Eighty‐nine prison officers were asked to rate the importance of 25 potential sources of stress in their work. They were also administered a twelve‐item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) as a measure of occupational stress. General Health (GH) was not related to age. It was related to rank, with senior officers reporting lower levels of stress than basic grade officers. The relationship between GH and length of service was curvilinear, with officers who had worked an intermediate number of years in the prison service reporting more stress. The factor analysis of the 25 sources of stress suggested that stress originated from two main sources, inmates and management, the weight given to these two factors being unrelated to the age, rank or experience of the officers. It was however related to the officers' reported stress on the GHQ. In particular, stressed officers were more likely to report inmates to be a source of stress than non‐stressed officers. Implications and plans for future research are discussed.
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