick leave use).

Correctional staff job burnout is costly to all involved. As such, it has generated a growing body of research. This study reviewed 53 empirical studies of correctional staff burnout and two review articles published between 1981 and 2014. The majority of studies focused on staff working in a variety of institutional positions, fewer studies focused exclusively on the subgroup of correctional officers, and even fewer focused on a different subgroup. The majority of studies also involved staff at US government-run adult prisons. Most but not all studies utilized Maslach’s Burnout Inventory.

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest investigations ever conducted to assess associations between childhood maltreatment and later-life health and well-being. The ACE Study findings suggest that certain experiences are major risk factors for the leading causes of illness and death as well as poor quality of life in the United States. It is critical to understand how some of the worst health and social problems in our nation can arise as a consequence of adverse childhood experiences.

Australian study - The overall aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a resilience training program designed specifically to help new-recruit police officers mitigate stress reactions and the use of drugs and alcohol.

In the Spring of 2013 the Oregon Department of Corrections (henceforth referred to as the 'department') began a collaboration with the Prison Mindfulness Institute to explore the efficacy of mindfulness/ meditation practice to promote wellness and resiliency of staff working in the department's prisons. The goal of this project was to learn more about how introducing staff to basic mindfulness/ meditation skills might impact staff climate/culture and individual staff's self-awareness and emotional resiliency.