Correctional Officer Burnout and Stress: Does Gender Matter?

Abstract

Numerous researchers have hypothesized or found that women correctional officers experience greater job-related stress than their male counterparts (Cullen, Link, Wolfe, & Frank, 1985; Slate, 1993; Wright and Saylor, 1991; Zupan, 1986). The con-temporary literature has presented little data testing the relationship between gender and burnout in a maximum security prison setting. In the present study, 277 correctional officers were administered the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Item analysis of the MBI confirms earlier studies demonstrating scale reliability. Contrary to earlier stress studies conducted in the 1980s, women correctional officers demonstrated a greater sense of job-related personal achievement and accomplishment (F = 5.38, p = .02) than their men counterparts. Men and women correctional officers were found to be homogeneous groups on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.

Perceptions of Gender Bias in the Promotional Process of a Detention Staff

“…Therefore, even though there were differences across staff gender in five specific findings, we believe that overall, the work-role prisonization model is a more applicable theoretical explanation based on the current results. This is based on the results that female staff tended to have more positive views of the promotional process compared to males, which is inconsistent with some prior research that supports the importationdifferential experiences model (Carlson et al 2003;Jurik and Halemba 1984;Zimmer 1988). However, the results could also lend support to more recent research (see Griffin 2006) that a form of Breverse discrimination^is occurring that makes males have more negative views of promotional processes compared to their female counterparts.…”

“…Specifically, Btokenism^also posits that females are seen as a Bminorityâ nd therefore face more obstacles in order to obtain equal treatment in the workplace (Kanter 1977b;Zimmer 1986Zimmer , 1988. Issues of discrimination and harassment of female staff by their male counterparts have also been found to reinforce past experiences and translate to negative perceptions and attitudes of their occupation (Carlson et al 2003;Owen 1988;Zimmer 1986). Furthermore, research has also reported that male correctional staff have a more positive attitude towards promotional opportunities compared to females (see Lovrich and Stohr 1993), and that equality in the hiring process does not necessarily correspond to equality in the promotional process (Zimmer 1986).…”

Design, development and validation of a workplace cyberbullying measure, the WCM

“…Emotional exhaustion was measured using three items from the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Carlson, Anson & Thomas, 2003;Maslach & Jackson, 1981). Respondents were asked how often they felt emotionally exhausted on a seven-point scale ranging from 'Never' to 'Daily' ( =.90).…”

The Association Between Work-Family Conflict and Job Burnout Among Correctional Staff: A Preliminary Study

“…In a study of police officers, job stress and burnout were demonstrated to be distinct concepts (Pines and Keinan 2005). Burnout is conceptually different from stress (Carlson and Thomas 2006;Carlson et al 2003;Keinan and Malach-Pines 2007;Pines and Keinan 2005). Job stress is simply being stressed from the job (Cullen et al 1985;Grossi et al 1996;Van Voorhis et al 1991).…”